Tilting At Windmills: Balearics’ oil exploration

When, a couple of years ago, I wrote an April Fool about oil exploration in the bay of Alcúdia, I hadn’t foreseen that foolish fiction could so quickly come to imitate life. The bay itself may not become dotted with oil rigs operated by my make-believe oil-exploration company, Tonto S.A., but the waters around the Balearics could be the location for rigs and a battle over whether they should be there or not.

On the face of it, oil exploration anywhere near the coasts of the Balearics sounds insane. In terms of a visible blight, assuming they were to be that visible, they aren’t much of an advert. Blots on the seascape are one thing, though; the environmental impact of exploration is another. Posidonia, for example, would be harmed, and I’ve recently written about the damage that is being caused to the sea grass by different man-made interventions. Posidonia is not, though, the only marine species that would be affected.

A couple of weeks ago, the Balearic Environment Commission, which is a part of the regional government’s environment ministry, issued a report which identified 19 environmental dangers from exploration. These included the effects of noise and drilling on the likes of turtles and giant squid.

What is interesting is that the Commission, within the ambit of a Partido Popular regional government that one might think would be inclined to wish to pursue exploration with some vigour, speaks with almost total unanimity on behalf of its various constituents – other government departments, the Council of Mallorca and town halls – in being dead against exploration. Tempting though it may be to nuance this as a snub to an initiative driven by a socialist central government, the fact that virtually no one in officialdom supports exploration, and not therefore just the usual suspects of the environmental lobby, suggests that Madrid has got it badly wrong.

The PP is being consistent. Its then deputies from the Balearics, one of them the now president of the Council of Mallorca, Maria Salom, brought a motion before Congress in February this year to have authorisation for prospecting revoked. The parliament’s upper house, the Senate, did in fact attempt to revoke the authorisation the following month, only for Congress to reject this.

Oil prospecting between the Balearics and the mainland isn’t in fact anything new. There are already well over 100 borings and wells that date back almost 40 years. None of them in the vicinity of Mallorca, at a 150 to 200 kilometre distance, are really that close, but the very prospect of closer prospecting plus the potential shipping of oil in large tankers concern politicians and conservationists alike, especially as the memory of the oil spill from the Don Pedro in Ibiza is still very much alive.

How different attitudes might be, though, were there genuine guarantees of oil riches in the seas near the Balearics, who can tell. It is the lack of such guarantees that makes it easy to reject exploration. But what if there were oil? And lots of it. An economy such as that of the Balearics, indeed that of Spain, with its over-reliance on tourism and construction, cannot afford to just dismiss the possibility. As has been said, and not least by the economics expert Douglas McWilliams at the ABTA Convention in Palma in October, nations that are commodity rich (and this primarily means oil and gas) are the economic winners of the future. The mere fact also that the Spanish Government prepared for a “shock” in terms of oil supply earlier this year by reducing the motorway speed limit should make those who are anti-oil think a bit harder.

The ambitions of the green lobby in Mallorca are that the island should come to depend more greatly on renewables. But the use of renewables remains only a tiny portion of the Balearics’ energy provision. A plan to erect attractive windmills along the sea front in Playa de Palma is a nice idea, but it won’t create huge amounts of energy. The piecemeal approach to renewables, though, is indicative of an almost total failure of central governmental policy in respect of energy. The drive to a “green economy” has, as a leaked government document suggested, been an economic nightmare, causing energy prices to rocket and jobs to be lost rather than created.

Oil is the antithesis of the green economy and the antithesis of sound marine conservation and, possibly, tourism. But oil might just be an economic saviour. And in the absence of a realistic energy policy, simply tilting at the windmills of oil exploration is no answer.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The BAFMAs: Awards for Mallorcan achievement

Yes, it’s that time of the year. Time for the BAFMAs, the Blog Awards For Mallorcan Achievement. In no particular order, the following are variously well-known and less well-known or were well-publicised and less well-publicised …

Politician Of The Year (Shared): Miquel Ensenyat and Carme Garcia
Ensenyat, the PSM Mallorcan socialist mayor of Esporles, stood as candidate for the PSM at the national elections. There was little remarkable about this, except that Ensenyat is an openly gay politician in a land where the Church can issue warnings of the danger of voting for politicians who support gay marriage.

Garcia, the “turncoat” of Alcúdia, was also a PSM politician. “Was” being the operative word. She sided with the Partido Popular after the regional elections, despite the wide gulf in political ideology, leading to her being expelled from the party and to her suffering recriminations led by the previous coalition of PSOE and the Convergència. Though her ex-party and the opposition had a legitimate point and though Garcia secured for herself a role as second-in-command to the new lady mayor, her decision could also be seen as a blow for the chumminess of the previous male-dominated coalition which did not have the moral authority to expect her to support it in denying the PP, which had gained eight out of nine seats required for a majority, the right to govern Alcúdia.

Celebrity Of The Year: Tom Hanks
They sought him here, they sought him there. Through their long lenses, they sought Tom everywhere. There he was, at long distance, speaking into an iPhone, or rather there was the back of Tom’s head speaking into an iPhone. There he also was just hanging around and doing very little, assuming you could make out it was Tom behind the security and beneath his headgear.

Business Of The Year: Lidl
Disproving the notion that Mallorca is not open to foreign companies, Lidl, exploiting a relaxation in commercial developments, expanded across Mallorca, bringing jobs as well as competition to the supermarket sector.

Event Of The Year: The Inca bullfight
If campaigners sought more encouragement in banning bullfighting in Mallorca, they got it during the Inca bullfight. The promoter caused outrage by taking to the ring to kill the bull after the bull had effectively excluded itself from the fight when it broke a horn. Rules don’t apparently permit non-combatants to enter the ring. The gruesome video of the killing of the bull went viral and the video also highlighted and criticised the fact that minors had been allowed into the arena.

Beach Of The Year: Playa de Muro
The extension of Puerto Alcúdia’s beach (which was voted Mallorca’s best beach on “Trip Advisor”), the beach in Playa de Muro was the target of efforts by the town hall to improve it even further. These included instituting a fine for urinating on the beach, which drew a response from some who wanted to know where else they were supposed to go to the toilet, and a similar fine for a similar act in the sea. It wasn’t entirely clear how Muro town hall proposed policing the latter, but with concerns about rising sea levels, the consequence of climate change, a ban on using the sea was probably a wise precaution.

Website Of The Year: Mallorca Daily Photo Blog
Just going to show that wit, informativeness, striking photography and personal dedication count for far more than huge budgets chucked at websites in promoting Mallorca. It deserves an award very much more prestigious than a BAFMA.

Musician Of The Year: Arnau Reynés
While more celebrated musicians took to stages in Mallorca this year, Reynés, the professor of music from the Universitat de les Illes Balears, who has performed in some of Europe’s finest cathedrals, brought a tradition of music in Mallorca that is often overlooked to the small church in Playa de Muro and gave a summer recital, as did other leading Mallorcan organists.

Historian Of The Year: Gabriel Verd Martorell
Thirty-five years is a long time for any one historian to have sought to have proved a point, but Verd was still at it, striving, once and for all, to establish that Christopher Columbus was born in Felanitx. In a “solemn” declaration in the town, he claimed that Columbus was the illegitimate nephew of King Ferdinand and that to have had the title of governor general bestowed on him, which he did, he had to have had royal blood. You can’t blame a historian for persistence.

So, these are the BAFMAs. No science behind them, no text voting, purely my own choice. But if you have your own nominations or suggestions, please feel free … .

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Have Yourselves A Crisis Little Christmas

The Mallorcans don’t really do Christmas. This is a half truth. They may not go the full-stomached, cloyingly sentimental nine yards of Christmas Day, but Christmas they most certainly do do. The half truth stems, in part, from the fact that the holiday period is that long it’s hard to know what is festive season and what isn’t.

From Constitution Day through to Antoni and Sebastià in January, it is one long series of “puente” breaks, meals out or in, family and social gatherings and one long round of shopping. When there is so much to pack in over such a prolonged period, it’s hardly surprising if Christmas Day itself constitutes something of a day of rest. All this notwithstanding, the Mallorcan Christmas has a bit of a crisis on its hands.

I’m not sure if Mallorcan office workers are issued with advice similar to that which is given to their British counterparts regarding not getting so slaughtered at the Christmas party that you find a P45 slipped inside your Christmas card, having become overly familiar with the boss’s wife, but the local Christmas party is something of a victim of “crisis at Christmas”. There is expected to be a fall of around 60% in terms of Christmas meals out for the staff, and those unlucky enough to have to suffer sitting next to the office bore will also have to suffer a fall in what’s on offer; it’s chicken nuggets this year, rather than a full roast.

Cuts to companies’ Christmas largesse is not confined solely to the staff dinner. Spending on Christmas hampers, by way of gifts to staff, to customers or perhaps to politicians whose favours are being sought, is also way down this year. 15 euros is a sort of going rate for hampers that can cost astronomical sums when they come stuffed with whole hams and fine wines; it’s a bottle of cava and a slab of nougat for the Crisis Christmas “cesta”. It doesn’t sound like there’ll be too many favours being extended, therefore.

One element of a Mallorcan Christmas that isn’t being cut back on is the number of surveys which come out telling everyone how miserable they’re going to be because they’re not spending enough money. Average family spend in the Balearics is estimated to be below the national highs of Madrid and Valencia where money is being tossed around to the tune of 600 euros per household. At 585 euros, this does represent quite a sizable fall in the Balearics. Two years ago, average Balearics spend was said to have been 747 euros, which itself was 11% lower than the year before. Christmases are coming, and the geese are getting progressively thinner.

It’s not all bad news in the Balearics and not all bad news for the restaurants which are finding they are not being called upon to provide the office lunch. Spending on eating out and going out is reckoned to be higher in the Balearics than it is anywhere else in Spain.

And there is certainly one area of economic activity that will be thriving this Christmas. The lottery. The 600 euros in Valencia, for instance, is boosted by a spend of 125 euros. Yes really, 20% of Christmas cheer handed over in the hope that “El Gordo” will come up trumps, but even the Valencians aren’t as extravagant as they have been; they parted with 147 euros on the lottery last year.

In the survey by the unfortunately acronymed FUCI (Federación de Usuarios Consumidores Independientes), the Balearics do at least come near the top when it comes to toys and gifts – 200 euros, only ten under the Spanish league leaders in Madrid – but the survey does just confirm the degree to which Christmas spending has slumped over the past three years in the Balearics and the whole of Spain. Only three regions break the 600 barrier this year; in 2008, all were over or near the 800 euro mark.

Two years ago, a survey by a different organisation, the Mallorca-based Gadeso, indicated not just the overall level of Christmas spend but also the degree to which it varied markedly. Gadeso will doubtless be producing its own new survey for this year, and it would be surprising were it not to show that the divisions had widened. Unemployment up considerably, state assistance not being paid in some instances, small companies not being paid, the variance in 2009 of nearly 1000 euros between highest and lowest-spending categories will surely have increased.

It’s a half truth that the Mallorcans don’t do Christmas, but what is a whole truth is that they are doing it less, and some are doing it hardly at all.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

An Obsolete Law: Hotel conversion

The new tourism law, widely being referred to as the “hotels’ law” because it is said to concentrate almost exclusively on hotels’ needs, might not be quite as accommodating as the hotels had hoped. They might, for example, not have been expecting to have pay for conversion of obsolete hotel stock over and above what they will pay for the work to be carried out. But the new law has a catch. Two in fact.

The catches apply to hotel buildings that would be converted into apartments for sale. One is that not all the building can be converted for this purpose; 10% would have to be set aside for other purposes, such as shops or restaurants. The other is that a 5% tax will have to be paid on the value of the building, money that would find its way into upgrading the tourist area in which it is located.

Designating a part of the building for other purposes is in line with what happens with the construction of apartment blocks. But it is a regulation that has not been without its critics. It reduces the return on investment on building or conversion and it simply adds to a stock of units that are hard enough to fill as it is. Paying a tax might seem reasonable enough, but whether it would really be allocated for local modernisation, who’s to say.

The obsolete stock that the law has in mind covers two types of current accommodation, one of them being rather vague as it applies to old hotels in “mature tourist areas”, the other being one and two-star/key hotels and apartments. As far as the latter are concerned, there are various possibilities, but they are all aimed at elimination. They can be converted to residential use, upgraded to a minimum of four-star rating or be closed down.

An issue with all of this is just how many hotels might be affected. A further issue is whether conversion to residential use is in fact viable, either because of the cost to the hotel or to a potential market which is in the doldrums as it is.

Hotels, you might think, aren’t short of a bob or two. Many aren’t, but, and as I reported on 12 July this year (“For Sale: Hotel, Needs Work”), there are plenty of hotels that owners would gladly see the back of, if they could sell them, and plenty of hotels for which the cost of conversion would be prohibitive. The solution would be to sell the hotels to developers, but in the current market climate, how likely would this be?

One doesn’t know the number of “obsolete” hotels, but were it to be a significant number and were they actually to be converted and not simply abandoned (thus creating eyesores), to what extent would the overall number of hotel places fall, and especially in the “mature tourist areas”?

There is an argument that a reduction in the number of places would be no bad thing. Indeed the government wants to avoid an “over offer” of hotels, even if a decline in the number of places would be potentially bad PR for governments which love to be able to declare statistics of ever-growing numbers of tourists.

Let’s suppose, however, that these hotels were to be converted. What do potential owners of apartments that these buildings would comprise want from their investment? Not all of them would want to live in them. The alternative is that they want to make a return, and that means renting them out. You can probably see where this is going.

Potentially releasing a whole load of privately-owned apartments in tourist areas smacks of the government not thinking things through. Buyers could rent them out – for residential use. But not for tourism use. Not as holiday lets, because they wouldn’t be legal. Or would they?

The other type of conversion that hotels will be permitted to undertake is to provide condos. But they, too, are subject to market demand. Owners would at least be able to make a return through the apartments being also part of a hotel’s offer; indeed they would think it essential, as they would personally be limited to only two months use a year.

There are, therefore, a number of unknowns lurking in the provisions of the new law. It is a bold law in that it sets out an agenda for modernisation, but in issuing a tourism law that is a law for the hotels, the government needs to be sure that its objectives can be met. The closer you look at the law, the more the questions arise.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

All In A Day’s Lack Of Work

On one day last week, three things happened which, while they may initially seem to be unrelated, aren’t. One was the closure of TV Mallorca, the second was an announcement by the government that financial support for various fairs would not be forthcoming, and the third was a protest by musicians.

TV Mallorca’s demise was inevitable. It was arguably unnecessary and superfluous given the existence of IB3, so the Partido Popular had targeted it for the chop, and chopped it has now been.

But TV Mallorca went beyond being just another broadcaster. It was a source of contracts, employment and encouragement for those in the audiovisual industry, one of the very few areas of activity in Mallorca that has had anything like some sort of growth recently.

At the same time as Microsoft and the local audiovisual industry are demonstrating that they can be innovative in coming up with solutions for other parts of the economy, i.e. tourism, it seems somewhat perverse to be undermining this very industry. The government will argue, of course, that it is the private sector, in the form of Microsoft or whoever, which should be the impulse behind innovation and growth, but it does also require governments to stimulate industry. Quite how Josep Aguiló, minister for both finance and business, squares the competing demands is unclear. Or rather, it is clear enough. Finance, or lack of it, wins.

The government’s spokesperson, Rafael Bosch, has hinted that the government has a cunning plan for investment in the audiovisual industry, so those at TV Mallorca who now find themselves on the dole plus the production companies that have lost business can presumably breathe a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, what this cunning plan is, is also unclear.

Within Aguiló’s wide remit is responsibility for fairs and congresses. The body which oversees these has made it clear that events have to be self-financing and that the government is not prepared to lose money on them. Among the fairs is the Palma Boat Show, scheduled to take place from 28 April to 6 May next year. The chances are that it won’t.

The viability of the boat show is open to further question, the government suggests, because the boat show in Barcelona hasn’t, in its words, “worked”. It’s taken a long time to figure this out, if it is the case. 50 years to be precise.

It may be legitimate to question the benefits of the boat show in direct economic terms, but in a wider sense, that of the kudos that comes from a show and its contribution to the reputation of Mallorca’s nautical industry and nautical tourism, one has to wonder whether the government’s attitude isn’t somewhat short-sighted.

Then there are the musicians. Eleven music associations and groups, some of them familiar names at fiesta times and on other occasions, have lobbied the Council of Mallorca over cuts to financial assistance. The Council’s now administration has said that the cuts are all the fault of the previous administration and that it will bring back the funding for traditional Mallorcan music performers in 2012 without, however, being specific. Given the parlous state of the Council’s finances, it is probably wise not to commit to anything.

With the musicians, it is a case not of jobs but of the contribution to local culture which, by extension, means or should mean tourism. It is rather more nebulous than the audiovisual and nautical industries, but an economic case for the musicians can just about be made. As part of the, if you like, “fiesta industry”, which faces even more cuts next year, there is a concern that an erosion of the fiestas may just have a negative impact on tourism.

There is financial support for the musicians from non-governmental sources, as there is finance and sponsorship available for fairs, plus the private sector to fund the audiovisual industry, but this funding isn’t infinite. Understandable it is that the government is seeking cuts where cuts can be made, but it runs a risk of abrogating responsibilities for industries it would wish to develop and for culture it should be supporting.

There again, maybe this is all just a case of realism finally taking hold, a recognition that money, for all sorts of things, was handed out almost willy-nilly without questions being asked as to whether it was wise or not and without any real control. Possibly so. But on one day last week, you had the impression of the seemingly diverse but ultimately interdependent industry and culture of Mallorca, which in turn feed into tourism, just grinding to a halt. Cuts yes, but you can only cut so deep before the bleeding becomes terminal.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Survey Reservations: Hotels and modernisation

If you are a commercial website, there are a number of things you can do in order to attract more interest in and traffic to your site. I’m not referring to the jiggery-pokery of optimisation or rankings, but to simple publicity, and one way of getting publicity is to do a survey and, more importantly, get the press to mention it and write up the findings.

Such surveys come out with regular frequency, monotony even. Some can be quite useful, but one does always have to be slightly wary. Generally speaking, the methodology behind the surveys isn’t revealed. Their rigour cannot, therefore, be verified. The headlining findings are what attract the press, always eager for free copy to fill a space or several, and they are presented without comment or question.

There is a Spanish hotel-bookings site called reservahoteles.com. It has conducted a survey, the findings of which have duly found their way into the media. They make good copy for the press as the subject of the survey, Spanish hotels, is found to be lacking in making attempts at modernisation. It is good copy with which to knock the hotels, therefore.

What is this survey, however? It is in fact one of travel agencies, 22 in all. One of the main findings is that more than 50% of Spanish hotels aren’t bothered with investing in “fundamental aspects” of their offer which should now be more or less standard, such as providing leisure and entertainment services and activities or attracting the business and incentives market.

The travel agencies are probably in a reasonable position to judge, but the survey smacks a bit of the monkey and the organ grinder. If you really want to know about hotels’ attitudes, what they might be planning and what they provide, wouldn’t it make more sense to ask them and not the travel agencies?

Nevertheless, let’s be kind to the survey, as it does rather reinforce an image of some hotels. A lack of modernisation in Mallorca is an aspect that the Balearic Government’s new tourism law is seeking to address, and there are unquestionably hotels that are so past their sell-by dates that no amount of investment, short of pulling them down and starting again, will ever bring them adequately into the modern world. On the other hand, there are plenty of hotels which are very much of the modern day and which do everything the survey suggests they don’t; the Iberostar chain is just one.

The survey suggests that a lack of investment can be explained by a concentration on sun-and-beach tourism and on sun-and-beach tourism alone. It’s a reasonable point, but, and this applies to most hotels in most Mallorcan resorts, you run up against the inevitable problem of pursuing business that isn’t sun and beach, primarily that of the off-season when everywhere, including the hotels, is shut.

When the survey draws attention to a lack of marketing and a lack of internet presence on behalf of many hotels, it again has a point. However, for many hotels, this hasn’t been necessary, as they have been used to others doing it all for them, such as travel agencies and tour operators, while contracts with tour operators make more direct marketing irrelevant and indeed potentially open to allegations of breaches of contract.

If the hotels are contracted, if they know there is little or no business when they are not contracted during the dead winter season, then why should they bother making the sorts of investment in marketing or in attempting to attract business when they know full well it won’t be forthcoming? Except of course, they should bother, if for no other reason than that hotels are massively under-utilised and totally unproductive for six months of the year. We’ve reached a point where, if anything is going to happen to resolve problems of the dead season, someone has to make the first move and not just blame everyone else; perhaps that someone should be the hotels.

But on the issue of the travel agencies criticising hotels for a lack of internet presence, the fact is that the wherewithal does exist for hotels to advertise and market directly and bypass the travel agencies completely. Google’s different services, Travelzoo, what Microsoft probably has in mind with its global tourism hub all can leave the traditional travel distribution chain minus one of its core constituents, the travel agents: they should be careful who they criticise and what they wish for.

And there are always of course specific websites through which hotels can market themselves. Hotel reservation? Reservahoteles.com. Survey, anyone?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Rubbing Off: Microsoft in Mallorca

If you take a look at the list of companies on Palma’s ParcBit technology park, many will probably be unfamiliar. Halfway down the alphabet, though, you will find a very familiar name. Microsoft.

In May 2009, Microsoft opened its first technology centre devoted to tourism anywhere in the world. The Palma-based Microsoft Innovation Center (note the suitably Americanised spelling) Tourism Technologies was founded with three main objectives in mind, one being, and this would be pretty obvious, to create new initiatives for technological innovation that add value to the tourism sector.

Microsoft’s mere presence in Mallorca has been a boost to the island’s technology industry, but how much of a boost?

When the Microsoft centre was opened, the then president, Francesc Antich, spoke of it as contributing to an aim of raising the value of innovation and development in the Balearics to 5.6% of GDP by the end of his period in office. This was probably always a somewhat ambitious target. Though spend on I+D increased by 10.5% in 2010, the actual contribution in terms of GDP via investment was the lowest of any region of Spain – 0.41% of regional GDP.

One of Microsoft’s flagship developments was a “distribution platform” for the whole tourism offer in the Balearics. This web-based portal, described as not being a website as such, was intended to be a single system for different players in the tourism industry by which they could commercialise their services and products and make savings of up to 40% in doing so.

The fanfare that surrounded its announcement in spring last year did rather downplay the fact that it was going to cost the regional government more than had been envisaged. As always, I stand to be corrected, and I would very much like to be, but I cannot find a reference to its having been launched.

Another development has been the “global tourism hub” for the Windows Phone 7, a “killer” application for the tourism industry. Whether it will really prove to be a killer app is another matter. Microsoft also faces competition; from Google, for instance.

Nevertheless, the development, with the Palma centre behind it, has indicated Microsoft’s intent and, as much as Microsoft also provides consultancy services to local businesses, it is the rub-off effect from its presence on Mallorca’s technology industry that is arguably the greatest benefit the island stands to gain in its aim of getting I+D to be a far more significant element in the regional economy.

The gain for I+D is not, though, the only one that is hoped for, because tourism is at the heart of the Microsoft technologies, and the rub-off effect for tourism is coming from a possibly unexpected area – that of tourism connected to the cinema.

Though, as far as I am aware, it has not been stated as such, a reason for the filming of parts of “Cloud Atlas” on Mallorca may have been Microsoft. The company’s reputation (and its being American) is one thing, but as important if not more is its relationship with the Mallorca Film Commission and with the Cluster Audiovisual, the association of audiovisual producers in the Balearics.

Microsoft, together with the Cluster Audiovisual, has come up with what is potentially a brilliant idea, and one that goes a long way to overcoming what might be the disadvantage for tourism from filming at locations such as those used for “Cloud Atlas”. The idea is known as “Film Travelling”, the slogan for which is “what film do you want to journey to'”.

Essentially what this is, or will be, is a video database that will show locations of a film on a map. The intention is to map the Balearics and give a guide to where filming has occurred and what was filmed, and it wouldn’t have to be confined to cinema productions. The rub-off would be that the database could be used by the tourism industry to sell visits related to the locations.

When the filming for “Cloud Atlas” was first spoken about, along with its potential benefits for tourism, a point I made was that these benefits would not be as great as might be hoped for as fans of the film wouldn’t necessarily know what the locations were. “Film Travelling” solves this problem. It will be launched, it is hoped, at the same time as the premiere of “Cloud Atlas”, which does just make you wonder a bit more about whether Microsoft had some influence on the choice of location. Whether the company did or didn’t, its benefits to Mallorca’s technology and to its tourism are beginning to rub off.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Art Of Imitation: Artisans

An artisan, in the English use of the word, lost some of its meaning. It became wrongly synonymous with general worker, someone from an artisan class and of lower status, and it was the Industrial Revolution which did for the artisan in Britain.

The artisan has enjoyed a revival in the use of the word and in status. The Americans have gone big on artisans, re-discovering traditions of skilled, craft work and putting it on display at fairs. The British have also revived the artisan, but he is – by title – still subordinate to the catch-all of the producer of arts and crafts.

The artisan never went away in Mallorca. But the term has also enjoyed, if this is the right word, a contemporary modification. Artisan has crossed into areas where it was never strictly speaking appropriate, cooking being one example. It has become marketing speak, an alternative to “hand-made”, one with the cachet of tradition, even if tradition is absent.

Artisan is everywhere in Mallorca. Its ubiquity has been given added impetus in recent years and for different reasons. One has been a consequence of a backlash against modernisation and of the other ubiquity – that of tourism – but with the irony of artisan craft being an element in the marketing mix presented to the tourist. A second reason has been economic. The decline of industry in Mallorca has left a vacuum that more traditional manufacture and skills have helped to fill. Thirdly, there has been the institutional support for something considered “a good thing”. This support, be it from town halls, government, foundations or whatever, has put the artisan firmly back in the frame and given him his place at Mallorca’s own artisan fairs.

The artisan fair covers a range of skills – from working with stone, as evident at Binissalem’s dry-stone wall fair, to textiles and ceramics. Some of the island’s fairs are “artisan” or more so than others; Pollensa’s is one example, albeit that the number of artisans this year was down on previous fairs.

But the artisan fair has run up against a problem. Not everyone who exhibits or participates is in fact an artisan. Some fairs that claim to be artisan aren’t really anything of the sort. Or rather, they are artisan, it is just that the participants lack the right accreditation.

The Council of Mallorca is organising, for the first time, a competition and prizes for artisanship. The prizes are due to be given for 2011 but, as far as I can make out (and someone might correct me if I am wrong), they don’t appear to have been awarded yet. To qualify for the prizes, however, shows that even traditional skills are subject to the demands of contemporary regulations and bureaucracy. There is a nine-page document that is littered with references to this or that law, demands for social security and business activity documentation, the need to show certificates and so on and so on. It’s a tortuous business being an artisan in Mallorca and getting through the first round of form-filling in order to try and grab a prize of 3,000 euros.

Some of these demands are understandable. An artisan is, or should be, a master craftsman (in pre-Industrial Revolution Britain artisans were, after all, the product of the guilds), and there are certificates to prove that local Mallorcan artisans are just this. Not everyone has such a certificate, however, and this is one reason why the small to medium-sized businesses association (PIMEM) has taken it upon itself to ask the government to ensure that fairs which claim to be artisan are indeed artisan, down to the presentation of certificates, evidence of locally produced artifacts, and tax returns.

It’s fair enough probably. You can’t just have any old Tomeu, Ricardo or Enrique pitching up with a load of bowls with “artisan” stamped on their bases. Or can you? Does it really matter? According to PIMEM, it does. Consumers will be confused otherwise or even taken for a ride into buying stuff that has nothing to do with Mallorcan artisan tradition, while local culture and identity will be eroded by artisanal interlopers.

More than this, small and professional artisan concerns will be put out of business, believes PIMEM. So, if you value the artisan tradition in Mallorca, the next time you go to an artisan fair, demand to see the business activity document, the certificate of craftsmanship and, for good measure, the tax return. This way, you will know that what you are buying is truly artisan and true Mallorcan craft and not some crafty imitation.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Great (Tourism) Reform Act

The new tourism law is still only in draft form. On Monday it was put out for “public exhibition”. What this means in practice is that sectors of the tourism industry can scrutinise it in order to ensure that their interests are being catered for. In theory, anyone can suggest modification, but it will fall only to the loudest and strongest to be heard or to effect amendment. And guess who they are.

Pedro Iriondo, the president of the Mallorca Tourist Board (Fomento del Turismo), while generally applauding the draft law, has also offered some criticism. “Everything is focused on resolving problems of the hotel sector,” he has said. But why should he or anyone be surprised by this?

Iriondo has gone on to say that the law should cover the interests of other sectors of the tourism industry. When pressed on which sectors, however, he mentioned that of the travel agencies. What is Iriondo’s background? Travel agencies. Viajes Kontiki, to be precise.

In calling for other sectors’ interests to be considered (and what, pray, are the concerns of the travel agencies), Iriondo and the tourist board have a credibility problem. It’s true that it, via its “junta” members at any rate, represents different sectors (restaurants, transport, marinas and so on), but of those members, four are senior executives with leading hotel chains. The independence that the tourist board claims, and its values, to include “plurality”, go only so far.

There is no genuinely independent tourism body in Mallorca. Were there, then it might just be prepared to point out that tourism, in terms of its accommodation, is more than simply hotels. But the alleged discrimination shown towards the holiday-let sector would still prevail. No one will stick up for it, because no one dares to.

The outcry from owners of property denied the opportunity to rent it out will ring around the letters pages. Here’s my advice: don’t waste your breath. No one who matters is listening or will listen, unless they are from the tourism ministry inspectorate or the Hacienda, or both.

Of course, the holiday-let sector isn’t discriminated against to quite the extent that is suggested. The new law contemplates an extension of the commercialisation of properties on “rustic” land and of holiday homes which are detached or semi-detached. It is the private apartment which really bears the brunt of the discrimination and of an absence of procedure by which it can be “regularised”.

While the government’s taking up of arms and mounting of a crusade against illegal accommodation is the headliner to grab the attention of the indignant property owner, there are other aspects of the draft law that are worthy of attention as well, and not just the changes of use that the hotels are to be permitted to undertake.

The director of the Mallorca hoteliers federation, Inma Benito, has come out with an intriguing statement. It is one to do with all-inclusives. She has said that the current all-inclusive offer needs to be revised profoundly and a consensus arrived at. What she has also alluded to is the need for spend to reach out to the bars and restaurants in tourism areas. The tourism law says nothing about all-inclusives per se with one indirect exception: that the taking of food and drink outside a hotel will be prohibited.

One presumes this means no more “picnics” being taken out of hotels and a way of tackling the unedifying sight of tourists wandering along streets with plastic glasses of beer or heading off to beaches with plates of food. But how this prohibition will be policed is another matter.

Nevertheless, if the hotels are serious about revising all-inclusives and can work this into the bill, this might just be the best thing to come out of the new law.

I’m speculating, but what they may be referring to, and this would be in line with one of the new law’s main aims of effecting a general upgrading of hotel stock, is the fact that all-inclusive has to mean all-inclusive, i.e. the standard of service would result in many three-star hotels simply not being capable of meeting the standard. There could also be some suggestion that the hotels are contemplating the type of “mixed” all-inclusive whereby local bars and restaurants become a part of the all-inclusive offer. We’ll see, but it is encouraging that the hotels appear finally to recognise that there is an issue.

The new law won’t be to everyone’s liking, but its reform and the reforms it will enable (to misuse “reforms” in the Spanglish sense to apply to building) may just prove to be a part of the strategic plan that the tourism industry has long demanded.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Cruising To Destruction: Posidonia

Nice work if you can get it for electricity companies. They are lining up to get the gig to supply boats coming into port, for which you can read primarily cruise ships coming into Palma. It’s all part of a drive by the European Union to reduce emissions from ships, by which engines would be switched off and energy would be transmitted from land.

The environmental harm caused by cruise ships is something to which I have previously referred. With an increase in the number of ships comes the potential for greater damage, and, as cruising is increasing across the Mediterranean, the EU has moved to try and do something about it.

Cruising has been described as the “bad boy of travel”. A large liner is said to emit higher levels of carbon dioxide than a large, long-haul airplane, though it is commonly argued that ships (of all types) and planes emit the same levels in relative terms. There are, though, other pollutants from a ship’s fuel – sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide.

All forms of transport bring with them costs and benefits. In the case of cruising the environmental costs have been placed at seven times greater than the economic benefits, assuming one accepts that there really are economic benefits, and I have said before that Palma and Mallorca do not benefit as much as is made out.

The equation between environmental costs and economic benefits was one contained in a significant study, the Scarfe Report, into the impact of cruise ships on Victoria in British Columbia. The study, issued earlier this year, is a comprehensive examination of the effects of cruising on a specific community and economy. Scarfe identified, among other things, the costs to health and property values and the costs of marine discharges. The reference in the study to the seven times higher environmental costs wasn’t, however, one that related to Canadian experience; it was to a Mediterranean one, that of the port of Dubrovnik in Croatia.

Citing the Mediterranean has special significance, as shipping has a major effect on marine species that, apart from waters around southern Australia, are only found in the Med – posidonia.

The most evident sign of the existence of posidonia oceanica is in the form of the kiwi fruit-shaped balls that are washed up onto Mallorca’s beaches. The sea grass and underwater meadows it forms around the Balearics are prolific. Off Ibiza, what is reckoned to be the largest and oldest meadow anywhere was discovered in 2006.

The posidonia is important for all sorts of reasons, one of them being that it protects coastlines from erosion, another that it, ironically enough given ships’ emissions, helps to mitigate the effects of CO2. The importance attached to posidonia explains the number of studies that are conducted into its destruction, which, given that it takes long to grow, is, in some instances, close to irreversible.

Official attitudes towards posidonia are contradictory, to say the least. While there is a recognition of its vital role in the local ecology, certain projects, e.g. the extension of the port of Ibiza, have been given the green light despite the official report (in the case of Ibiza) acknowledging the fact that it would harm posidonia meadows. Greenpeace, in a submission to the European Commission in 2009, condemned port infrastructure projects around the Balearics and also condemned Spain for a failure to comply with European law.

Posidonia is affected by all sorts of things. Oil exploration off the Balearics is the latest to be added to the list of destructive influences. The electricity cable from the mainland is another. But shipping is one of the more destructive, and it is so in different ways, such as through anchoring and discharges. A report from 1999 in respect of posidonia around Port-Cros in southern France went so far as to recommend a moratorium on all anchoring for a minimum of five years to allow the sea grass to at least begin to recover from destruction.

The bay of Palma is full of posidonia, as is the bay of Alcúdia into which cruise ships might one day enter. The investment that has been poured into both Palma and Alcúdia has been that of chasing the cruise-ship shilling. But at what cost? Supplying electricity to ships is a recognition that there is a cost, one borne by the environment. There are others, and one might argue that the investment would have been better spent elsewhere. But, for now, electricity is to come to the rescue, and how will they provide for it?

You know, I’ve always thought that those posidonia kiwi-fruit balls might burn quite nicely.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.