Ooh, Isn’t He Bold?

Bold. Boldness. New tourism minister Ferrer is going to be bold. Or at least he said something along these lines several times when addressing the press at the Fitur tourism exhibition in Madrid. This boldness will involve “profound re-developments”, the breaking of “old habits” and a speeding-up of bureaucratic procedures as they affect hotels and their ability to undertake modernisations. Bold words. We’ll see. To Ferrer’s credit, though, it might be recalled that he was one of the mayors – following the hotel collapse in Cala Ratjada and the kerfuffle regarding the lack of a building licence – who admitted that work on hotels, in Alcúdia, regularly went ahead without all the requisite licences because of the tortuous bureaucracy and paper trails between town halls and government. One of the strengths Ferrer is meant to bring to the post of tourism minister is that, having been mayor of such an important tourism town, he has a wide appreciation of issues facing the tourism industry. We’ll see.

Whether Sr. Ferrer has an opinion about the impact of a smoking ban, one doesn’t know. But the argument is now raging on both sides, the national anti-tobacco committee having weighed in with its pack’s worth, stating that visitors from countries with strong anti-smoking laws cannot understand or indeed accept the current permissiveness in Mallorca and Spain. The committee flatly rejects the idea that a ban would cause the “total ruination” of the bar and restaurant sector. Well it would say this, but it is probably not wrong, and it has come up with figures in respect of the effect on employment that followed the previous tightening of smoking in bars and restaurants. It had been argued that this would result in the loss of some 23,000 employees; there was, according to the industry ministry, an increase of some 100,000 employees between 2005 and 2007 (the previous law kicked in on 1 January, 2006). One might, though, say that the previous law seemed to be largely ineffective; there was little major change, certainly in Mallorca.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.