Lidl By Lidl (13 November)

The people of Campos have never known anything quite like it. They’ve finally got a supermarket, or at least this is the impression one gets. I confess to not being intimate with the details of supermarkets in Campos and its neighbouring Ses Salines, but one shopper was reported as saying that she wouldn’t any longer need to trek off to Al Campo.

I do rather suspect that there were already other supermarkets, but what there wasn’t, was a Lidl. There now is. And the astonishing thing is that every time a new Lidl store opens in Mallorca, it becomes not just a news event but also an occasion of such magnitude that, as with the opening of Lidl’s Alcúdia store in October last year, it is comparable to days of yore when the train first arrived.

The Campos shop is number thirteen in a series of twenty Lidls that will be dotted about the island. Slowly but surely, little by little, Mallorca is succumbing to a process of Lidlisation; Germanic commercial empire-building. Well, it makes a change to the Chinese emporia I suppose.

Lidl has benefited from relaxations to land rules that have permitted greater commercial property development. While the rest of the economy stumbles along, the supermarkets are booming. With their value for money, they are to be welcomed, though their impact in terms of employment is only quite small; the Campos store apparently received 3,000 CVs for the 30 jobs on offer. Mallorca, as I quoted recently in a different context, that of tourism, is getting itself more, but not so many, McJobs.

Despite feeling that Lidl wasn’t breaking entirely new ground in propelling Campos into the modern shopping era, the excitement surrounding its arrival does remind one of times past when there certainly weren’t such things as supermarkets. I can’t speak for Mallorca, but the supermarket first came to town some time in the mid-60s. It was a Sainsbury and it offered a whole new self-service and time-saving mode of shopping for the upwardly mobile housewife that its previous store hadn’t.

The old Sainsbury was a place of personal service and lengthy queues. It was also a place that was so outmoded that its walls were decorated with enamel dark-green tiling. If it hadn’t been for the cheese, the loose tea and the pound of sausages, it could have been mistaken for a public lavatory.

Back in the day, and prior to the moment the Sainsbury family was good enough to cash in on the new consumerism of the sixties, shopping was distinctly inconvenient but was, courtesy of shops’ quirkiness and even smells, infinitely more inclined to leave an impression than the monotony of the modern-day barn.

Just two of these shops in our local village were Underwoods, the ironmongers, a general store packed to the gunwales with all manner of rubbish and which had an alarming and potentially disastrous smell of paraffin and paint-stripper, and the grocers, that owned by Mr. Cutt.

It was Mr. Cutt’s misfortune to have a garage that backed onto our garden and my sandpit in particular. It was doubly unfortunate that, rather than brick, it was made of far from substantial wood. The temptation for a seven-year-old hooligan with a nicely sharp-edged spade was way too great. Thus started my vendetta with Mr. Cutt, one that was to take in my stories as to our flopsy, who did mysteriously disappear one day, being served up on his meat counter and to the awful things he actually did with his bacon-slicer.

It was probably as well that we moved not long after but also a shame that I had come to be barred from the shop, as that bacon-slicer was always a point of fascination. And the smell of bacon was what hit you as soon as you entered the place. It was the evocative smells that contributed, pre-supermarkets, to what were old curiosity shops.

The point is that in Mallorca you don’t have to ever go into a supermarket. Everything still exists in a way that it did in deepest Surrey in the early 1960s. Some ferreteria are just like Underwoods. Stocked to the rafters, ramshackle and utterly mad. There are delis by the ham loads. And then there are the markets.

Little by little, the Lidls and others take it all away. I’m not complaining. But, inconvenient or not, the individual shops retain the character, the quirkiness and the smells that transport you back decades. Just for one day perhaps, forget the supermarket and do these individual shops in the local towns. But if you see any rabbit … .

That’s Entertainment: Industrial estates (12 November)

Andratx is to get an industrial estate. Lucky old Andratx. Or should that be unlucky old Andratx?

The good news is that it might not be built because of land restrictions. The bad news is that the town hall is looking at how it might be able to sidestep by-laws.

Why my negativity? Haven’t I often spoken of the need for greater diversification in the Mallorcan economy? Haven’t I even spoken of industry being a potential source of tourism? I have indeed. The need for diversification is unquestionable, and around Andratx there is relatively little by way of industrial activity. So shouldn’t I be all in favour of an industrial estate?

In theory, yes. It is not a case of being against an industrial estate but of being highly suspicious as to what might end up on it. Industrial estates have become a misnomer, as they are littered with anything other than industry.

Part of the reason why Andratx wants an industrial estate is that it does have some light industry but it clogs up parts of the town and port. Far better, therefore, to put it all in one place, thus easing congestion and offering better facilities for the light industry. However, it’s the nature of this light industry that had me shaking my head. Carpentry, metalwork, small construction firms; much of it is of the small workshop-type business, and it is just this sort of business that has been leaving industrial estates elsewhere in Mallorca in droves.

Mallorca’s local industry has suffered badly by comparison with other parts of Spain. A decline of some 30% in industrial activity in the five years up to 2010 was way higher than elsewhere, the 30% drop more or less equating to the 30% that is said to be how much more expensive it is to produce in Mallorca than much of Spain.

The greater cost of production and the fall in industrial activity are not solely due to higher transport costs; the Canary Islands, by contrast, haven’t suffered to anything like the same extent as Mallorca. One factor that has been critical has been the cost of industrial land; twice as much as the Canaries, for example, or six times as much as Aragon on the mainland. And key to the cost of industrial land in Mallorca have been speculative developments and speculative property acquisition.

Take a look around some industrial estates, and you come to appreciate that they don’t necessarily exist to aid industry; small industry especially. As you enter one of Inca’s estates, what do you see? Car showrooms, one for Honda power tools and equipment, an office building for a major hotel chain, Garden. It is not untypical. Banks have colonised industrial estates, as have entertainment centres which can even include the ambiguously monikered “alternative” clubs. Part of Inca’s third industrial estate will be set aside for entertainment. Why?

The reason is very simple. The level of speculation has driven the cost of land up to such an extent that the only businesses that can afford them are the bigger businesses or those that can generate good profits, and so I have to assume that “alternative” clubs can do just that.

According to the Chamber of Commerce, at least 20% of industrial land on Mallorca is in fact used for commercial purposes, and this percentage will vary significantly from town to town and estate to estate. The figure is probably on the conservative side, as it has also been reported that entertainment centres have gobbled up so much land that should have been for industrial purposes that only some 3% is available.

One has to treat this figure with some caution, as there are estates which are under-utilised and always have been, something they might wish to consider in Andratx. Nevertheless, and though economic hard times have clearly played their part, it is the sheer cost of the land that has resulted in plots being unoccupied or in businesses abandoning estates; and the small businesses, the carpentry and metalwork concerns and such like, have been the ones to the fore in getting out.

So Andratx is to get an industrial estate. Good for Andratx. Or is it good for speculators? Unless the town hall were to find some mechanism whereby land could be affordable, its wishes to have its small businesses transfer will probably be thwarted. These businesses might be well advised to stay put, and if they do, then the industrial estate will have achieved nothing. Congestion won’t have been alleviated and there will be a part of the town that is given over to showrooms and entertainment.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

English Speakers: Mayors and town halls (11 November)

“Mayor Talks To British Community”. This shock-horror headline hasn’t appeared, but should have. A mayor going along and talking to a bunch of Brits in a Brit-owned bar. Whatever next?

The mayor in question was Tommy Cifre. Two Tommy Cifres, there are only two Tommy Cifres present among Pollensa town hall’s cadre of councillors, but only one can be mayor, and it isn’t the one from the Mallorcan socialists. The mayor came, he spoke in a sort of English and conquered those who were concerned about the quality of the tap water.

It’s not, however, that you expect him to be perfect in English. Why should he be? Some Mallorcan politicians can apparently do English reasonably well. President Bauzá, or so it has been reported, impressed tour operators and others at a World Travel Market lunch with the “fluency” of his English. One who didn’t, it would seem, was the Mallorcan Joan Mesquida, who is only of course the national government’s tourism secretary and formerly the tourism minister. You can’t have someone able to communicate effectively with representatives from one of Spain’s principal tourism markets; that would just be pointless.

But it doesn’t matter because there are always interpreters and translators. Mesquida may be able to call on such services, but the town halls can’t necessarily. Take Alcúdia, for instance. A while back I received an email asking if I could put into serviceable English the Spanish description of the Roman town. Sure I could, and did, and sent it back with a note asking where I should send my invoice. Not that I seriously anticipated a positive response; and so I was therefore not disappointed to receive no response.

Though Alcúdia town hall now has a superbly scripted English explanation of Pollentia and the monographic museum, is it right that it should get one gratis and as a favour? Seemingly it is, and I hope all the British and English-speaking tourists are grateful. But is it also right that there appears not to be anyone actually employed or contracted (and paid accordingly) who can do English properly? And I do mean properly and not just in a somewhat better than putting a translation through Google fashion.

I don’t expect mayors to speak English. It was good of Cifre to give it a reasonable crack, therefore. In many Mallorcan municipalities, ability in English or another main foreign language would be almost completely unnecessary, but in towns such as Alcúdia and Pollensa – especially Pollensa – then I do expect some decent English; not by the mayor but through the systems of communication that exist. Ten per cent of Pollensa’s resident population is British; the town has an overwhelmingly British tourism market.

The counter-argument is, of course, that all these Brits should damn well learn the lingo, always assuming we know which lingo is being referred to; and in the now Partido Popular-dominated Pollensa town hall it is still stubbornly Catalan. But dream on; most will never learn the native sufficiently well and certainly not sufficiently well to engage in the political process.

A mayor coming to speak to the British community (and it must be said that it was more than just the Brits) is an aspect of this process. A question about tap water may sound trivial in the scheme of things, but in fact it isn’t; town halls do, after all, have legal responsibilities for sanitation.

But more than this, and this is where the whole argument about voting rights for expatriates tends to founder, is the fact that if communication is not understandable, then how can expatriates ever be expected to be anything like fully engaged in the process over and above a small minority that takes an interest regardless of the language? Ahead of the local elections in May, in which expatriates were entitled to vote, where were the communications in relevant languages? Perhaps there were in certain municipalities, but I was unaware of any.

Depending on municipality, Mallorca should display a multi-lingualism that reflects the realities of its population. English and German, probably French and Arabic; these might be considered the essential additional languages. Such reality is coming to be accepted; in Pollensa I know that local parties, and not just Cifre’s PP, are keen to engage with the English-speaking population. So they should.

It’s easy to dismiss expats as being uninterested in local politics. Many are, but many are not, especially at the local level. For a mayor as engaging as Tommy Cifre to come along and engage the Brits – in English – took some balls. He may have ballsed up his English, but so what? He made the effort.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Tightening The Nóos (10 November)

All this talk of all-inclusives and a lack of winter tourism and flights ruining the paradise island, blah, blah, and one quite loses sight of what really put the “mal” into Mallorca with two l’s. Corruption, and lots of it.

We have been sidetracked these past few months into neglecting the fact that cases surrounding the one-time Balearics president, Jaume Matas, are still going on. Lord alone knows how much this is all costing, but presumably there are special provisions, given deficit requirements, to allow for the payment of an army of investigators.

The current president, José Bauzá, is probably, on balance, quite content for the cases to still be being played out and periodically splashed all over the Spanish press. It might be a tad embarrassing that Matas was his predecessor as a PP president, but Bauzá made a virtue of excluding any candidate implicated in corruption from the spring elections. In the process, he might have hoped to undo all the scandal that has made Mallorca an object of such enormous amusement, but he can’t do much about the elephant in the room – Matas, the gift that keeps on giving.

When you had pretty much forgotten that investigations were still ongoing, out of the blue come revelations of the type that had helped grant Mallorca its deserved status as one of the great centres of comic corruption.

The latest ones involve a minor royal, the Duke of Palma. The royal household has felt compelled to issue a statement that it has no comment to make on allegations being made about him other than to say that it respects the work of the judges. Minor royal he may be, but there is the slight matter of who he is married to – the infanta Cristina.

To cut to the chase, the Duke was at one point the president of something called the Instituto Nóos, an institute for sponsorship and patronage. What the investigators would like to know is why the Matas government, mainly through a body known as Illesport, paid the institute 2.3 million euros between 2005 and 2007. There are questions relating to four invoices totalling 1.2 million euros in respect of the staging of a 2005 forum and to invoices for nearly 450,000 euros that were raised a month before the 2007 elections, which Matas lost.

There was a common theme to these invoices, as the forum and the later 450,000 had to do with a so-called observatory of tourism and sport. At the forum this concept was discussed, whatever it actually meant, but nothing more was heard of it. However, the invoices of April 2007 mention it specifically.

No one seems to quite know what this observatory did, if anything. With the money the invoices generated, the institute made payments of its own, among which were those to companies belonging to one Diego Torres, an “expert in marketing”, who succeeded the Duke as institute president in 2006, and also to a real-estate company run by the Duke.

Of course, there may be a very good explanation for all of this, while the revelations are all the more thrilling for the press as they involve royalty. But what they do, once more, is to highlight the tangled web of government agencies and foundations, especially within the area of tourism, and of other organisations, such as the Duke’s institute, which were associated with them. Of these agencies, mostly all are now defunct, having been scrapped by the last government when the full weight of corruption charges hit the tourism ministry.

Why were there so many, though? And why was there ever any need for an “observatory” of tourism and sport? It may be unclear what its purpose actually was, but it sounds not dissimilar to the government’s own so-called tourism strategy and research agency, Inestur, one of the agencies that now no longer exists. The Illesport agency was in fact a foundation for the support and promotion of sport in the Balearics. It might be argued that it was appropriate for it to engage the services of a specialist operation, i.e. the Instituto Nóos, but then what did it actually do, other than give money out?

The point is that, even if corruption comes to be proven, the real problem was all the various bodies that were set up with seemingly little or no control or idea as to why they were being set up. Tourism, and its associated sport sector, may have had its governmental budget cut, but it is still, as it was under Matas, a goose that lays the golden egg, or should that be the noose that lassooed a golden egg? Only to end up hanging itself. Allegedly.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Short Train Running (Or Not) (9 November)

The enthusiasm with which President Bauzá greeted the news of the “Mediterranean corridor” high-speed rail service on the mainland contrasts with the apparent indifference of the regional government to a railway in its own backyard – the extension from Manacor to Artà.

Bauzá’s support for the mainland service stems from its potential to cut the cost of imports to the Balearics. It may have some impact in this regard, but if he were serious about making imports cheaper then he should be doing all he can to tackle the cost of shipping. While he has made an economic case in favour of the high-speed service, his own government has made a different economic case – against the Manacor to Artà line.

This rail line, work on which is currently suspended owing to what is said to be a lack of finance, has provoked all manner of argument and recrimination, culminating in a protest in Son Servera at the weekend. It is just the latest manifestation of arguments that have dogged the line ever since the previous regional government announced its development.

The protest and the wishes of the mayors of Son Servera, Artà, Sant Llorenç and Capdepera to get work on the line unparalysed form another contrast – that with the opposition to the project among residents when the plans for the project were first drawn up. The rail line has never had anything like unanimous support.

Much of the opposition was of the nimby variety, but it is ever thus with such infrastructure projects. More objective was the report by the island’s Chamber of Commerce which questioned the wisdom of the rail line and in particular the then regional government’s figures in terms of usage and return on investment.

The mayors are in favour of the rail line, though, because of possible economic benefits to the eastern part of the island and because of what is a comparatively poor transport infrastructure. Another voice, that of the president of the hotel association in Capdepera, speaking in the context of there being just one hotel and one hostel open there this winter, has called for transport improvements. The argument isn’t a strong one, as the internal transport infrastructure isn’t really an issue when it comes to winter tourism, but he does have a point in respect of what are weak transport connections – both road and rail – that apply to most of the east coast.

Rather than the work on the line having been stopped for financial reasons, the mayors believe that the regional government took a political decision when it halted the work. And messages coming out of the government are, it must be said, somewhat confusing. A couple of weeks ago the responsible minister, Gabriel Company (environment and land), insisted that the government hadn’t given up on the rail line and that its future depended upon funds from central government. At the same time, however, he was flagging up the notion of Mallorca having a “corridor” of its own, a green one that would run the length of the rail line.

The mayors, however, claim that there are state funds that would allow work to continue, and they wonder why the regional government took its decision without apparently discussing the matter with the development ministry in Madrid. Whoever one believes, and it is difficult to know, the immediate future of the rail line is due to be the subject of a meeting that has been called, bizarrely enough, three days after the national election on 20 November.

Whatever the outcome of that meeting and indeed whatever the future may be for the Manacor to Artà line, if it has one at all, the arguments over its development, as with other arguments surrounding transport projects on Mallorca, raise a question as to whether a real, a sensible and an integrated transport system can ever be agreed.

Mallorca is small enough that it might be argued that it doesn’t need a rail service, or at least any development of the existing one. On the other hand, and though the Manacor to Artà line would only be 30 kilometres long, the island is sufficiently large enough to accommodate more rail transport; indeed, it probably should have more rail services. But what seems to be lacking, and has been lacking, is a true appreciation of all the social, environmental and economic issues (the latter to include tourism) as they apply to the island’s transport system.

If the paralysis of the Manacor to Artà line has any benefit, it is that it might just inspire a proper investigation of the needs of this transport system. Though when that might ever happen, heaven only knows.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Cruise Tourism Myth (7 November)

By way of a coincidence, a couple of mentions of cruise tourism over the past few days had worked themselves into my consciousness. I referred to one of them yesterday; the other had simply lodged in my memory banks.

The reference I made was to Leo Hickman who has lumped cruise ships in with all-inclusive hotels in branding them one of the worst forms of tourism in that they generate little by way of benefit to local economies. The one I hadn’t referred to, but now do, was to Puerto Alcúdia and a question asked by the restaurant association as to why its new commercial port was not receiving cruise ships.

In Alcúdia there was talk of it becoming a port of call. It was one reason why so much was invested in developing the new terminal and in deepening the waters. To date, it has not become a port of call and it may never become so. The restaurant association would wish otherwise, as it would hope to reap the benefits from stopover passengers.

The benefits. Ah yes, the benefits of cruise tourism to local economies. These are the benefits that Palma (though not exclusively Palma) derives from cruise tourism and which the city anticipates more of as the volume of cruise traffic increases.

But, as we are reminded not infrequently, passengers disembark, wallets bulging, ready to spend wildly, only to find shops closed. At least, this is one of the sticks which are used to beat Palma shopowners into opening submission and which is used to criticise an inert local tourism-related industry that spurns the opportunities from cruise tourists.

Alcúdia’s restaurants presumably believe that they, along with other local businesses, would enjoy untold riches from passengers taking a bit of shore leave. Would they, though?

One of the most important pieces of research into the economic impact of cruise tourism was undertaken by the Policy Research Corporation on behalf of the European Commission. Based on data from October 2008 to September 2009, it looked at, among other things, expenditure by passengers. Of the top 15 ports in Europe, Palma was ranked sixth with around 53 million euros, a figure that rose to 70 million when crew and ship expenditures were added.

The report calculated specific expenditures dependent upon whether passengers disembarked during a stopover (and not all do) and whether they were joining or leaving the ship. The average spend was, respectively, 60 and 95 euros per passenger (the figure being the same whether joining or leaving).

In themselves, the figures seem healthy enough, but you need to dig down into them to understand what they represent. Mostly all the spend by a passenger joining or leaving a ship is on hotel accommodation; the spend of the passenger who disembarks for the day goes primarily towards an excursion of some sort.

The cruise ship functions in its own way. Because stopovers are short, it organises well in advance, as in booking excursions with a select few attractions/activities for which the cruise ship typically extracts a significant commission; and it is said that this can be as high as 50%, which immediately slashes that expenditure which gets into the local economy.

The ship has its arrangements with hotels, with a handful of chosen excursions and perhaps with certain shops or others, and a commission will operate in almost every instance. The benefit, in other words, tends to be spread very thinly. And where the passenger has some “free” time, what can he actually contribute over and above what has pretty much been pre-determined? P&O, for example, lists Pollensa and Formentor as one of its nine shore excursions. In Pollensa there are 30 minutes “to do as you choose … it is the perfect place to have a morning coffee”.

And so that’s about it. A coffee. Very little, and the restaurants of Alcúdia might bear this in mind, is actually spent on food. It’s the same issue as with all-inclusives, as the passenger has generally already paid for his food on the ship. At most he might buy a small snack and the odd drink while on shore, and that’s it.

There is plenty more that could be said about cruise ships and cruise tourism; about the environmental damage caused by ships, and which is greatly understated, or about the fact that little or no direct employment is generated. A benefit does come from cruises, but it is not as great as might be thought, a point made by Professor Paul Wilkinson of Canada’s York University, and a leading researcher into cruise tourism, who has said that “cruise visitors have little potential economic impact”.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Worst Form Of Tourism

The World Travel Market (WTM) in London starts tomorrow. The world will be travelling to the ExCel; getting on for 5,000 exhibitors, 3,000 journalists and any number of VIPs, politicians, businesspeople and the poor sods who have to stand around at the exhibitions for four days.

Among the exhibiting of the 5,000 will be the Balearics Tourism Agency (stand EM1650, if you must know), proudly listed in the alphabetical running-order below Baki Tur, not a tobacconist tour agency but something designed to get you heading off to Azerbaijan. There is an awful lot of world travel to be had nowadays. How very different to the days when the Mallorca (spelt with two l’s for the purposes of the WTM) Tourist Board was founded in 1905. Sharing the stand with the tourism agency, its blurb reminds everyone that it really is this old and that “2005 will its centenary year”. Oh well, let’s hope no one actually reads the blurb. There’s nothing like incorrect grammar and downright error to influence people.

The Balearics participation in this year’s WTM is, as has been well-publicised, an altogether more austere affair than it has been in the past. The hangers-on are down in number and the budget has been cut. Tourism minister Delgado has insisted that the fair isn’t an excuse for a jolly; it’s all about business. Which is only right as the WTM itself has adopted the snappy slogan “WTM Means Business”, which it doesn’t as it means World Travel Market, but let’s not quibble.

The WTM isn’t just about stands and selling destinations. It is also about trends, and each year a report is produced which considers these trends and immediate prospects. But such reports overlook the unexpected. The 2010 report had nothing about the Arab spring. It predicted “weak performance” for European travel and tourism, which was right only up to a point as it hadn’t figured on the boost that the Arab spring gave to tourism to destinations such as Mallorca.

And word coming out of the WTM is that the Arab effect hasn’t finished. Libya and Syria together with a perception of growing Islamist influence in both Tunisia and Egypt are likely to help to make 2012 just as good for Mallorca. What can’t yet be determined is the extent of any fallout in Europe itself as a result of the Greek and Euro crisis. It is perhaps slightly unfortunate that the WTM international press centre is being sponsored by the Greek National Tourism Organisation.

Among the speakers at the WTM will be representatives of organisations that make it sound like an echo of the recent ABTA convention in Palma – British Airways, Royal Caribbean, Google – but perhaps the most interesting will be Leo Hickman.

That Hickman is a journalist with “The Guardian” is likely to have you leap to all manner of conclusions, but what he has to say is far from unimportant and will chime with what many think about issues in Mallorca. His book “The Final Call” was based on travels across the globe; he didn’t make it to Mallorca, but he did get to Ibiza where there are similar issues.

To give you a flavour of his views, and I quote from an interview on the Worldhum website, here is Hickman on tourism in general: “a one-sided transaction whereby the buyer – the tourist – comes off much better from the deal than the sellers at the destination”. “Tourism predominantly creates ‘McJobs’ … it is largely a myth that (it) creates a form of trickle-down wealth for all.” Here he is on “nefarious” effects of tourism. Sex tourism is the worst, but beyond this come all-inclusive hotels (and cruise ships); “one of the most damaging forms of tourism in the fact that they offer the destination so little”.

Hickman also refers to the theory of the remarkably named Dr. Stanley Plog who has plotted the rise of tourism destinations to a peak of too much development and then an inevitable decline, one that can be avoided by the right planning by regional governments and others but is all too often absent and instead dominated by short-term thinking.

There is an awful lot of sense in what Hickman says. Though the Balearics Tourism Agency will be busy doing business, it might do well to send at least one of its representatives along to Hickman’s presentation. Tourists getting much the better of the deal, McJobs, all-inclusives the worst form of tourism after prostitution, and the inevitable decline of destinations that are too developed. It does sound rather familiar.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Tourism Made Simple For Politicians

Amazing. Rajoy speaks! He has left it late, but with just a couple weeks remaining before the general election it is about time that he proved that he hadn’t permanently lost his voice. He has been speaking, and what words of wisdom have been pouring out of the Partido Popular’s prime ministerial candidate. Words of tourism wisdom.

Somewhere in the bowels of PP HQ is a room where candidates are taken to be given their primers on subjects they have no knowledge of, like tourism for instance. Various strategists, PR people and speech-writers sit the candidates down and open the “Juanita y Juan” book of tourism made simple for politicians.

“Right now, Mariano, repeat after me. Quality tourism.” “Quality tourism.” “Good. Do you know what it means?” “Erm …” “Not to worry because it doesn’t mean anything. Now, listen carefully, I will read out a list of things that will overcome seasonality and I want you to then repeat them. Understood?” “Seasonality. Yes, good, it’s a bit of problem for tourism. Isn’t it?” “It is, so it’s very important that you know what you’re talking about. Here goes. Culture, nature, nautical, sport, film, gastronomy, bird-watching and golf.” “Ah, golf! Yes. Seve Ballesteros. Fore!” “Yes, Mariano, unfortunately he is in fact dead.”

Rajoy has certainly been taking his lessons seriously. He has come up with a cunning plan. He’s going to tackle structural problems of the tourism sector, such as there being too many obsolete resorts. Gosh, what an original thought. Where have we heard this before? Ah yes, Playa de Palma. How long has it taken for its redevelopment not to occur? Only about seven years. So far.

What is actually meant by obsolete? Given that Spanish and Mallorcan resorts grew up in the sixties and seventies, it probably means they’re all obsolete. The sort of investment that would be required to make them un-obsolete will mean they remain obsolete for a further 40 or 50 years, by which time they will probably have fallen down anyway.

But then, investment has been available. Or was. Supposedly. Go back to 2008 and you may recall that 500 million euros were going to be pumped into updating tourism resorts. What do you mean, you don’t recall? They most certainly were. Something got in the way, though.

Also back in 2008 there was another little scheme, not a million miles away from what Rajoy has in mind for combating seasonality. Come on, you must remember the Winter in Spain campaign. Nope? Well, you wouldn’t be the only one, as it was quietly forgotten about not long after it was announced. Yet this was all part of the drive to get those high-spending European oldsters beating a winter path to the Balearics and elsewhere; the same European oldsters who will now not be coming this winter because there’s no money to subsidise their trips.

Despite having done his tourism homework, learnt his lines and acquired a status as the new guru of tourism, Rajoy is being pressurised by the tourism industry into giving them back their national tourism minister. There used to be one, the Mallorcan Joan Mesquida, before he got downgraded and became a mere secretary, or whatever it was he became. And he certainly knows a thing or two about tourism. As former finance minister for the Balearics, he was co-author of the eco-tax, that spectacular disaster of tourism PR that was jettisoned when the first Antich administration was turfed out of office.

There again, and as with the non-forthcoming 500 million investment and Winter in Spain campaign, this was all the fault of socialists. Haven’t got a clue when it comes to tourism. Not like Rajoy, good old capitalist right-winger that he is. Mariano’s going to have tourists flocking to Mallorca (and Spain) in winter, looking at birds and tucking into bowls of tumbet. No one’s ever thought of that before. He’s going to change the image of Spain and make it a tourist destination of quality with the quality tourists to match; none of the bloody riff-raff that’s coming in at present on their easyJets.

Yep, tourism has a bright future under Mariano, as he is clearly a quick learner, and he doesn’t always need the strategists to tell him what to say. The environment? No problem. Climate change doesn’t exist, as his cousin told him it didn’t. The economy? Well, he can probably a find a bloke in a pub to tell him how to fix that. And you wonder why, as Wikileaks proved, former premier Aznar has always had his doubts about him.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Educational Apartheid: Languages in schools

It’s the day of the “vuelta al cole” next September. By the school gates you wave goodbye as junior enters primary school for the first time. A tear in the eye but joy in the heart, as you will have decided that junior is to be taught in … taught in which language?

From the start of the next school year there will be free parental choice as to the main teaching language at the voluntary nursery level and at primary level, but not at secondary level. This will be in line with the election manifesto of the Partido Popular government. After a fashion. There was meant also to have been free choice in secondary schools. There still will be, but not yet. It’s all a question of money.

Electoral promises are fine, but they do require that the money exists to back them up. The Círculo Balear, the fiercely anti-Catalan and staunchly pro-Castilian organisation, reckons there is the budget, but then it probably would. The government says, however, that the education ministry needs to shed a 35 million euro debt before secondary schools are included. So this – 35 million, if you follow the government’s logic – is what it costs to be able to offer secondary school teaching in the language of parents’ choice.

The budget for education, and the ministry includes culture and university, will be down in 2012 by 55 million euros. With its budget already under strain, it could do without the complication of administering this choice. Because complication is what it is. The education minister, Rafael Bosch, has yet to decide exactly how the choice model will operate, though it would seem that he has in mind a mixture within the same school.

Let’s get this straight, because I am struggling here and you may be able to help. Bosch has, mercifully it would seem, dismissed the possibility of separation into different centres along language lines, but he appears to be saying that there will be separate classes within one school for those being taught in Catalan or Castilian. Have I got this right? Because if I have, it may be good for parental choice but isn’t when it comes to how schools function.

Schools are terrible places when it comes to “being different”. And what you would arrive at with this system is one of apartheid based on language choice. The potential for us and them should not be underestimated.

Moreover, it is an us and them that has the potential to carry on beyond school years. If you want to create a situation of tension between Catalan and Castilian speakers, where better than to foment it than in schools. The notion of splitting along language lines goes against principles of child socialisation that schools should be aiding, not inhibiting.

The Círculo Balear believes that the PP has bowed to pressure from the “anti-democrats of the Catalanist minority”, which it almost certainly hasn’t. Give the PP its own fully free choice and it would probably happily get rid of Catalan from schools, but it is enforcing the provisions of the 1986 act that recognised the right of language choice, but which has since come to mean Catalan taking precedence.

The Círculo, however, may not be right in assuming that an overwhelming majority of parents want Castilian teaching. Back in June it was reported that parents, for the most part, were happy enough for Catalan to prevail. In which case, they’ll be able to choose for it do so.

Apart from a budgetary constraint, the government’s position may have been watered down (albeit perhaps temporarily) by the presence of Sr. Bosch, described as a moderate when he was made education minister.

But this moderation, while it ensures a greater role for Castilian while maintaining Catalan, creates a different problem; two in fact – greater expense plus the linguistic apartheid. The cost of education will have to increase, though not by as much as Sr. Bosch might have wanted, as his plan to add an hour to the school day has had to be held back for now because of lack of money.

Accommodating the two languages, to be fair to the government, is a thankless task. The purely pragmatic approach would be to make Castilian the language and make Catalan a language taught in specific lessons. Where many Catalan-preferring parents would probably have to agree is not with the Círculo Balear’s posturing but with the notion of greater opportunity arising from Castilian.

But pragmatism is too simple when set against culture, history, arguments and tensions. Unfortunately, the government, while it is right in its free-choice policy, might find that it ends up exacerbating these tensions.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Tourism: The budget’s poor relation

Something rather odd has happened. The 2012 budget for the Balearics, announced by the regional government’s finance minister, Josep Aguiló, is to go up. By 8.6%. It will, in total, be 3,675 million euros.

What is odd about this is that the government has spent the first months since it came to power creating a general sense of alarm and panic. Remarkably, it has now found more than just some loose change down the back of a few sofas.

From the budget, various ministries will get just over 70%. The health service, one should be thankful, isn’t about to collapse under a lack of money; it will receive 3% more. But as you look down the list of which ministry gets what, there, languishing at the bottom, is the ministry for tourism and sport. 63 million in all. Oh well, so much for tourism being the motor for economic recovery.

The amount might seem paltry, less than 2% of the government’s total spend, but it is roughly the same as that for business promotion and employment and not much less than the ministry of the presidency (whatever that actually does). Agriculture and the environment seems to have fared much better, harvesting 231 million.

There does seem to be a bit of an imbalance, as agriculture counts for only around 1.5% of the economy, but it’s hard to tell exactly what goes to agriculture alone as it has been wrapped up into the super-ministry along with the environment, which could probably do with some money to replant all the forest that people have so thoughtfully set fire to this year.

The other way of looking at the tourism ministry’s budget is that it is in fact a reasonable wedge, and I rather fear some people might it look at like this. Come on, Carlos, they’ll be saying, get those ads on prime-time British TV sorted out. Fortunately, Carlos (Delgado of that ilk) is proving to be the Arsène Wenger of the tourism world. He’s not about to blow the lot on some marquee signing of a celeb and have him or her (well, him, as it could only be Nadal) extol the virtues of the Balearics during a “Corrie” ad break.

Something else rather odd has also been happening. And that is that tax receipts have shot up. They have shot up that much that government tax revenue is greater than it was BC (before crisis). Partly this is down to an excellent tourism season and to the increase in IVA.

The socialist opposition, moaning that the budget should have been and could have been announced much earlier and therefore implying that the delay has been manufactured so as to allow Bauzá as much panic-inducing time as possible, reckons that it can take some credit for the tax bonanza. It must have been the previous administration that paved the way for the excellent tourism season. Which is of course a load of rot. Everyone knows why it has been an excellent season, and it had nothing to do with policies of the regional government.

The fact, though, that tax revenues have increased does undermine to an extent Bauzá’s state of alarm. What they also suggest is that the IVA rise has not proven to be detrimental to tourism, so contradicting predictions that preceded the increase and the Partido Popular’s own intentions to create a “super-reduced” rate of IVA for the tourism sector.

What this year has shown is that spending shedloads on tourism promotion is unnecessary when the conditions are right. Sadly, Arab springs don’t come around too often, so it’s not as though Delgado can become too Wenger-like. An IVA reduction for the sector might still be wise, though it is far less important than has been made out, even faced with a revival in tourism-market competition in 2012.

To achieve anything like a repeat of the 2011 tourism season next year does demand that the tourism ministry gets its cheque-book out. But its budget is not so huge that it can afford to fritter away ten or twenty per cent on television advertising campaigns; and please, let’s not forget that there are countries other than the UK which are promoted to.

The effectiveness of spend is what matters. TV campaigns create an impression of something being done when their returns are relatively that much lower than those through other means, such as incentivising tour operators, airlines, hotels and overseas delegations and exploiting the internet and now mobile technology.

Something rather odd has indeed happened. And that’s that there are reasons to be cheerful, and it’s tourism that can be thanked, even if luck can also take a bow.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.