Let’s talk about TOURIST LIMITS
Despite the potential for dillying and dallying, there now appears to be a general political consensus that accepts the need for limits.
Yes, let’s talk about tourist limits, because all of a sudden, President Prohens, admitting that the islands have reached their limit, would like to do some talking. Two years ago. Early May. The Balearic parliament. The then minister of tourism, Iago Negueruela of PSOE, said: “Setting limits is the best way to protect tourism.” He asked the PP, then in opposition, to face up to the current debate about limits and overtourism. “When you govern, you have to deal with the debates,” Negueruela told the PP’s Sebastià Sagreras, whose party compatriot, Salomé Cabrera, was accusing the parties of the coalition government of “tourismphobia”.
Negueruela insisted: “You can still grow economically by putting the brakes on tourist places.” The row in parliament was essentially to do with the government’s moratorium on the granting of new tourist accommodation places. Sagreras was demanding that the moratorium be lifted. Reflecting on two years of pandemic, he stated: “We now know that not having tourism kills us and that having tourism gives us life.”
With Sagreras arguing that it was in fact the environment minister, Miquel Mir of Més, who was dictating tourism policies, Negueruela responded by pointing out that the Council of Ibiza, which was run by the PP, was wanting to limit hire cars on the island. “Is that going against tourism?”
The pandemic had obviously exercised minds as it had exposed the vulnerability of a regional economy so fundamentally reliant on the ease of mobility and the contribution of tourism, generally put at around 45% of GDP in direct terms. Even so, the islands were set for the post-Covid bounce back, one that produced tourist numbers in 2022 not dissimilar to those of 2019 and which then grew the total by a staggering 1.3 million people in 2023.
Moving forward to February 2023, the same minister who had stated the need for “setting limits” was insisting that he had never said that 16.4 million tourists in 2022 was a limit for the government. Negueruela had conveniently ignored travel restrictions that still applied in early 2022 and which thus resulted in an annual tourist total that was all of 397 fewer than in 2019. Yet he appeared to be in congratulatory mood; the number hadn’t increased.
There was something of a fuss, and I know there was because it was partly directed at myself for having penned an article suggesting that the government wanted to limit tourists. The government’s PR people in the UK wished to correct this impression. Why would they wish to do this? Well, let’s call the answer the Daily Mail or the Daily Express.
It was true that the minister had never said that 16.4 million was a limit. But it was all a case of semantics, as he was to then clarify (?) that “last year’s figures should not be exceeded” and that it would be necessary “to analyse how to reduce the arrival of visitors to the Balearic Islands”. When was a limit not a limit - as I asked in an article of February 17, 2023.
The last government got itself into a muddle, not least because of its absurd belief that tourist numbers could somehow be redistributed to the lower months of the year. While these months have shown some growth in numbers, the growth in the main season months has continued; hence, 1.3 million more tourists in 2023. PSOE got into a muddle, just as the PP and the current government have.
The PP vowed to scrap the moratorium on accommodation places. Thus far, it hasn’t. Meanwhile, its thinking isn’t that different to that of PSOE’s - lengthen the season, push more tourists into the lower months. Fine, but then you get what set off alarms last week because of traffic congestion in Soller and Formentor. There was nothing particularly new about this,
other than the fact that Soller town hall said that the volume of traffic was “unprecedented” for April and May.
In response, and first up to the press conference lectern, was the government’s vicepresident and spokesperson, Antoni Costa. Restating a mantra of both the past and present government, he said that there has to be growth in quality and not in quantity. “The constant growth in volume will lead to an unsustainable pattern of growth,” he opined, and blamed the previous government (defined by the PP as “tourismphobic”) for not having managed the growth.
The limits that had dared not speak their name were now being referred to, and
Costa explained that there will be measurement. This is the pilot project by which numbers of people on beaches and at popular tourist spots will be measured; a pilot project, one understands, that will focus on one beach this summer.
Following Costa, we had the councillor of mobility at the Council of Mallorca, Fernando Rubio, saying that “brave and decisive measures” were necessary. These will follow a study of roads’ carrying capacities. He wasn’t ruling out limits on the number of vehicles arriving in Mallorca, while the PP-led town hall in Soller was saying that limits may be necessary.
Why were the PP now entertaining the possibility of limits? Partly, one would suggest, because they had taken note of the protests in the Canaries. Another factor could be that Soller is a PP town hall. There was no specific mention of Formentor, part
of Pollensa and run by a PSOE-led coalition with a mayor who was education minister for eight years. Costa and Rubio both spoke the day after around one hundred people staged a protest in Soller.
The wish to adopt a scientific approach to measuring numbers is fair enough, but is it also the case that a desire to have hard data as opposed to perceptions of overcrowding satisfies the line of the PP tourism minister, Jaume Bauzá? He has accepted that there is “saturation” at specific times and in specific places. In other words, he doesn’t subscribe to a view that there is saturation in general. He may be right and so wants to be shown to be right, but the perceptions - and they exist in way more other places than just Soller or Formentor - are what the public deal in.
How long will it be before we have meaningful results from either of these studies?
Are they holding tactics to do nothing, while at the same time giving an impression of doing something? Without such studies, the previous government had contemplated regulation of vehicles. In March last year, the then mobility minister, Josep Marí, explained that any regulation for Mallorca had to follow a procedure whereby the Council of Mallorca had to “promote” measures to limit vehicles which then had to go to the Balearic parliament to be presented as a law for approval. There wasn’t enough time before the May elections to do this.
Despite the potential for dillying and dallying, there now appears to be a general political consensus that accepts the need for limits. In which case, this needs to be stated unequivocally so that there isn’t a repeat of the nonsense some fifteen months ago. And let’s be clear, limiting vehicles, as is the case in Formentera, has to be for private vehicles as well as for hire cars. This, in turn, would mean limiting tourist numbers. But in order for this to be done, there are interests that will have their say - the car-hire sector, the ferry operators and the Balearic Ports Authority.
The success of the Toulon-Alcudia service is a reason for a growth in French tourist numbers and has helped to make Alcudia a more profitable port for the state authority. Here is just an example of where any regulation becomes complicated. But the ports and the ferries pale into relative insignificance compared with the airport, where Aena reckons that passenger numbers (arriving and departing) could top 32 million this year; there were 31.1 million in 2023. And these passengers book hire cars.