How dare Mallorca change

Riu and Escarrer haven't always felt comfortable. In January 2018, for instance, they were at a different forum, one in Madrid, which was also attended by Armengol. They let her know that they believed that the tourist tax was an "aberration". They won't have changed their minds, but otherwise there was to be a change. Negueruela became minister in June 2019. Més, who had demanded the tourist tax as an agreement for government in 2015, no longer controlled the ministry. PSOE, the main coalition party, were now in charge.

While not advocates of PSOE per se, it is evident that these hoteliers are in agreement with aspects of policy pursued by Armengol, Negueruela, PSOE and therefore the Balearic government. On tourism of excesses, as another example, Escarrer said back in 2020 that "we support the government in its fight against tourism of excesses". Carmen Riu, it might be recalled, once made a point of saying that she has long believed that there should be limits to the number of tourists. She could perhaps have sidestepped the row about the hotel beds but she didn't. And in making her remark, she made it obvious that she wasn't impressed with Marga Prohens, the leader of the Partido Popular who aspires to be the next president of the Balearics.

The observation by Prohens that adjustable hotel beds are "the greatest nonsense of tourism policy in recent years" was a misstep on her behalf. While the obligation to introduce adjustable beds directly impacts the tourism sector, it isn't really tourism policy. It has to do with occupational health. It's one thing for an opposition politician to attack the likes of the tourist tax. It's quite another to imply that people's health isn't important and especially when the collective affected - chambermaids - have become such a symbol for the need to improve working conditions.

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It is true that large hoteliers like Riu and Meliá have the financial means to adopt this policy without any problem - they were already introducing adjustable beds before the 2022 tourism law established the obligation - and that small hotel groups face a greater challenge financially. This distinction, one guesses, is what Prohens had in mind with what was a clumsy attempt at making a political point and at mustering pre-election support. An assumption will be that hoteliers naturally and automatically back the PP. Maybe they all do. But it is clear that some of them can also be in tune with what the left (PSOE at any rate) espouse.

When Iago Negueruela started to emphasise a need to change the tourism model, the Mallorca Hoteliers Federation warned against going too fast. Perhaps too much has been loaded onto the hoteliers at one go - some hoteliers anyway - but taking the politics out of what has been happening in terms of policy, the central point is the need to change. At the forum with Iberostar, Carmen Riu said that the most important word for her is "change". Indeed, but as we all know not everyone is comfortable with change, be this implemented through a tourism of excesses law, modifications to chambermaid work, diversification of tourist source markets, attempts to spread the tourist load more evenly through the year, or whole transformations of resorts.

By and large, the hotel sector isn't against change. The issue for part of it is having the wherewithal to effect change, which is why government funding is necessary and why also some leeway has to be given. But what the hotel sector knows is the challenge that Mallorca faces and was recognised quite some years ago but never genuinely pursued. This was a challenge flagged up as long ago as 1980 with Richard Butler's Tourism Area Life Cycle Model. The fifth stage of this is called stagnation, elements of which include visitor numbers having peaked, carrying capacity having been reached or exceeded, environmental and social problems. Sound familiar?

Rejuvenation is a response to this stagnation. And this is what is occurring. This is the change. But because there are those uncomfortable with change or who cannot recognise the need for it, you get observations which basically appear to want Mallorca to fall flat on its face. How dare Mallorca change.

Adjustable beds may seem something of a sideshow in all this, but they aren't when considered in broad terms of rejuvenation that addresses problems brought about by all that has preceded it. Dissing them as a nonsense begs a question as to how in tune the PP are with the process of change. Perhaps they need to have a long chat with Carmen Riu and Gabriel Escarrer.