Jaume Bauzá, the Balearic tourism minister, says that tourist saturation in Mallorca only occurs in certain places and at certain times of the year. Montuiri is not one of these places. How does he know? He's from Montuiri. He's a former mayor.
An observation of the obvious? Perhaps. But even if Montuiri never gets overrun by tourists, one can bet that there are some citizens who feel that it does. Saturation is as much about perception as it is counting tourists as they enter a municipality. Whether saturated or not, the specific experience of Montuiri is largely irrelevant. That sense of saturation, allied to the undeniable numbers of tourists in global terms, is what counts. And in this regard, Bauzá is equivocal as to the cause. On the one hand, he is of the view that blaming holiday rentals - legal and illegal - is too simple. On the other, he highlights an increase of 115,000 tourist accommodation places over the past eight years, the overwhelming majority of these having been for legitimate holiday lets.
It's curious. A Partido Popular politician, without specifically pointing the finger at rentals, is regularly drawing attention to regulatory change adopted by the two previous left-wing administrations. There may now be an admission that it was a mistake, but the left coalition (Més in particular) introduced what could be classified as a highly liberal market approach. This wasn't how the then tourism minister, Biel Barceló, described it - the change was to do with a 'democratisation' of the tourism sector and a wider distribution of the wealth from tourism - but it is still plausible to perceive it as having been liberal policy.
Yet here we have a PP minister who appears to indeed blame saturation on the growth in accommodation places. It's as though politics, if not reversed, have aligned, Bauzá being insistent that his ministry will not be overseeing growth in the number of places. He only differs from his predecessor, Iago Negueruela of PSOE, in also insisting that there will be no move to decrease tourist places and thus tourist numbers.
Accommodation places, saturation where and when it occurs will be addressed in the Bauzá tourism law. And when can we expect this law? Not until the first half of 2025, so he has said. Why so long? It took Carlos Delgado of the PP a year to introduce and pass his 2012 general tourism law. It appeared as if Negueruela's 2022 law for tourism circularity and sustainability was put together in a matter of weeks.
Bauzá explains that there needs to be analysis of tourism legislation of the past 25 years in order to arrive at a bill that will be good for at least 20 years. This analysis will thus factor in the PP's first general tourism law of 1999, good parts of which were repeated/updated in 2012. He will not be adopting a "scorched earth" approach and dismissing all that has gone before, including Negueruela's law. The analysis will run alongside consultation with all relevant parties.
Consultation. Ah yes, well we remember that when Francina Armengol became Balearic president in 2015, the words consultation and dialogue were rarely far from her lips. For tourism, there was at least the appearance of this. The 2016 law for the sustainable tourism tax created committees to decide upon the spending of revenue. The hoteliers had to lump decisions which in effect had already been made by the government. Environmentalists had a habit of walking out of the committee meetings. Town halls were brassed off because their proposals were overlooked.
Committees don't always work, and Bauzá points to one that hasn't even met. It is for the tourism of excesses law. In recent interviews, he has at last started to explain his criticism that the law hasn't worked. A committee involving businesses, unions and residents associations has never met. These are agents, to which the police should also be added, at the frontline of excesses. Their opinions are therefore to be counselled.
Rather than wait for the new tourism law, the excesses decree will be amended earlier, though Bauzá says that to have it in place for the 2024 season would be "extraordinary". He seems clear as to a key failing of the original decree from 2020. It didn't place sufficient responsibility on the actions of individuals. Tourists themselves. It's true that, with the exception of balconing, the excesses law has concerned itself with businesses.
Bauzá stresses the need to address individuals' attitudes, with his remedy appearing to lie with fines. Amsterdam can be looked to as an example. That city has heavy fines. Does it? The latest fine regime is 100 to 150 euros for drunkenness, noise pollution, urinating in public and littering. Hardly swingeing when one bears in mind that Calvia, even before it embraced the excesses law, had a regime under its coexistence ordinance from 100 to 3,000 euros that was applicable to all people in the municipality.
Residents associations and others are unlikely to settle for 100 euros here or there, assuming there are sufficient police to hand out fines. If deterrence and attitude change are demanded, they will have to be much tougher. We will find out - but not for many months.