The 2018 budget for tourism promotion by the Balearic government will be the same as this year - 5.5 million euros. Explanatory notes to the budget presented in detail on Monday say that this amount is divided between the tourism ministry and the Balearic Tourism Agency, though to all intents and purposes they are the same thing.
The agency, as was announced last week, is to be wound down if not totally wound up. Its responsibility going forward will be management of tourist tax funds projects. The island councils are to take on tourism promotion responsibilities, though in the short term the agency will still be required for the organisation, for instance, of the major travel fairs in the new year.
The tourism promotion budget hasn't radically altered for several years. It was the Partido Popular which slashed it when it came into government in 2011. The budget has remained much the same ever since. It is worth noting that it was the PP which initiated the drive towards a concentration on winter tourism and thus a scaling-back on any significant spending on summer tourism. Carlos Delgado, the first of the two PP tourism ministers, opted for promotion that focused on the travel fairs and new concepts such as fam trips. He also said that a focus on winter tourism would realise benefits within two to three years. The current government's strategy and "Better in Winter" campaign are really not that different to the PP's thinking.
Other detail in the budget shows that the tourist tax is the only tax that will go up next year. There will be two new taxes related to activities at marinas and diving in protected areas. The spending on the royal Marivent Palace will go down by just over seven per cent to 1,201,295 euros. The anti-corruption office, supposedly a stellar project of this government but which has yet to see the light of day, has an allocation of half a million euros. There was a reserve of 300,000 in this year's budget, and it wasn't spent.
Salaries for ministers will rise by 1.5%. President Armengol's salary will be 66,240 euros. A new provision in the budget is for "policies of memory". These refer to the likes of exhumations of bodies from the Civil War. The ministry for culture will receive 752,000 euros for these policies.