The Forum for Civil Society, which comprises some thirty entities such as citizens associations, environmentalists and the Pimem federation for small to medium-sized business associations, has been holding talks with Mallorca's hoteliers about tourist overcrowding, and the two sides hope to be able to announce bilateral proposals before the Christmas holidays.
The forum has been meeting hoteliers and tour operators since August. It has wanted to build bridges, and to this end there have been talks with TUI and the Mallorca Hoteliers Federation as well as with individual hotel groups. Riu is one of these groups; its top management has been saying for years that there need to be limits to tourist numbers. Contacts have been made with Iberostar and Meliá, and meetings are due to be held shortly. There have also been discussions with the CLIA cruise line association.
The dialogue process, says the forum, provides a parallel debate to the working parties set up under the Balearic Government's pact for sustainability. All the results of this debate will be made available to the pact, which the forum doesn't particularly trust because of, for example, what is claimed to be a lack of methodological rigour as well as a general slowness of approach.
One of the spokespeople, Jaume Garau of the Palma XXI association, says: "We thought it would be good that we got to know each other so that we could talk beyond what happens at meetings with the government."
Advanced dialogue between the forum and the hoteliers, Garau adds, "will make things easier for the government", as time and work at the pact meetings will be cut; the forum participates in nine of the twelve working parties. "There are many points on which we agree. Economic transition must be a positive process in which no one should lose."
He says that both large and small hotel companies have shown themselves to be "aware" of the problems. This has made it easier to reach agreements and to then move forward by holding talks with Exceltur, the alliance for tourism excellence, whose president is Gabriel Escarrer of Meliá.
The forum will have a meeting on November 25 to determine its future role with the sustainability pact. A lack of transparency is another of its criticisms, as also is an over-representation of the tourism sector to the detriment of citizen groups. Complaints have been sent to President Marga Prohens, and the forum has warned that it will quit the working parties if there aren't improvements.