Majorca tourism industry: Perte

Fitur

Andrew EdePalma21/01/2022 09:40

Pert stands for programme evaluation and review technique. A statistical method, it is used in project management - getting from start to completion. It wouldn’t be applied to the definition and development of a new tourism model, but principles of project management might be said to apply. You start by giving this definition, you then map out how to get there. Crucially, you also allocate funding for reaching the desired goal - a brand new tourism model for an entire country.

Gabriel Escarrer of Meliá has described European Next Generation funds as “manna”. Manna from heavenly Brussels for economic transformation. Or, and here comes another acronym, a strategic project for economic recovery and transformation. In Spanish, because of word order, this is PERTE. You may have spent the past almost two years trying to figure out what ERTE stands for (furlough in English), and now there is a P in front of it, and PERTE has a completely different meaning.

Escarrer can’t work out why there isn’t a PERTE for tourism. There’s all this money, but there’s no vision for the whole country. It’s as if ways are being found to spend the funds rather than there being a strategic goal and process - a step-by-step approach, rather like a project. Everything is delegated to the regions, which may or may not have their own mini PERTEs - like new beds for hotels in the Balearics.

Escarrer is a very talented businessman. He understands things like projects and strategies. Do governments?