Spain's "stupid" minister and tourist nonsense

There's a morbid fascination in knowing what nonsense is being sensationalised in the name of a fortnight in Magalluf (or Benidorm, or Lanzarote, etc.). Classically so, as in the indignation - as expressed in the Daily Express - of a sole holidaymaker of many years' vintage now denied the pleasures of a late afternoon happy hour binge on Punta Ballena. Conspiratorially neglecting the advance of a changing profile of tourist (and resort), here are media and tourist alike stuck in a 1970s timewarp of Judith Chalmers introducing Wish You Were Here from a Magalluf pedalo. And therefore a time when there genuinely were some horrors. Like arriving and discovering that the hotel which had been booked hadn't actually been built.

But any sensationalism was muted by a censorious Franco regime that had combined tourism and 'information' into one ministry. Which is of course no longer the case, ministerial interventions now emerging from governments who, if they do have a coherent tourism message, don't appear to have everyone on-message.

A case in point is Spain's employment minister, Yolanda Díaz. Now second deputy prime minister, her rise can be attributed, at least in part, to her having had such a high profile during the pandemic. There is also the personal ambition which drove her to further fragment the Spanish left by forming Sumar, a sort of fluffy Podemos minus a fist-raised revolutionary element with a ponytail. Reconstructed Communist as she is, Yolanda was in fact cast as something a heroine of Covid. This was all due to the ERTE furlough arrangements. Even a Spanish tourism media inclined to view the left as the devil's work had to accept that she did a pretty good job.

This said, Yolanda's Covid experience didn't get off to a great start. In spring 2020, she suggested that there would be no tourism until December that year. How could she have said such a thing in undermining a sector of such economic importance? Parts of the media, hoteliers, restaurants, the political opposition were indignant, just as they tend to always be indignant with Spanish governments (be they of the left or the right) for undervaluing tourism.

And so it is once more. The PP, in opposition as they had been in 2020, are accusing the Sánchez administration of not giving tourism the priority attention it deserves. This is largely due to Yolanda Díaz, whose proposals for early restaurant/bar closing drew the ire of PP tourism spokesperson, Agustín Almodóbar. "In her desire to gain notoriety, she has decided to use the usual tourismphobic discourse in a frivolous manner that borders on stupidity."

As this implies that she isn't completely stupid, one wonders what aspect of this discourse had avoided total stupidity. Be this as it may, as the discourse had already done the damage. The redtops on Microsoft Start were in a personalised frenzy. Not only had happy hours in Magalluf been banned, British holidaymakers (unlike those from any other nationality) were now expected to be tucked up in bed by 11pm and denied a midnight mojito (or several). It was meat and drink - almost exclusively the latter - to click-centric news websites.

The fact that this 11pm curfew has zero chance of ever becoming a reality was beside the point. But meanwhile, Yolanda was now on a roll - a gift that keeps on giving yet one, remarkably enough, who was now failing to fuel even further redtop fury. How had they missed it all? As Yolanda was also proposing a tourist tax for the whole of Spain, a ban on short-haul domestic flights and a ceiling on tourist numbers in every destination in the country.

For the Mesa del Turismo of leading businesses and figures in Spain's tourism industry, these were "arbitrary and senseless measures". "Under the pretext of caring for the conservation of the environment, what they would actually do is seriously damage the competitiveness of the tourism sector. A very serious miscalculation that would put at risk the moment of prosperity that the sector is experiencing after some very difficult years."

Goodness, some holidaymakers to be banned because there are too many of them and a tourist tax for those who are allowed in. Come on, keep up, as Yolanda is a generous source of tourism-story web traffic. Assuming, that is, that cash-strapped British holidaymakers will even get as far as having to fork out for a nationwide tourist tax. The Turespaña national tourism agency's latest report reckons that the UK economy is causing a "certain relaxation" in bookings - Mallorca included - while in the same breath suggesting that it won't because "the British do not perceive holidays as a luxury but as a necessity". "Which is why they travel regardless of their financial situation."

Another non-story, therefore, rather like Yolanda's.