Mallorca’s tourism - Where’s the sustainability?

If you are looking for a distinction, here’s one. Sustainable tourism holds organisations accountable for impacts that are no longer just environmental but also economic and social. Responsible tourism places the onus on individuals and businesses to reduce their impacts. Mallorca’s responsible tourism pledge, in essence, is a mix of environmental and local community awareness with an emphasis on the actions of individuals, but this pledge is also explained in terms of promoting “a sustainable tourism”. So maybe responsible tourism is a subset of sustainable tourism. Maybe.

A further 21st-century reality, at least for an island such as Mallorca which can seem to be at breaking point in terms of its capacity to cope with the numbers of tourists the island receives, is that tourism promotion of the old-school style has been rendered irrelevant. There are some who cling to an antediluvian notion that there should still be advertising of a kind when tourism was just tourism - a current-day Fred Pontin encouraging fireside TV watchers in a freezing United Kingdom to book early (and if anyone’s forgotten, Pontins were once present in Mallorca). This is manifestly no longer necessary, promotion having in any event shifted its modus in the direction of loving care of and respect for the territory by all parties - tourists in particular, bombarded by institutional and organisational sustainable/responsible manifestoes and mission statements.

This is at it should be. The promotion is in the consciousness-raising messaging. And when virtuous or would-be virtuous tourists are not the audience, the targets include agents of tourism, e.g. tour operators and the media. Hence why tourism fairs still have a purpose, much to the disgust of certain elements on the Mallorca left. Fitur, currently taking place in Madrid, permits set pieces of sustainable/responsible communication to the relevant agents. In turn, trust has it, the communication will be further conveyed without blemish. Some hope, admittedly, where the British media are concerned, but this is Madrid and not London.

The Council of Mallorca thus went armed to Madrid with the latest iteration of the responsible tourism manual. Mallorca, a benchmark for responsible and accessible tourism. Mallorca, with a renewed focus on the protection and regeneration of the territory. Respect and responsibility, a slogan to emphasise the main axis of the tourism management model. All fine and all good, yet there is a sustainable-responsible nexus that looks distinctly unbalanced. That’s not me saying so, it’s the brains behind the government’s sustainability pact’s deliberations, the ubiquitous Professor Antoni Riera of the Fundació Impulsa for Balearic competitiveness. Ahead of Fitur, he gave a presentation at a conference with the title - “Has the time come to be disruptive in tourism?” This was apparently a preview of a Fitur presentation, but it wasn’t exactly glowing in terms of Balearic tourism sustainability.

The foundation produces something called the Tourism Development Index. This ranks the Balearics eleventh among European regions. But it isn’t this ranking that merits comment, it is another one for the sustainability of tourism demand. Out of 325 regions from 45 countries, the Balearics are not far from the bottom - 308th. Only one Spanish region ranks lower, and that’s Cantabria in 312th position.

Ninety-five indicators form the basis for this classification. The environment, water resources, energy efficiency, pollution, cultural resources, technology, transport, socioeconomic contribution. These are all areas under which the indicators fall, the best of them being the last - 14th for socioeconomic contribution.

So, what does all this mean? On the face of it not a particularly positive scenario. There is plenty of room for improvement for a region that champions sustainability and has indeed presented itself as some sort of leader. Not according to Prof. Riera it isn’t. The disruptiveness, he argues, entails being a pioneering destination for “connecting tourism with the path of growth and well-being”. Tourism is no longer in “a development phase”. With respect, there are many who understand this, further reinforcing the irrelevance of a hypothetical Fred Pontin for the 2020s.

As one would expect of an economist, Riera refers regularly to indicators such as GDP per capita. He wonders how it can be that a region claiming tourism leadership can rank 140th. Perhaps the socioeconomic contribution is overstated. But if one comes back to the sustainable-responsible relationship, is it the case that tourists, who are being urged to be responsible, are in fact being let down, undermined even, by those charged with bringing about sustainability?