Hoteliers in Calvia agree with Mayor Alfonso Rodríguez's vision of a change to the municipality's tourism model. However, what the mayor had to say about this at the opening of the Santa Ponsa fiestas on Thursday needs to be backed up by greater public investment.
Antonio Mayol, president of the hoteliers association in Paguera and Cala Fornells, says that it is the hotels who are "more up to speed". The association has been working on increasing quality ratios for more than a decade with the aim of attracting a wealthier tourist. This is in order not to have to rely on quantity for generating profitability, which was precisely the mayor's point. But to achieve this goal, "the urban environment of Calvia's tourist areas of must be in harmony". "There cannot be pavements and roads full of holes. A change of model is not only the responsibility of the hoteliers, as it is not only a question of changing the model but also of changing the tourist."
The president of the Santa Ponsa hoteliers association, Antoni Roses, concurs with the mayor's opinion that the current model needs to be addressed urgently. The mayor "is not wrong". The spirit of what he is saying is correct - "less quantity and greater purchasing power". However, he stresses that a commitment to a more exclusive tourism goes beyond the modernisation of accommodation. It requires "better infrastructure, more cleanliness and greater security."
While agreeing with a principle of "less is more", Roses adds that "we cannot forget the thousands of businesses in the complementary sector". What will happen to many of these businesses if there are reductions in the number of tourists and the length of their stays.
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The complete problem of mass tourism can be solved if AENA would be forced to restrict the number of daily flights . This weekends 2.229 flights at Palma airport , clearly highlight the enabling source of over tourism . By restricting the daily number of flights , the costs of flights increase and airlines become more profitable again whilst the influx of tourists is more controlled and more costly resulting automatically in a shift away from enabling nasty low cost tourism that. few on the island want .the problem is AENA is GOV controlled and Gov always wants to make more money and does not really care about pollution etc .