From left to right, Ángel Fernández Homar, Daniela Otero, Jaime Ruiz, Susanna Sciacovelli, Carmen Serra, Agripina Rocha, Joan Monjo, Paula Serra, Manuel Molina, Martí March, Juan Antonio Amengual and Miquel Nadal, on the stage of the eForum in the Sala Aljub of the Museu Es Baluard. | J. MOREY
The fourth and final session of the eMallorca Experience Forum, under the title The Tourism of the Future: natural resources, carrying capacity and social harmony, closed this edition of the event yesterday in a day that featured some fifteen speakers and discussants gathered in Es Baluard's Sala Aljub. Among the central conclusions was the imperative need to undertake a profound reconversion of the sector in order to avoid mortgaging the future.
SUSANNA SCIACOVELLI Insular Director of Tourism
After a welcome address by the Serra Group's Audiovisual Director, Paula Serra, the session began with an introductory speech by the island's Director of Tourism for Demand and Hospitality, Susanna Sciacovelli, who spoke about the declaration of responsible tourism that the Consell de Mallorca is disseminating among the different agents in the tourism sector to promote visits that respect the environment and local communities. "Tourism is the industry of happiness because those who travel are happy. And now we have to ensure that residents are happy too", said Sciacovelli in his speech.
Susanna Sciacovelli.
MANUEL MOLINA Director of Hosteltur
Molina - who moderated the two round tables - addressed the problem of the negative externalities of tourism and its visibility through growing public discontent. Molina presented various statistics that contextualise the problem of saturation, including a survey among Spaniards that places the Balearic Islands as the most overcrowded tourist destination in Spain. Molina urged that decisive and effective strategies be tackled now, avoiding falling into ecopostureo or greenwashing, that is to say, inane speeches and policies. "The clock is ticking and we can't waste much more time".
Manuel Molina.
Daniela Otero Acting Chair of the UN World Committee on Tourism Ethics
Otero pointed out that one of the current objectives of this body is for the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism (made up of ten commandments or key principles) to become a binding international convention that must be complied with by the adhering territories. He also referred to the strategies that regions and cities around the world are implementing to combat saturation and which are not necessarily exportable to the Balearic Islands, although they can be taken as an example. "There is no single formula, each territory must find its own strategy".
Daniela Otero.
MARTÍ MARCH Mayor of Pollensa
"The measures have been insufficient because we are seeing that they have not worked". The Mayor of Pollensa called for "a State pact for Spain and the Balearic Islands" in order to put a thread on the needle and ensure the environmental and cultural heritage for future generations. He also complained that "the town councils are under-represented" in President Prohens' sustainability pact.
Martí March.
MIQUEL NADAL Mayor of Soller
The first of the two round tables on this fourth day brought together mayors and councillors from several of Mallorca's tourist town councils. The mayor of Soller, Miquel Nadal, focused on the problems of road congestion in his municipality during the spring, aggravated by the proliferation of hire cars. "Residents are very annoyed," he admitted.
Miquel Nadal.
AGRIPINA ROCHA Councillor of Tourism of Capdepera
She focused on the need to improve connectivity with the municipalities furthest from the airport, such as Capdepera, among other reasons, due to the need to distribute the flow of visitors throughout the island as a key strategy against saturation.
Agripina Rocha.
JOAN MONJO Mayor of Santa Margalida
Monjo criticised the fact that many town councils "have not seen a single euro from the Sustainable Tourism Tax in the last six or seven years. How are we going to refurbish the structures like this? In this sense, he advocated more investment in infrastructures such as car parks, given that "tourists have changed their habits: before they didn't move from the hotel and the beach, and now they like to move around and spread their spending around".
Amengual emphasised the "infrastructure deficit" suffered by the Islands and warned of the risks of transferring tourism-phobic messages abroad, also highlighting the revaluation in the offer of a destination such as Magaluf, "vilified" in the past for its image as a destination for excess tourism. Likewise, he advocated giving a greater voice to the town councils in the Mesa del Pacto por la Sostenibilidad and claimed the value of initiatives such as Calvia's plan for the use of waste water in garden irrigation.
Juan Antonio Amengual.
JUAN LUIS GONZÁLEZ Alcúdia Councillor for the Treasury
González referred precisely to the case of Calvia as an example of a smooth change towards a higher quality offer and highlighted "the enormous amounts paid by tourism companies which are then returned to the Islands".
Juan Luis González.
JAIME RUIZ Co-founder of the Cities Forum
He addressed the importance of "promoting the decarbonisation of mobility", especially in the tourism sector. A task that, in his opinion, should involve "facilitating sustainable mobility services as much as possible with a wide variety of offers" so that tourists do not opt for more comfortable or cheaper options.
Jaime Ruiz.
MARIA FRONTERA President of FEHM
She opened the second round table by claiming the "important leaps" that the Mallorcan hotel industry has made in terms of circularity and sustainability, of which "it is still too early to see the results". He also highlighted the conversion in quality of the offer - with more than 70% of existing hotels with four and five stars - and advocated a generalised reduction in water consumption.
JUAN ALBA PIZÁ Operations Director of Adalmo
He referred to the value of "citizen awareness", which "does not appear in the statistical tables". He also highlighted the relevance of the product's digital passport as a key mechanism for consumers to make choices based on the sustainability of manufacturing processes. "It is the future of consumption.
Juan Alba Pizá.
MATEU FERRER Manager of the Balearic Energy Institute
He emphasised the concepts of "adaptation and mitigation" with practices such as the reuse of waste to make compost from local produce and questioned "senseless practices" that still occur today such as "desalinating water for a swimming pool that is ten metres from the sea".
Mateu Ferrer.
ÁNGEL FERNÁNDEZ HOMAR President of the Foundation for the Circular Economy
In his speech, Fernández focused on strategies for environmental preservation, warning that it would be more accurate to speak of a "spiral economy rather than a circular economy", given that "it is not possible to always close the circle due to pure thermodynamics: we always lose some matter or energy". He pointed to the problem of pollution caused by illegal landfills and advocated "positivising" through fiscal incentive policies "so that the circular product does not end up being more expensive".
Ángel Fernández Homar.
ALEJANDRO SÁENZ DE SAN PEDRO Minister of Enterprise and Energy
He was in charge of closing the conference. He did so by recalling the three axes in the fight for sustainability - economic, social and environmental - to which he added a fourth axis, the emotional. "We have to believe it," he said, adding that "they say that the best time to plant a tree is always 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
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