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| Number 7 | December 2000 | ||||||
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For a sustainable tourism Interview with Macià Blázquez Salom,
In the beginning, in Mallorca, tourism developed in resorts around the sea. In our relationship with the tourists, we Mallorcans had the upper hand. We owned hotels; we had our houses and our countryside, all in good shape. But as the tourist influx has increased, things have changed. In 1990, there were 6 million. Last year, there were 11,400,000; so the nuclei of intense tourist activity are overflowing with people, and they are invading space that, up until now, had belonged only to Mallorcans. Before now, a tourist nucleus only affected its own very local area, it had long-lasting repercussions, but they were only local. Now, even our natural heritage is feeling it. The attraction to our cultural heritage lead to some tourists buying palaces and other large properties, houses in the villages, nice apartments in town, and we Mallorcans are being shoved away. What reaction should we have in the face of such an overwhelming tourist presence? The alternative in the works is to decide whether or not it is worth keeping tourists in closed tourist centres, like so many farms, and if that would be setting a sort of border. Most of the tourists that come to Mallorca do so looking for the sunshine, a secure atmosphere, someplace nice, comfortable, safe; they do not come looking to visit a church or a fragile, pristine natural space. So the reaction of the majority (and perhaps it is not a very intelligent reaction) is to say, "let's go back to the intensive model, and the more control, the better". It's a little like xenophobia or racism. Our reaction would be to close ourselves off. But perhaps the more intelligent alternative (and, I think, the more advanced one) is the one proposed by Samir Amin. He says that the process being put into motion now, developed by forces within the capitalist market, is that of globalisation, the free circulation of capital, and above all, of control by capital and multinational companies. True globalisation would then consist of having a democratic control on behalf of the citizens. In order to have that, it would be necessary to become aware of belonging to a global collective. From this point of view, the tourist industry could actually favour it. But one must have much faith in people's ability to grow. To go beyond what tourism can offer us. The tourist industry offers us alienation; so it is happening in Mallorca. As soon as the tourists arrive in Mallorca, they don't want olive and carob trees, they want to see palm trees, and so the tourist areas are all full of palms. They don't want a system of dunes with junipers and salt flats--they want tropical vegetation and water, lakes and waterfalls, and there's none of that stuff in Mallorca: it's like set from an American movie. One must be very optimistic in order to analyse the way people are, how blind and how alienated people are. And even so, one must continue to trust that the best option is progress and spiritual growth, and the relationship between people, because that's the only way out. The Catalan philosopher, Raimon Panikkar, is very pessimistic in his explanations (as I understand them, anyway); he says that we have become alienated, that we don't understand one another, and that we will continually rely on armament and fall back on xenophobia, etc. But then, after all that, he smiles and says: "but we must trust in mankind". Mankind is the hope that can resolve our problems; we must grow spiritually; we must increase the number of groups where people can exchange ideas, and convince them of this. There is a continuing controversy between saying "things were so great in the Palaeolithic, things were great when the tourists never left the sandbox" and saying "we have to be able to take the leap, and to get to the other side". Finding the point of equilibrium can be very difficult and problematical.
In Mallorca and in the Balearic Islands in general, it's difficult to think of activities that could be alternatives to tourism, since until tourist activity began, our source of income was the exportation of agricultural products, since there really was no industry. Plus, the tourist industry has the advantage (in theory) of being one of the most sustainable activities, more so than industry, mining, or intensive agriculture and many other activities that mean having to produce something, since the tourist industry is based on providing services. If you compare the resulting countryside, tourism is much better than the industries or trade that goes on in El Vallès (an area near Barcelona). Potentially, tourism could give way to more exchange and to an appreciation of heritage -more so than trade or industry. In fact, it is the sublimation of the desire to learn, to know. What happens is that it doesn't occur, because people act much more unthinkingly. Tourism should be the quintessential example of the progress of civilization. It is impossible to renounce mass tourism, since that is what makes it possible for the Balearic Islands to have the highest per capita income in all of the Spanish State. People live opulently, and the level of consumerism in the islands is extraordinary. This seems to me, in some ways, a paradox. The Balearic Islands have more ecologists per thousand inhabitants than any other region in Spain. It's as though people, subconsciously, say that they are ecologists because they got the message, or because there is a belief that tourism is compatible with heritage and ecology. Hotel people, the syndicalists are the first to say they're ecologists. I think that that's tourism's lot in a way. You go looking for it as a way to get people to recognize heritage, and a way to get cultural exchange going. Hospitality, multiculturalism, and cosmopolitanism in their positive aspects--you can find it in Mallorca. In fact, in the Balearic Islands, there is a reaction to the process we are talking about. During this past legislation, 52 housing developments were reclassified as non-developable. Plus, 40% of the Islands is protected by law as natural space in the face of urbanization. Public administration has finally started to do something, although late, about slowing down urban growth. In my opinion, no more building should take place. It needs to straightened out and cleaned up a little. Now, as of a year ago, we have a government whose council is in the hands of the Green Party. I mean it couldn't get any better. But even so, they can't stop it, because the economic forces are just too enormous. But there is a deeper problem, because it's not about us--it's about future generations and other people who are worse off than we are. This is a struggle. It's a problem we need to solve by getting together and talking things over. At least it's clear we have alternatives, and you just have to go for the one that seem possible. We know that some things are better than others, and this is the way we are going to have to go. Exactly what is the "ecotaxa" project? Basically, the Ecotaxa project is a plan to charge tourists an average of one euro per night, for the purpose of collecting funds to be used for heritage protection, or, basically, managing natural spaces and managing cultural heritage. In the end, there have been two more focuses: the first is environmental improvement in tourist nuclei, sprucing things up, places to walk, open public spaces, wastebaskets, trees, anything having to do with enhancing spaces used for tourism. The second has been put forth by farmers who have also asked for funding from the same source in order to help protect the rural environment and farm products from the Balearic Islands. They also want the hotels to advertise about consuming fruits and vegetables from Mallorca, instead of bringing them in from Almeria or Holland. Ecological tourism: would it be a solution? More ecological tourism doesn't generate millions. The problem is that now, those options, such as a healthier tourism, agro-tourism or eco-tourism just adds to the other 11 million. You don't just say "I'm going to take a million tourists out of the sandbox, and I'm going to put them all in Porreres (a village in the interior)". It would be great, but you have to get them out of the sandbox first. You'd have to reduce accommodation capacity to 50,000, which, by the end of the year, means 1 million tourists with an average stay of 11 days, and we could get them all to practice Eco-Tourism, or whatever. But you can't do it like that. First these 50,000 come, and then another, but they all stay. This is really dangerous. (Interview by Sylvie Payette and Philippe Guirlet, 18 November 2000)
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