Balearic Islands
Mallorca: Green tourism project meets with a lot of criticism
The word Palma is written in red letters on the beach promenade
© Stephan Schulz / Picture Alliance
At the Fitur tourism fair, the regional president of the Balearic Islands announced a five-year plan for more sustainability in Mallorca. Particularly curious: Among other things, the hoteliers are to purchase 300,000 height-adjustable beds.
The announcement of a law for more sustainable and social tourism in Mallorca and the other Balearic Islands has met with little enthusiasm from all concerned. For various reasons, both hoteliers’ associations and an association of chambermaids reacted skeptically to the statements made by regional president Francina Armengol at the Fitur tourism fair in Madrid. While the hoteliers are concerned about the financing of the planned measures, a chambermaid spokeswoman dismissed the project as a “band-aid”.
According to Armengol, EU funds of 55 million euros are available for the ambitious program. But this number does not calm the corona-plagued hoteliers. “It is discouraging that in this situation where we have a pandemic that we have not yet overcome, when we have other problems to solve, such things are being asked for,” said the President of the Cala Millor Hoteliers Association in east Mallorca, Maria Ines Batle. The president of the Mallorcan hoteliers’ association FEHM, María Frontera, described the project as “important”, but warned: “We are not in a position to make large expenditures.”
But not only the entrepreneurs, but also the affected employees are anything but satisfied. The socialist Armengol had announced, among other things, that the very hard work of making the bed, which is almost exclusively done by women, would be made easier. To this end, the hotels in Mallorca, Formentera, Ibiza and Menorca are to purchase a total of 300,000 new, height-adjustable beds from 2023. “This is just a new patch, especially since it will initially only be implemented in four and five-star hotels,” complained Milagros Carreño, spokeswoman for Ibiza and Formentera for the regional chambermaid association Kellys Unió Balear.
lowering of the retirement age
In an interview with the radio station “Onda Cero”, the spokeswoman also complained that the housekeeping staff’s most important demands had still not been heard: a legally stipulated reduction in the workload and a lowering of the retirement age to at least 60. Carreño: “If you have been in a hotel for 30 years works, you’re completely exhausted by the time you’re 60. How are you supposed to keep working until you’re 67?”
Where Mallorca’s eco-tax millions go
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Armengol wants to make the Balearic Islands the “first tourism region in the world with a circular economy”. To this end, as part of a five-year plan, the hotels should, among other things, reduce their consumption of energy and water and use rainwater, develop a strategy for avoiding waste, do away with disposable hygienic packaging and replace oil heaters with natural gas or electric boilers.
Tourism is vital for the Balearic Islands: There, as in Spain only on the Canary Islands, the industry accounts for around 35 percent of the regional economic output. In the last year before the pandemic (2019), around 16.5 million visitors were counted. Germans and Brits make up by far the largest proportion of guests.
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