25 years of the ecotax, hoteliers against the Government

PalmaPromoted by Celestí Alomar, Minister of Tourism of the first Pacte de Progrés (1999-2003), a tax on tourist stays, immediately known as the ‘ecotax’, was approved on April 10, 2001, twenty-five years ago. It levied, approximately one euro per night, the stay of tourists. With the revenue, some negative externalities of mass tourism in the Balearic Islands were to be corrected. It did not come into effect until May 2002 due to an appeal to the Constitutional Court, filed by the Aznar government. When the People's Party won the following elections in 2003, it repealed the tax, considering it a brake on tourist competitiveness. Those who defended the repeal of the tax said that it could not be classified as ecological or environmental, and that it was not even a tax, arguing: “It was nothing more than a symbol of a policy of negative messages towards what tourism represented”. And they related the application of the ecotax to the decrease in tourist arrivals and the problems the hotel sector had experienced. The Government of Jaume Matas wanted to replace it with so-called green cards or ‘sustainable’ foundations that only collected a pittance.

On the return of the Pacte de Progrés, President Antich, in 2007, did not even want to remember his 'previous ecotax', and thus, by ellipsis, he demonized the former Minister of Tourism, Celestí Alomar, placing almost exclusive responsibility on him. The orders were strict: do not make waves, listen to the hoteliers, forgive them their faults. And the justification of the government pact that placed the Ministry of Tourism in the hands of Unió Mallorquina, or the crisis, is not enough. President Antich said, in order not to reintroduce the ecotax: “Tourism represents 60% of direct activity and 80% of indirect activity in the Balearic Islands; therefore, any policy must promote tourism and take into account its repercussions on the sector. The Government believes in a policy of collaboration with social agents and a criterion of transversality.” Very well. But no ecotaxes, the hysterical and systematic struggle that the hoteliers, allied to blood and fire with the Popular Party, presented to him was enough. It is enough to remember the president of the largest hotel chain celebrating the new triumph of Jaume Matas, in 2011, and the declarations of the white-haired hotelier making light of the positive psychological effects. The arrival of the new Pacte de Progrés, presided over by Francina Armengol in 2015, recovered it in 2016 under the name of Impost de Turisme Sostenible (ITS). A quarter of a century later, the tax has been accepted by the PP, which in the last two legislatures in opposition has been redirecting its criticisms towards the use of the revenue. Regarding the destination of the funds, one of the other battlehorses were or should be: protection, preservation, modernization and recovery of the natural, rural, agrarian and marine environment, promotion of de-seasonality, recovery of historical and cultural heritage, promotion of scientific innovation projects, improvement of training and promotion of employment in the low season.

Territorial and environmental management

The ecotax was born as a symbol of territorial and environmental management and became a constant in the political debate on the Balearic tourism model. “The hoteliers orchestrated a brutal campaign against it”, recounted President Antich before his death, who pointed out that, despite having the option to charge it by modules, the hoteliers opted to charge per client “to thus obtain greater rejection”. The war for the ecotax was enormous, but it is now history. Although, even now, the announcement by the current president of the Balearic Government, Margalida Prohens, to increase the tourist tax has garnered the critical unanimity of the three major hotel associations of the Islands: “It will harm the legal offer and will give wings to the illegal offer of tourist homes”. The head of the Melià chain, Gabriel Escarrer, stated at the time: “The increase in the tourist tax will produce a boomerang effect (against Balearic tourism), it will result in an exacerbation of saturation and that residents will get more and more fed up with the situation”. In short.

It was the ecotax, that of 2001-2003, besides a collection, a catalyst for a general debate on the economy and society of the Balearic Islands. A Manichean debate, without nuances, which brought to the fore the role of hoteliers against the Pact of Progress which, according to them, with the tax, attacked their interests, which coincided with the interests of tourism and, in turn, with the general interests of Balearic society. The debate was tinged with resentment. “We”, the hoteliers used to say, “who were in the right place at the right time, risking our money, have managed to pull this backward society, populated by ‘natives without shoes’ –as I heard one say–, out of its backwardness; we placed it at the highest levels of well-being –with some unwanted but unavoidable side effects–, and now we appear as the villains, discriminated against for being legal, tax collectors, responsible for environmental destruction, holders only of profits”, which, according to popular ideology, they reinvest largely abroad. In the discourse, a determining factor was what they called their “demonization”, the result of their real, aggressive, and open stance against the left-green-nationalist government known as the ‘Pact of Progress’.

It is true that tourism developed the middle classes, which the Balearic Islands had lacked. One of its most singular innovations. More than the contribution of a new (hotel) bourgeoisie. If the hoteliers want to arrogate to themselves the role of having served as a livelihood for this process, fine, but from here on it is not valid to impose the axiom of a bossy person of "do not bite the hand, in any way, of the one who feeds you". And I can even discuss it with that bombastic hotelier who said –while the others laughed at his joke– because of the ecotax: "The president will have to be removed or the minister killed"; which was the same as commenting: "We sound like morons speaking Mallorcan." This, in particular, was not the enlightened bourgeoisie we expected, but an "economic-business pressure lobby" and little else. Another thing is that with the victory over the ecotax they thought they were in more command than they actually were. It must be hard to be handed the responsibility of running a country, even if you have to do it from the shadows of de facto power.

Investments

With the first money collected with the ecotax, properties on the seafront were bought, cultural centers were inaugurated in Palma... If it had continued, if it had not been repealed, many millions of euros would have been collected today. Can you imagine all that could have been done? Leaving aside whether the ecotax was good or not (for some it was to be regenerative, for others it was devastating), the debate about its introduction was a topic that generated a very powerful collective discourse, to the point that, for the first time, the society of the Balearic Islands put tourism at the forefront of discussion. The 1999 elections, with the dismantling of the right from power, turned a technical issue, the introduction of a tax, into a true social catharsis, which increased until the 2003 elections approached. Social discourses, however, when tinged with sentiment and passion, tend towards Manichaeism, either for or against. Nuances were not allowed, either alongside the hoteliers and complementary tourist offerings or against them, or "in favor of progress, which in the Balearic Islands has come from tourism", or against progress, as the Pacte de Progrés did, according to the hoteliers and, paradoxically, the Pacte de Progrés.

However, this year, 2026, as many or more tourists will come than last year, the geopolitical carom that once again shows 'Mallorca' as a refuge destination from wars and terrorism for tourists, who are, by definition, fearful. Well, this ecotax was also, in principle, a sentimental matter, the cause of a social war, financed and stimulated by hoteliers, but now, no one thinks of repealing it, but rather how to invest the money collected. Beware of sentiments! And of your pocket, too.