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  • Essay / The triggering role of Europe in the development of Mallorca

    Thus, sustainable tourism is necessary today on an environmental level. To address the problems of coastal degradation, pollution and water supply, policy-making plays a crucial role, at different levels. This part aims to analyze the different policies involved in the implementation of sustainable tourism in coastal degradation, pollution and water supply in Mallorca and to what extent they are effective. The role of European and Spanish policies must be taken into account to understand Mallorca's policy making. While Europe launched the first sustainable development policies, the micropolicy application in Mallorca is more effective in achieving sustainable tourism. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay Europe played a triggering role in the implementation of sustainable development in the early 1980s (Pridham, 2007) . Awareness in Europe of environmental quality for tourists began in the 1990s as tourism became popular (Pridham, 2007). In 1992, the council of ministers decided to create a policy at European level to strengthen tourism (Pridham, 2007). For example, the Fifth Environmental Action Program of 1992, also known as "Towards Sustainability", of which tourism was one of the five objectives, aimed to "maintain the overall quality of life, avoid environmental demand sustainable, consider a sustainable environment as sustainable. development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (“Towards Sustainability”, 1992). [JA3] However, the effectiveness of policies must be nuanced. If Europe has undertaken some actions and started to integrate tourism and sustainable tourism into its concerns, its role has been really limited and partially effective. Thus, Europe did not succeed in really imposing its policies on countries, because it was not a rule that gave it all power in matters of tourism policies (Pridham, 2007). Second, the size of the tourism-related environmental subsector was increasing. For example, it was difficult for Europe to implement a rule regarding coastal beach degradation because not all countries were affected equally. It is difficult for Europe to have a “one size fits all” policy when tourism is so multidimensional (Pridham, 2007). Although these policies were far from perfect, they had the merit of providing international legitimacy for sustainable development. European policies played more of a triggering than decisive role in sustainable tourism policies in Mallorca and pushed Spain to strengthen its own policy in the early 1990s. Spain's interest in sustainable tourism began around 1990 (Pridham, 2007). Due to the precession of European institutions and the destruction of many coastal sites[JA5], increased pollution and water supply problems, Spain's response was pragmatic rather than motivated as as such by the ideology of sustainable tourism. In general, policies had a more strategic approach to linking environment and tourism and strengthened efforts to control and limit the value effect of tourism, and aimed to develop alternative forms of tourism. The particularity of Spanish sustainable tourism policies is their micropolitical application. They are directly created and implemented by the region or municipality, rather than at the government level (Pridham, 2007). Thus, theMallorca's policies were able to target the main problem of beach degradation, pollution and water supply. Mallorca's policies have generally been successful in making Mallorca a sustainable place. The aim of this part is to describe the motivations behind the establishment of a sustainable tourism policy, the process and the success in Mallorca from the 1990s to the present. This series of legislative acts was effective because it was specific and implemented by the Autonomous Community of the Balearic Islands. Because it was small scale, the authorities were truly concerned about the needs of Mallorca and able to ensure that policies were carried out. Sustainable tourism as a whole began to be implemented after the 1992 Rio Summit (Summit, 1992). This international summit on sustainable tourism resulted in the creation of Agenda 21 - a framework for sustainable action in the 21st century (Summit, 1992). Following this model, each territory can develop its own Agenda 21; Local Agenda 21. This is what the territory of Mallorca has implemented in its territory, on a tourism level, to achieve more sustainable tourism and make Mallorca a better sustainable place. (Dodds, 2007). The Calvia Tourism Board approved the new urban plans and adopted them as a model for sustainable development in 1995 (Dodds, 2007). The main objective of the plan was to tackle the problem of uncontrolled growth and water supply, restore the surrounding landscape and improve the quality of amenities (Dodds, 2007). When examining the implementation of Calvià's local Agenda 21 sustainable tourism strategy, several issues related to climate change emerge. Regarding coastal beach degradation, marine dredging that was previously used to regenerate beaches was stopped (Garcia & Servera, 2003) and measures to minimize erosion were used (Dodds & Kelman, 2008). To combat pollution globally, some concrete initiatives have been put in place within the framework of local Agenda 21. Few pedestrian zones were created, encouraging fewer motorized vehicles in the area, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Trees have also been planted to absorb carbon and provide shade from temperature increases (Dodds and Kelman, 2008). Furthermore, in 1998 the Balearic Government presented the “Proposal for a Hydrological Plan for the Balearic Islands”. This report sets targets for water supply and management in Mallorca. The following policies were applied: A desalination plan in the Bay of Palma was opened in 1995, recycled and treated water was favored and the authorities encouraged reasonable use of water and penalized unnecessary use and extravagant on the part of consumers (Kent, Newnham & Essex, 2002). Another global solution to mass tourism is the “ecotax”, also called “tourism tax”. Proposed in Proposal in 1999 by the regional government's Pact for Progress (Kent, Newnham and Essex, 2002). The “Ecotourism Taxes” were finally put into effect on July 1, 2016, after lengthy discussions between Spanish governments. Up to 2 euros per day, they must be paid by the tourist depending on the place where they stay... the new tourist tax should bring in between 60 and 70 million euros per year, which will be devoted to tourism projects sustainable in Mallorca. However, if there is a real desire on the part of the authorities to implement sustainable tourism in Mallorca, the effectiveness of this policy must be qualified. Research by Dodds (2007) and Pridham (2007) shows that the lack of stakeholder involvement, integration and coordination did not allow for full.