Log: Tourist tax or a kick in the Balearics?

Anyone arriving in Majorca, Menorca or Ibiza for a holiday from this Wednesday is in for a taxing surprise when the Balearic Islands regional government starts imposing a tourist tax.

The extra cost works out at about £1 per person per night - adding around £40 to the price of a fortnight's holiday for a family of four. Arriving tourists will be asked to fork out as they check in at their hotel. Welcome to Majorca.

The regional government says the money raised by the tax will go towards environmental and social programmes designed to make resorts better places for residents and tourists alike.

Jolly good thing, then - if you've ever been to Majorca you'll know that since mass tourism began in the late Fifties, it has produced a fairly substantial blot on the landscape. In the main resorts such as Magaluf and Arenal, the tower-block hotels look more like Sixties-era council estates than somewhere you would contemplate for a relaxing break.

In fairness, over the past decade the authorities have invested heavily in an attempt to smarten up resorts. At Magaluf and neighbouring Palma Nova, elegantly landscaped seafront promenades show what can be achieved.

I don't doubt the local government's heart may be in the right place. I do doubt, however, the wisdom of trying to bring about environmental change through the blunt instrument of a tourist tax. This summer, bookings to Majorca in particular are heavily down on last year - possibly by as much as a quarter - so this hardly seems the best time to be introducing extra charges.

What concerns me most is that if Majorca has suffered bad tourist blight in the past 40 years, it is pretty much Majorca's own fault. Local developers - abetted, I'm sure, by tour operators, including the British - built lots of nasty hotels and local businessmen made a lot of money out of them. But asking today's tourists to fork out for the mistakes of the past doesn't make sense.

Beautifying Majorca is surely part of the regional government's normal responsibility and should be funded from normal taxes.

The tourist tax sets up a worrying precedent, not just in Majorca but in any other tourist destination that may feel it has been hard done by. And, as we all know, taxes once imposed have a habit of being increased over the years.

If the Balearic authorities prefer, we could make things easier for them by staying away altogether. Then they could knock down all the hotels and live in uninterrupted peace. But something tells me that's not what they want.

They want us to keep coming in ever greater numbers. And they want to stand in line with the rest of the people we may encounter on our travels abroad - everyone from timeshare touts and muggers to rapacious taxi drivers - who think holidaymakers are a soft touch.

The sad truth seems to be that a soft touch is just what we are.

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