Challenges and future of regional sports port management (Round Table)
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Challenges and future of regional sports port management (Round Table)
José Antonio Álvarez Vidal, President of Portos de Galicia
Ignacio Álvarez Osorio, General Director of Ports of Andalusia
Antonio Mercant Morato, General Director of Ports of the Balearics
Enric Martínez Sastre, Southern Director of Ports of Catalonia
One of the most anticipated roundtables of the symposium brought together the top officials of sports ports from four key autonomous communities.
And the message was clear: regional administrations are fed up with the State treating them like “minors” who need guardianship. Literal words from Ignacio Álvarez Osorio, who didn’t mince words.
The underlying problem: the Coastal Law
The elephant in the room is the Coastal Law. While ports of general state interest can do practically whatever they want (including hotels with authorization from the Council of Ministers), regional ports have their hands tied.
As Álvarez Osorio explained with evident irony: “It’s curious how a hotel seems to harm the maritime-terrestrial public domain if we do it in a regional port, but if the port changes ownership and becomes state-owned, then it doesn’t harm the public domain”.
Autonomous communities have exclusive competencies in ports that are not of general interest, but they cannot exercise them with the same freedom as State Ports. Something that makes no sense and that everyone agrees needs to change.
Andalusia: from interventionism to the Landlord model
Ignacio Álvarez Osorio presented the radical turn they are taking in Andalusia. After years of very interventionist management, they are going to bet on:
- Private investments: Significant investments in sports ports will be private
- Bringing public ports to market: With strong public supervision, but private management
- Landlord model: The administration provides the basic infrastructure, the rest is done by the private sector
But with a fundamental condition: not to expel social boating from the market. They are very concerned that investment funds and megayachts displace family boating, real sports boating, social boating.
That’s why tenders will especially value:
- Quality of service
- Balanced coverage of all market segments
- Social impact on the territory
- And limit the weight of economic offers (not everything should be about who pays the most)
Balearics: against nautical gentrification
Antonio Mercant went straight to the point with a problem that’s on everyone’s lips: nautical gentrification. That process by which the local citizen with their boat to go squid fishing is being expelled by purely commercial models.
Although when analyzing the data they saw it’s not as serious as it seems (in marinas 17% is dedicated to commercial activities, in yacht clubs between 6-8%), they do recognize there’s a worrying trend.
The problem came with berth sales by the Balearic Port Authority at brutal prices, focused on large lengths, which have literally expelled those who cannot pay those fees.
The Balearic response: in their five new pontoons they have required that 20% of berths be allocated to rental, and they have valued technical over economic criteria. In fact, one of the winners was a yacht club.
And an important reflection: specifications must be agreed BEFORE with the sector, not approve them and then wait for appeals. When the specification is approved it’s already too late to change anything.
Catalonia: governance as the axis
Enric Martínez focused on something that sounds very institutional but is fundamental: governance. That is, how decisions are made and who participates.
They have gone from an Advisory Council where each sector went to ask “what about mine” once a year, to a model where:
- Work is done in specific commissions
- In complex ports (with boating, fishing, industry, etc.) specific port councils are created
- Everyone participates in the global strategy, not just their own plot
Objective: for everyone to see that “if there’s yours, there may not be the other’s”, and become aware of the port as a shared ecosystem.
Galicia: the Natura Network challenge
José Antonio Álvarez Vidal was clear: “The luck of intervening is to do it hand in hand with the three most advanced communities, we don’t hide what league we play in”.
Galicia has a brutal singularity: its entire coastline, including ports, is Natura 2000 Network. That which sounds very ecological becomes a bureaucratic nightmare for any expansion or improvement.
Added to that, they have double imposition of the fee (regional and state) and 64 fishing guilds coexisting with boating (to see the complexity).
But the interesting thing is that there is good relationship between fishing and boating. And that, in Galicia, is no small thing.
Their future bets:
- Real public-private collaboration (and they underline it, “for real”)
- Administrative simplification: they integrate into the technological modernization agency with 4 million FEMPA funds
- Extend concession periods to 50 years (already approved in Galician law)
- Generational renewal: they are very concerned about the lack of young talent in the sector
What is social boating? The million-dollar debate
A question from the audience gave Álvarez Vidal the opportunity to clarify something fundamental: “I refer to yacht clubs that do boating, social boating. There is some yacht club in Galicia that doesn’t even have a pontoon, doesn’t have a sailing school, doesn’t do training. Is that a yacht club?”
Clear message: the privileges that yacht clubs have (concessions without competition, bonuses, etc.) must be justified by their real social function. It’s not enough to call yourself a yacht club and just be a social club for drinking gin and tonics.
Antonio Mercant coined a term that was well liked: popular boating. That neighbor with their modest boat who goes fishing with the family. The one who can’t compete with megayacht prices but has every right in the world to access the sea.
The uncomfortable question: hotels in regional ports?
Álvarez Osorio was clear: he is in favor, but only as a specialized complement to a broader nautical project. Not to turn ports into general hotel zones, but for accommodation linked to courses, regattas, skippers, etc.
The problem: Costas prohibits it. And there we return to the beginning: the same competencies that state ports have, but without the same decision-making capacity.
A historic consensus
Something that Álvarez Vidal highlighted and deserves underlining: the ten autonomous communities with coastline, of different political signs, agree on requesting a radical change in coastal legislation regarding regional ports.
“You can rarely see greater unanimity”, he acknowledged.
Conclusion: modernize or die
Everyone agreed on the same thing:
- Urgent modernization: Ports are from the last century in management, facilities, services and environmental sensitivity
- Optimize before expanding: It’s difficult to get more sheltered water, we have to squeeze what we have better
- Technology and digitalization: Essential to provide good service and optimize resources
- Balance of segments: Yes to megayachts and their economic impact, but without expelling family and social boating
- Change the Coastal Law: Same competence level for regional ports as for state ports
A roundtable that demonstrated that, beyond territorial differences, there is a shared diagnosis and a clear will to modernize the sector. Now the State needs to listen.