Co-operatives in southern Spain: their development in the rural ...

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Co-operatives in Southern Spain: their. Development in the Rural Tourism Sector in Andalucı¬a. Michael Barke* and John Eden. Division of Geography and ...
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH Int. J. Tourism Res. 3, 199±210 (2001) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.311

Co-operatives in Southern Spain: their Development in the Rural Tourism Sector in AndalucõÂa Michael Barke* and John Eden Division of Geography and Environmental Management, Lipman Building, University of Northumbria at Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK

ABSTRACT This paper examines the characteristics of a number of recently established rural tourism co-operatives in AndalucõÂa, southern Spain against the background of the theory of cooperatives as economic organisations. The origins and composition of the co-operatives are examined, their local impact, their policies on employment and remuneration, and their internal management characteristics. Few of the businesses in the sample appear to possess the characteristics of the `ideal type' of co-operative identi®ed in the literature. Although small-scale, bene®cial impacts may be identi®ed within their localities, these appear to be no different to those associated with any small business organisation in the rural tourism sector. Furthermore, it is concluded that their prospects for developing genuine alternative forms of employment structures are not strong, partly owing to the circumstances of their foundation and partly because of the very nature of rural tourism itself, where extreme seasonality imposes a very speci®c labour regime. Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received 11 April 1999; Revised 26 September 2000; Accepted 10 October 2000

* Correspondence to: Dr Michael Barke, Division of Geography and Environmental Management, Lipman Building, University of Northumbria at Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST. E-mail: [email protected]

Keywords: co-operativesÐtheory and practice; rural tourism; AndalucõÂa; commercial pressures; local impact; problems and prospects. INTRODUCTION

T

he development of rural tourism has been accorded a key role in the diversi®cation of the Spanish tourism industry. Two widely recognised and long-term processes help to explain the signi®cance attached to the promotion of this particular form of tourism development. One is the overconcentration of Spanish tourism generally in the `sun and beach' sector and its contingent spatial overconcentration. The other is the even longer term process of rural decline, as manifest in out-migration and the increasing fragility of rural economies. Against this background, there has been considerable and understandable enthusiasm for various forms of rural tourism as instruments of diversi®cation of both rural economies and the tourism industry more generally (Bote Gomez, 1988, 1992; Junta de AndalucõÂa, 1993). An examination of one particular form of rural tourism development forms the subject of this paper, namely the development of co-operative enterprises. The paper is concerned with this development in the southern Spanish region of AndalucõÂa, a region that bears witness to both these trends. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that tourism co-operatives have, with signi®cant of®cial support, begun to emerge in the recent past (FAECTA, 1995; Newton, 1997). Using data gathered from two surveys in the rural, upland, areas of Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

200 AndalucõÂaÐthe ®rst a postal questionnaire sent to a number of tourism co-operatives and the second a series of in-depth interviews with a smaller sample of theseÐthe main body of this paper will explore the structure, conduct and performance in terms of local impact of a number of rural tourism cooperatives. It is concluded that, although small-scale, bene®cial impacts may be identi®ed within their localities, these appear to be no different to those associated with any small business organisation in the rural tourism sector. In fact, the majority of the organisations interviewed do not conform to the `ideal type' of co-operative and, in most cases, the commercial realities of the tourism industry introduce pressures for convergence towards a conventional `small business' model. However, co-operation in the agricultural sector has a long tradition in AndalucõÂa (Salmon, 1995; Simpson, 1995) as, indeed, does co-operation over a variety of rural tasks (PittRivers, 1954). It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that attempts should be made to turn this feature to advantage against the onset of rural decline and pressures for various forms of rural restructuring. Rural tourism, through its potential for diversi®cation of rural economies, has been regarded by some as a panacea for a wide variety of rural ills (Garcia Cuesta, 1996). Therefore, against a background of rural decline we have attempts to promote alternative activities and alternative organisational structures, taking advantage of what appears to be a signi®cant tradition of co-operative enterprise. Yet, it has been argued that cooperatives tend to emerge `¼around cracks and fault-lines in the society of their time, marking by their presence problems that the existing social system cannot or would not solve.' (Stryjan, 1994a). The circumstances of the `birth' of co-operatives in the ®eld of rural tourism may, therefore, not be propitious for their subsequent health. Initially, however, it is necessary to provide a contextual framework within which the primary research can be evaluated. THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF COOPERATIVES In reviewing the basic characteristics of coCopyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

M. Barke and J. Eden operatives, a fundamental distinction has been made between the `individualist' and the `collective' positions (Young and Rigge, 1983). The former represents an essentially pragmatic point of view that economic success is more likely to be achieved if members have a direct personal ®nancial interest in the business. The basis of this argument is that, with members having a personal, capital stake, they are more likely to regard the co-operative as their own and exert themselves for it (Kasmir, 1996). In this interpretation, it is essential that members share in capital appreciation and have this re¯ected in the values of their individual shares. This `individualist' perspective undoubtedly goes a long way towards solving the problems that many co-operatives have in raising capital and the most frequently cited successful example of this approach is, of course, the Mondragon co-operative in Spain's northern province of GuipuÂzcoa (Thomas and Logan, 1982). For the `collectivists', however, such ideas are anathema and have the effect of destroying the co-operative ideal by turning members into individual small capitalists (Cornforth, 1995) and, in the speci®c case of Mondragon, it has been argued that its origin was `¼an entrepreneurial alternative to working-class activism and socialism.' (Kasmir, 1996, p. 195). At a more functional level there also is the danger inherent within the `individualist' position that the organisation itself might be threatened if members wish to withdraw their investment or were to succumb to the temptation to distribute too much of the pro®ts rather than reinvesting in the business. The position that any individual co-operative occupies between these two extremes is likely to be in¯uenced by the nature of the business that the co-operative is engaged in (Hansmann, 1990). For example, if the business is labour-intensive with low capital costs the `inputs' of members may be judged more in terms of their labour, energy and initiative. This may apply to some touristrelated activities but, for many others, for example those relating to the provision of accommodation, substantial initial capital investment usually is required. In modern Europe co-operatives of most kinds have to attempt to reconcile the need to maintain economic ef®ciency in order to Int. J. Tourism Res. 3, 199±210 (2001)

Tourism Co-operatives in Spain survive within a capitalist environment with the basically anti-capitalist philosophy of cooperation. However, it has been argued that, for many, it is the subjective appeal of cooperation that provides the greatest motivation and allows individual members to come to terms with what may, objectively, appear as an irreconcilable situation: ¼very few people have the opportunity to ply their trade for their whole life, support their family and make preparations for a decent retirement without for one moment betraying their ideals about human relationships. A co-op member has the rare advantage of sticking to his principles while providing to his material needs. (Antoni, 1983, p. 41) The same authority has argued that a co-op member is often taking on the ®nancial risks of an entrepreneur along with the moral responsibilities of a trade union representative and therefore the informal, subjective aspects of a co-operative's formation are as important as the formal characteristics relating, for example, to legal and ®nancial structures. A pragmatic approach is essential for survival and Antoni (1983) identi®es three areas, which he regards as the key to a successful co-operative. The ®rst relates to the composition of the cooperative. It is important that founder members have some previous knowledge of each other and that each knows that they can rely on their fellow members to work for the common good. New recruits must not be seen solely as additional labour but as potential future members with similar qualities and ideological orientation as the founders. Second, the cooperative should have clearly de®ned aims that are known and understood by everyone. If members are being required to make sacri®ces it is vital that they know to what end they are being made and when that end has been achieved. Third, just as with any new business, it is vital that the co-operative has a clear and viable business plan with issues such as the product, the market and the necessary resources being considered in precise and realistic detail. In other words, Antoni's (1983) view is that the co-operative must have the same discipline as any other small business. Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

201 It is likely, therefore, that co-operatives face more dif®culties than most conventional companies in establishing themselves. Success depends upon favourable economic circumstances and members with suf®cient ideological commitment to hold together the contradictions inherent in operating a cooperative within a capitalist economy. In reality, co-operatives are likely to vary in the extent to which they are prepared to compromise and various categorisations have appeared in the literature. For example, Levi (1994) identi®ed a series of ideal types on the basis of a range of `internal' and `external' characteristics. A similar but more functional classi®cation is provided by Mellor et al. (1988) and their three broad categories will be used as analytical categories later in this paper. `Small business' co-operatives may be characterised as possessing a low commitment to the cooperative ideal. Their main purpose is likely to be job creation and co-operative principles may be subordinated to the establishment of a viable business. In some cases, the cooperative may have come into existence only in order to secure access to the support agencies. `Participative' co-operatives have a commitment to democratic decision making within the constraints of the market. Although there is a commitment to co-operative principles, their adoption may be prevented by the constraints of insuf®cient income or lack of adequate skills. `Ideological' co-operatives are likely to have a full commitment to cooperative principles, even at the expense of pro®tability and the principle of co-operation is an end in itself. THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN SPAIN The modern co-operative movement in Spain developed in the nineteenth century but without signi®cant government support and in the absence of a strong trade union movement. The ®rst national organisation, the National Committee for Spanish Co-operatives was set up in the mid-1890s and the ®rst national congress was held in 1913 (Bartlett and Pridham, 1991). Co-operatives were most successful in Catalonia, which by 1908 possessed 266 such groups. Of®cial recognition Int. J. Tourism Res. 3, 199±210 (2001)

202 had to wait until the fall of the monarchy in 1931 and, with the outbreak of the Civil War in July 1936, their number increased rapidly, especially in Aragon and Catalonia where the tradition of the anarchist movement was strong. In the countryside, many rural estates were expropriated and co-operatives formed to cultivate the land (CercoÂs PeÂrez, 1974). By 1937 over 2700 co-operatives had been created (Castillo, 1979; Simpson, 1995). Many of these were short-lived, however, and although cooperatives were not made illegal, Franco's victory in 1939 brought this process to an abrupt end. Co-operatives became subject to rigorous legal control under a law of 1942, which remained in force for the next 32 years. Growth in the co-operative sector was inhibited by this legislation but it did not prevent the foundation in 1956 of Spain's most famous and apparently successful co-operative at Mondragon. The return to democracy in 1975, however, brought about a rapid improvement in the fortunes of the co-operative movement in Spain (Newton, 1997) and Article 129 of the new democratic constitution made the support of the state explicit: The public authorities shall ef®ciently promote the various forms of participation within companies and shall encourage cooperative societies by means of appropriate legislation; they shall also establish means to facilitate access by workers to the means of production. (quoted in Bartlett and Pridham, 1991, p. 12). With political devolution in the 1980s, legal responsibility for co-operatives was assumed by the newly established regional autonomous governments and, by 1985, laws had been passed by governments in the Basque Country, Catalonia, AndalucõÂa and Valencia. By this time the co-operative movement in Spain was one of the largest in Europe, second only to Italy (Martinez, 1987). In 1990 the number of of®cially recognised co-operatives in Spain stood at 13 193, employing 229 095 workers (Junta de AndalucõÂa, 1994). There is little doubt that the support offered by government at both regional and national levels has been central to this recent growth (Monzon Campos, 1989; Lewis and Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

M. Barke and J. Eden Williams, 1988). AndalucõÂa contains 32% of all Cooperativas de Trabajo Asociado or worker cooperatives in Spain and, after the Basque country, has the highest proportion of its economically active population working in co-operatives (2.1%). There is now just one association in AndalucõÂa that represents cooperatives in negotiations with higher levels, this being FAECTA (Federacion Andaluza de Empresas Cooperativas de Trabajo Asociado), which functions as a cross between a trade association and a trade union (personal interview with David Pino, Technical Director, FAECTA, 1 February 1996, Seville). At the same time it works to promote the co-operative sector and to improve the ef®ciency and pro®tability of its individual members through devoting resources to training in vocational skills and co-operative management. The FAECTA performs a potentially important role for small co-operatives in encouraging them to act together for mutual bene®t, for example, through joint marketing or by cost sharing, and by encouraging the formation of secondary co-operatives. Tourism co-operatives were pioneered within AndalucõÂa and David Pino claims that it still contains the greatest number. In 1990, however, there were only 111 worker co-operatives listed in the rather odd joint category of HostelarõÂa y reparaciones (Junta de AndalucõÂa, 1994), but there is no means of knowing which were concerned exclusively with rural tourism. It seems likely, however, that the number has increased in recent years as FAECTA's publication Economia Social Andaluza claims that there are more than 100 rural tourism cooperatives within the region (FAECTA, 1995). It is likely that the actual number of rural tourism co-operatives is highly volatile and the ¯uctuation within just a few years is likely to be considerable. Thus, the estimate of 100 plus may be overoptimistic. It is signi®cant, for example, that also in 1995 the Junta de AndalucõÂa organised a promotion of co-operative tourism at FITUR (Feria Internacional de Turismo) and published an associated lea¯et, but this speci®ed only 27 rural tourism cooperatives. It is clear that FAECTA sees an important role for co-operatives in tourism more generally but has chosen to encourage their formation within rural tourism, espeInt. J. Tourism Res. 3, 199±210 (2001)

Tourism Co-operatives in Spain cially in market niches that are of little interest to commercial companies (Pino, 1996). A SURVEY OF TOURISM CO-OPERATIVES IN ANDALUCIÂA A small number of rural tourism co-operatives in AndalucõÂa were surveyed in two stages. The ®rst stage consisted of a postal questionnaire designed to yield information on issues such as the origins and composition of the co-operatives, training and experience, employment policy, internal structure and management and ®nance. This was followed by a smaller number of more detailed personal interviews with selected co-operatives, designed to pursue a number of issues in depth. In the ®rst stage, addresses listed in the lea¯et prepared by the Junta de AndalucõÂa for FITUR '95, were used to send out a questionnaire to the 27 co-operatives within the region and 14 replies were received. The second stage of the research involved carrying out detailed interviews in January 1996 with ®ve co-operatives in the province of Granada. Of these, three had not responded to the initial questionnaire so their details could be added to the 14 collected in the ®rst stage, increasing the total number of individual co-operatives surveyed to 17. However, as some of the cooperatives that returned the questionnaire failed to answer all the questions, the sample size varies from question to question. The activities of the respondents can be grouped broadly into three main categories: (i) hotels/hostels/restaurants (®ve respondents); (ii) camping and related activities (®ve respondents); (iii) other tourism services (seven respondents). This ®nal category includes a variety of activities ranging from excursions and equestrianism to a gymnasium and educational services. Origins and composition The oldest co-operatives in the sample date back only to 1985, with four of the 17 being founded in that year. The most recent dated from 1996 and the average age was 6.7 years. Ten of the 17 co-operatives were established with the minimum legal number of ®ve members, with the largest consisting of nine Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

203 members. The ratio of males to females was 61% to 39%, with two of the co-operatives consisting entirely of men. Of the original members, the majority (91%) had known each other for more than six months at the time of formation although, unfortunately, it was not clear from the survey whether or not this included a shared experience in work or in trade union activities. Overall, it is remarkable how little relevant experience the great majority of the members had at the point of their formation. Nearly half of the co-operatives had members with no tourism experience and, although a total of 26 members from the entire 17 co-operatives surveyed had previous experience in tourism, 17 of these comprised the entire membership of two of the largest groups. Perhaps even more signi®cantly, previous management experience was virtually non-existent, with only four possessing any previous experience. Five co-operatives had members with no prior knowledge or training in either tourism or management and only three had members with more than two years experience in either category. Signi®cantly, perhaps, the latter are among the longest surviving co-operatives in the sample. Although this lack of experience, especially in management, is probably to be expected in rural AndalucõÂa, it means that the availability of training then becomes a key issue. Members of seven co-operatives undertook, or already had undertaken, training in some aspects of tourism. Such training ranged from formal year-long courses to shorter courses, usually related speci®cally to their areas of activity, such as care and management of horses or interpretation of nature. In six of the cooperatives members undertook management training but in only one case was this related speci®cally to the management of co-operatives. For new members and employees, training of some sort is offered in nine of the co-operatives, whereas the remainder rely on `training on the job'. Only one of the cooperatives includes languages as part of this training package. In terms of the three analytical categories identi®ed earlier (Mellor et al., 1988), namely the `small business' type, the `participative' type and the `ideological' type, this general Int. J. Tourism Res. 3, 199±210 (2001)

204 overall lack of previous business experience, especially in tourism, may be thought to point towards the third of these categories, with the businesses perhaps owing their origins to a rather naõÈve ideological commitment. However, this lack of previous business experience does not necessarily mean that members shared an equal ideological commitment to the co-operative ethos, nor does it negate the possibility that acquiring access to support agencies for the creation of local jobs may have been a prime motive for entering into a cooperative business arrangement. The in-depth interviews showed, in fact, that economic motives were signi®cant in the origins of the co-operatives, despite the fact that normally they ®nd it harder than private businesses to raise capital. This apparent contradiction was explained in different ways by the respondents. First, the pooling of resources was mentioned as signi®cant, it being argued that it was easier to raise capital from the collective resources of a group rather than as an individual. Second, concessionary tax advantages were cited by three interviewees. These are quite considerable, amounting to a 50% discount on company tax and exemption from capital transfer tax for the acquisition of goods and services (BOE, 1990). Third, although there is no special grant scheme currently available exclusively for cooperatives, one co-operative had bene®ted in the past from such a scheme (subsequently scrapped), and three had taken advantage of current EU funded schemes (Plan Leader), although two of these complained that money owing had not yet been received. One of the co-operatives interviewed was established speci®cally to create employment, whereas another was attracted by an organisational structure in which there were no divisions between management and workers. With this exception, however, there was little evidence that the co-operative structure itself had played a signi®cant role in the decision to adopt that form, suggesting again that commitment to the `co-operative ideology' may not have been particularly strong. In fact, in only one of the organisations was the formation of the co-operative explicitly linked to socialist ideals. This is signi®cant because any successful co-operative needs to carefully balance Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

M. Barke and J. Eden both economic and social objectives. Commercial hard-headedness is required but so too is ideological commitment (Antoni, 1983). In the absence of such commitment economic considerations will tend to dominate and the social and democratic requirements of running a co-operative may well come to be seen as a hindrance. This situation may be exacerbated where the co-operative is responsible for the jobs of a signi®cant number of non-members and such perceptions will, of course, be heightened in times of dif®culty or particular pressure. In such circumstances it is hardly surprising that some members may feel that their own future would be better in a conventional private company. Employment policy and the admission of new members Only two of the co-operatives did not employ any additional non-members and the relatively high ratio of employees to members (0.75:1.0) could be argued to be in con¯ict with the ethos of co-operation. It generally is accepted that employees should constitute, at most, 10% of the workforce. This is the limit at Mondragon (Campbell, 1983) and this ®gure is incorporated into the regional law on co-operatives: The number of workers on inde®nite contracts who are not members of the cooperative must not exceed 10% of total number of members. (Junta de AndalucõÂa, 1985) The national law of 1987 also stipulates that a co-operative should contain no more than 10% salaried non-members. The fact that the great majority of employees in the co-operatives surveyed are part-time or on short, ®xedterm contracts, keeps them within the letter of the law. It is important to recognise, however, that the issue of employment poses extremely dif®cult questions for all co-operatives in the area of tourism, which, by its very nature, is labour intensive and extremely seasonal. Fluctuations of demand for labour are particularly great and, like any other business, a cooperative needs to be in a position to respond in order not to place itself at a commercial disadvantage. Taking on new members is a long-term commitment and it is dif®cult for Int. J. Tourism Res. 3, 199±210 (2001)

Tourism Co-operatives in Spain the co-operative subsequently to reduce its complement unless members leave voluntarily. Existing members therefore must be very con®dent that any increase in activity requiring additional labour can be sustained if they are to admit new members into the cooperative. Although there are obvious commercial advantages in a ¯exible employment policy, there is a danger that it will generate precisely those adversarial relationships which many members of a co-operative seek to avoid. Employees may perceive members as being no different to a conventional company management and seek to promote their own personal and ®nancial interests at the expense of the common interests of the co-operative. On their part, members may respond in authoritarian, managerial fashion, thus undermining the whole co-operative culture and hastening the transition of the co-operative into a private business. The degree to which this happens may depend on the opportunities employees have to eventually become members themselves. Therefore, recruiting the right workers is one of the most important decisions any cooperative must make if it is to ¯ourish. Not only is a new worker being taken on, but also a potential new member as well. In such circumstances, it might be anticipated that great care would be taken in the process of recruitment. In fact, the methods used by the co-operatives in the survey appear to be little different from conventional ®rms. Four of the sample take on workers on temporary contracts only, three use a traditional combination of interview selection, whereas the majority of the others prefer some kind of personal knowledge of a potential employee before selection. Signi®cantly, not one responding co-operative mentioned support for the cooperative ideal as a condition or quali®cation for employment. It appears that recruiting new members is a low priority. One actively discourages employees from joining because of the seasonality of the work, whereas another, the one with the highest number of employees, argued that they did not wish employees to become members as, in their view, most preferred the certainties of a monthly wage to the ®nancial Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

205 commitment of joining. Although antithetical to the spirit of co-operation, there is a certain logic to this view. For example, on becoming a full member of a co-operative, former employees lose their entitlement to unemployment bene®t, which, given the unpredictable nature of tourism, can be quite a gamble. Thus, employees can earn virtually the same income with fewer risks, and there is no need to make an investment into the social capital of the organisation. In only one of the co-operatives was there a conscious policy of consistently recruiting new members. This co-operative is engaged in the restoration of old houses for holiday rental purposes and therefore is the only one with activities that provide the opportunity for regular work during the winter months. This co-operative has grown from the original six members to ten and has a policy of taking on a single apprentice at one time with the objective of integrating him/her into the co-operative structure whilst learning the skills of the job. Nevertheless, it is clear that for the majority of the co-operatives surveyed, the total workforce is divided into members and employees and this is a situation that can easily lead into loss of the co-operative ethos. Furthermore, the nature of most tourism business makes it dif®cult to recruit new members, yet such new members can be argued to be the lifeblood of a co-operative without which it will choke to death (Stryjan, 1994b). Therefore, as far as the issues of employment policy and the admission of new members are concerned, it is clear that the majority of co-operatives in the sample cannot be described as the `ideological' type and, although we cannot yet eliminate the possibility that many may be `participative' in their general orientation, most appear to function in the `small business' category. Remuneration and ®nance Although equal pay for all members may be a democratic aspiration, it is signi®cant that it does not appear amongst the various formulations of co-operative principles. There are strong arguments that a rigid policy of equal pay can inhibit the performance of an organisation and larger co-operatives in particular have recognised that pay differentials may be Int. J. Tourism Res. 3, 199±210 (2001)

206 necessary to attract the appropriate managerial and technical skills. Nevertheless, most cooperatives prefer to keep differentials as small as possible and soon impose limits on maximum earnings. At Mondragon, for example, the ratio between highest and lowest wages was set at 3:1 although this could be extended by bonuses to 4.5:1 (Bradley and Gelb, 1983). In a smaller co-operative equal pay should be a more realisable objective and 14 of the 17 cooperatives in the survey paid all members the same wage, although in most cases this is on a pro-rata basis according to hours worked. Of the three where differentials exist, one set pay scales according to the provincial hotel agreement (i.e. in line with commercial competitors), whereas in another, members of the consejo rector (governing council) were awarded a small additional wage. Equal pay did not, however, extend to employees. Only one co-operative speci®ed that its employees received the same wage as members. Three set pay levels according to existing collective agreements, whereas in another the rates were set by the consejo rector. Although these pay levels may be perfectly fair, the fact that they differ from wages paid to members who might be doing exactly the same work can only reinforce the dangers of creating a division between members and non-members that can undermine the longer term sustainability of the organisation. Members do, however, have additional obligations, the most important of which is the maintenance of the social capital of the cooperative, a fund resulting from the `start-up' contributions of the members. Furthermore, the law requires that if the co-operative makes a trading surplus then 30% must go to the social capital. The results of the questionnaire survey indicate that, in 14 of the co-operatives, members have made a ®nancial investment in the enterprise and that in all but two of these a contribution to the social fund is a condition of membership. Where a surplus has been made the part that does not go into the social capital is almost invariably directly reinvested. In only two of the co-operatives did the members receive any additional payments out of a trading surplus. For the majority of businesses in the survey, therefore, this possibly could be interpreted as being consistent with a full Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

M. Barke and J. Eden ideological commitment to one of the main tenets of any co-operative enterprise. However, it is also a re¯ection of the fact that, in most cases, any surplus would be modest and that virtually all the co-operatives have an infrastructure in the form of buildings or equipment that must be maintained or renewed. Internal structure and management Both the regional and national laws specify in some detail how a co-operative should be managed, with the election of a governing council (consejo rector) and, if need be, a manager or management group. Many of the stipulations, however, could be viewed as being more applicable to large co-operatives than to the small units involved in this survey, where a less structured approach is more likely to be found. Despite their small size, however, in only three of the co-operatives do all members participate equally in the management of the business. In all other cases management is delegated to a small group or to an individual. There are, in fact, indications within several of the co-operatives of a hierarchy where more experienced members are expected to ®ll these managerial positions. Five responses agreed that the manager had a tendency either to dominate or to carry more in¯uence than other members when it came to making policy, a phenomenon noted by Mellor et al. (1988) as resulting from one individual's better access to information or greater willingness to become involved in the organisation. Frequently, the lack of initiative on the part of the majority of the members can be the most important feature rather then the desire of any one individual to dominate. In such circumstances, however, the `leader' and `the rest' situation can become a source of con¯ict within the co-operative and this kind of management structure is certainly not consistent with either a co-operative of the `participative' type or the `ideological' type. Evidence from one of the co-operatives interviewed supports this view, as the cumbersome nature of decision making had emerged as a major problem. Although some administrative tasks were delegated, even relatively minor decisions were decided by meetings of the whole Int. J. Tourism Res. 3, 199±210 (2001)

Tourism Co-operatives in Spain group. However, this generated some feelings of resentment among those members who felt that they were taking on a disproportionate responsibility without either the freedom to take managerial decisions or the recognition of their role by other members. Whether or not management functions are delegated, ultimate control remains with the general assembly of members and the extent to which this functions successfully will largely determine the state of health of the cooperative. A pre-requisite is that it should meet often enough for members to retain effective control. Nine of the co-operatives held general meetings at least once each month and only one met as little as four to six times each year. The remainder met between seven and nine times per year. It is clear that meetings are much more important in a cooperative than in a conventional company because the former lacks the formal structure of the latter. It is essential, therefore for cooperative meetings to be well prepared and conducted and that they do not, for example, become the forum for the voicing of personal or ideological differences. Employees, however, are largely excluded from this democratic process and usually ®nd it dif®cult to in¯uence policy. In only three of the co-operatives did they have the same opportunities as members. At the other extreme, in three of the cooperatives there is no scope whatsoever for employees to in¯uence policy. In the remaining majority there are informal mechanisms such as consultations or simply listening to their employees' opinions. One rather surprising result from the questionnaire was that in 12 of the co-operatives the members practice some form of job rotation, although the extent to which this happens varies from one co-operative to another. This feature helps to broaden the experience and skill base of members but it also must be recognised that in various tourism businesses it is a more feasible option than in many other activities. Many tasks in the tourism industry are relatively unskilled and some carry a low level of job satisfaction. In general, however, most of the features concerning the internal structure and management of the co-operatives in the sample appear to suggest that a number of `ideological' and `participative' Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

207 features are likely to be sacri®ced in the interests of the functioning of the business. In only one co-operative in the survey was this not the case. This organisation claimed to possess a strong ideological commitment to the ideal, drawing repeated attention to factors such as the co-operative being a less aggressive, more `human-oriented' form of business organisation, and that members who also owned the business could achieve a better relationship with each other than in a company divided into management and workers. This particular co-operative, which specialises in buying and restoring old dwellings that are then let out as holiday homes, came closest to the theoretical `ideal' type of co-operative (Mellor et al., 1988; Levi, 1994). Since it was founded in 1992, membership had grown from six to ten and the only employees are apprentices who are trained in the complex restoration skills required and who are then encouraged to become full members. It must be stressed, however, that this co-operative has a unique advantage over all the others surveyed without which it would ®nd it dif®cult to operate in this fashion. Tourism is, in fact, a secondary activity and the main business is in construction and restoration. This protects the co-operative to a considerable extent from the highly seasonal nature of rural tourism. They therefore are able to provide regular work for their members throughout the year subject, of course, to the constraint of ®nding suf®cient capital for the purchase of old houses and building materials. Local impact Although the organisations reviewed in this paper are obviously small, it would be wrong to judge their impact in terms of size alone. Although the 17 co-operatives have not grown (the aggregate number of members at the point of formation was 95 and this remains the total number of members) there has been considerable turnover within individual co-operatives. Seven have lost members whereas only three have experienced an increase. Nearly 30% of the original members have left and ®ve of the sample now have only four worker-members. Overall, there were 73 employees in the sample, with one co-operative dominating Int. J. Tourism Res. 3, 199±210 (2001)

208 with 20 employees. Not surprisingly, given the nature of the tourism business, the majority of these employees were part-time. Their role in local `job creation' therefore is strictly limited. However, within the socio-economic environments of the rural interior of parts of AndalucõÂa it must be stressed that any new enterprise is likely to be bene®cial. For example, in a village that has been losing population (mainly young adults) for most of the twentieth century, a small business creating new forms of employment for even, say, ®ve young people may provide an important psychological and practical boost within that locality. In addition, each of the co-operatives interviewed claimed to have created positive externalities within their local areas, in activities such as increasing demand for local food and drink products, building and repairs, transport, printing services, handicrafts, camping supplies and other `outdoor leisure' equipment. Hardly surprisingly, therefore, it is certainly the case that, locally, each of these organisations excited considerable interest and excitement, enough to make the possibility of a `demonstration effect' a reality. Nor should we take too negative a view of the relatively high level of turnover of members for, as most of these had no formal training prior to joining the co-operative, it appears that these organisations have provided an important function in training and providing experience for such individuals. However, these positive comments could relate to any type of small business within the areas under consideration. It would seem from the analysis described above that co-operatives may have no special advantages and probably have more problems than `conventional' small businesses in this area and, to survive, the pressure for them to function more and more like the latter seems to increase, moving them further away from the `ideal' type co-operative. For example, despite the relative proximity of the co-operatives, there was little evidence of links between them. Such links appeared to exist only through membership of FAECTA, to which all belong, although one group observed that it functioned only as an information service. Only one co-operative felt that closer links with other similar organisations would be bene®cial. Although an imCopyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

M. Barke and J. Eden portant factor in this apparent indifference to closer links is the pressure of day-to-day workloads, it again hints at a less than strong commitment to the co-operative ideal. Although FAECTA promotes initiatives such as pooling resources to hire experienced administrators or managers, the co-operatives interviewed had not taken advantage of this, despite their general lack of experience in the ®eld of rural tourism. Despite the evidence that co-operatives perform better when linked into a mutually supportive network rather than as individual businesses (Thornley, 1981; Campbell, 1983) such a sense of solidarity does not seem apparent amongst these co-operatives. Signi®cantly, however, in one of the study areasÐthe Alpujarras in Granada and Almeria provincesÐalthough interco-operative links are weak, stronger connections exist with other private tourism businesses. Several belong to the Asociacion de Profesionales en Turismo Rural en el Parque Natural Sierra Nevada, a grouping of 27 small tourism businesses, and others are af®liated to the Centro Iniciativa Turistica de la Alpujarra (CITA), which has introduced a central booking facility. The networking and learning processes appear to be less with other co-operatives and more with adjacent small businesses. CONCLUSION The evidence from AndalucõÂa discussed in this paper suggests that the long-term prospects for co-operatives in the ®eld of rural tourism are not strong. A number of ®ndings point to this rather negative conclusion. First, despite the fact that this particular co-operative sector has been in existence for some considerable time, it is remarkable how slowly it has grown and how small it has remained. The cooperatives in the sample formed at a rate of just over one per year and about half of them have no more than the minimum number of members and the largest has only ten. Overall membership has not increased from the aggregate ®gure of the founder members and any expansion has been offset by contraction elsewhere. Second, the sector remains heavily dependent on support from the state or from transitional sources such as the European Union. Tax concessions granted by the Spanish Int. J. Tourism Res. 3, 199±210 (2001)

Tourism Co-operatives in Spain government are an important motivation for the formation of co-operatives, but it seems that this has attracted individuals into the cooperative structure who may be more suited to working in a private company. The high turnover of members appears to be related to this lack of ideological commitment and, clearly, is not bene®cial to the establishment of a sustainable enterprise. The majority of co-operatives deviate from the ideal theoretical model, either to conform to national legislation or to improve their chances of survival within a competitive capitalist economy. With the co-operatives in this survey, the most signi®cant deviation came with their employment and recruitment policy. Most have a signi®cantly larger number of employees than normally would be expected in a co-operative, so much so that in some cases employees actually outnumber members. This is coupled with a marked reluctance to recruit new members and the unwillingness of employees to become members. The major contributory factor to this situation is undoubtedly the nature of tourism itself. All recreational tourism is inherently seasonal and this seasonality is particularly marked in small-scale rural tourism where business can virtually cease altogether in the winter months. Consequently, it becomes impossible to provide full-time stable employment for more than a very small number of people, but in the summer months there is a high demand for temporary labour. Thus, the commercial realities of the rural tourism industry appear to be preventing the development of these businesses as genuine cooperatives and increasing the likelihood that they will simply convert themselves into small private businesses. Given that many of these problems arise from the pattern of business in the tourism industry, it is relevant to ask whether cooperatives are indeed an appropriate form of business structure for tourism. The fact that there are so few tourism co-operatives in a country that boasts the second highest number of co-operatives in the whole of Europe, and for which tourism is a major industry, seems to draw its own conclusions. However, the answer may not be an unquali®ed no. The one business that functioned best as a coCopyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

209 operative was able to do so because it was not dependent entirely on tourism. The answer to seasonality must lie in diversi®cation, in making tourism just one part of a range of related tourism activities. Such a holistic approach is encouraged by FAECTA, which argues that diversi®cation can bring other advantages, such as better environmental awareness. Although rural tourism can offer signi®cant economic advantages to a rural community, it is not in itself the panacea to the problems of lack of work. In certain parts of Europe, including southern Spain, there is a danger of overdevelopment of rural tourism, a trend which, of course, carries with it the seeds of its own destruction. It is possible that more diversi®ed co-operatives would not only have better chances of survival in the true cooperative form but also would assist in the development of a more holistic appreciation of the integrated nature of rural societies, economies and environments. REFERENCES Antoni A. 1983. The co-operative way. In The Cooperative Way: Worker Co-ops in France, Spain and Eastern Europe. ICOM Co-Publications: London; 1±42. Bartlett W, Pridham G. 1991. Co-operative Enterprises in Italy, Portugal and Spain: History, Development and Prospects. School for Advanced Urban Studies: Bristol. BOE. 1990. Ley 20/1990 de 19 de Diciembre Sobre Regimen Fiscal de la Co-operativas. BoletõÂn O®cial del Estado (BOE): Madrid. Bote GoÂmez V. 1988. Turismo en espacio rural: rehabilitacioÂn del patrimonio sociocultural y la economõÂa local. Editorial Popular: Madrid. Bote GoÂmez V. 1992. Nuevas formas de turismo para la revitalizacioÂn del espacio interior en EspanÄa. Rassegna di Studi Turistici (Associazione Nazionale Italiana Esperti Scienti®ci dei Turismo, Rome) 3/4: 217±236. Bradley K, Gelb A. 1983. Co-operation at WorkÐ The Mondragon Experience. Heinemann: London. Campbell A. 1983. Mondragon 1980. In The Cooperative Way Worker Co-ops in France, Spain and Eastern Europe. ICOM Co-Publications: London; 43±60. Castillo JJ. 1979. Proprietarios muy pobres. Sobre la subordinacioÂn politica del pequenÄo campesino. La ConfederacioÂn Nacional CatoÂlico-Agraria: Madrid. Int. J. Tourism Res. 3, 199±210 (2001)

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