Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Tourism economics / Mañana / Websites

Happy days - the Balearics, with over 92%, was the area of Spain with the largest hotel occupation in August, Alcúdia registering nearly 97% occupancy. There then, everything’s all ok then.

That was Saturday’s news. Today we learn that the first eight months of this year have seen the best ever tourist numbers in the Balearics, while the number of people arriving by air - to the islands - is up by some 600,000 over last year. Great. Wonderful. What are they all spending?


More poor weather at the weekend, a mini-tornado causing havoc though the north of the island got off relatively lightly compared to the likes of Port Andraitx in the west. But for now, it’s ok. Warm.


Mañana. This word means morning and tomorrow. It is also English for “some time, maybe”; so it is in Spanish. A client who has owed me a fair sum for a year or so (whose invoice might I add was declared and tax and VAT duly paid; he had given me two cheques that bounced) has started finally to cough up. A chap who works at his place joked with me about “mañana”. He thought it was distinctly amusing when I pointed out that the mañana in this case had lasted for a year. Mañana is one thing, communication is another. Getting people to do anything - answer emails in particular - is a nightmare here. It affects all sorts of people. I left an enquiry with my lawyer about something two weeks ago. Nothing. I asked my printer about their invoice. Nothing. Is this now a general malaise or is it just another example of mañana?


Oh yes, www.pollensa.com update. For those of you haven’t been paying attention, this is the town hall’s extravagantly publicised website which was - until recently - only offered in Catalan. Well now it isn’t, in that it does now offer other languages including English. Quite honestly it is not worth the shout; there isn’t much and what there is suffers from the old problem of poor English or maybe just typos. Accomodation? Yes, one “m” is here. Sevices of interest - whatever they might be - they are there, too, minus the “r”. Poor. For English coverage go instead to www.thepollensaguide.com (linked on the right here) or www.puertopollensa.com.

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