The Story Of The Blues

Another day, another promotional tag. Mallorca is awash with branding, its seas are alive with the sound of slogans. And from the sea comes the latest - "IB-Blau", standing for Illes Balears Blau. One of the advantages of Catalan can be its closer proximity to English - blau is blue, and is also but one change of vowel from the French. IB-Blau is the rallying regatta call of Balearic yacht and boating tourism; into the blue and into, very much, the black of a profit and loss account that seeks ever more buoyant figures to add to the 520 million euros of income that floated in during 2007 on the hulls of seafaring. As "The Bulletin" points out, the Waterworldist wallet is a thing of some lucrativeness - a daily spend of 140 plus euros per day per head. At an average stay of 15 days, that represents a couple of grand of watering and feeding and the rest.

IBATUR, the Balearic Government's tourism promotional wing and they of the "much more than ... " sloganising, are well aware of the treasures that the Waterworldists bring in, but, in good eco-consciously correct fashion, say that the nautical-tourism promotion of the blue Balearic motif will not be supported by anything environmentally detrimental. In other words, there will not be a major development of the marinas save for floating moorings. Much more than nautical tourism, in IBATUR terms, but not much more by way of marinas. The good ship IB-Blau can sail into port with "The Ecology Song" blaring from its tannoy system and with its hold full of nautical-tourism bounty. Yet a regular annual increase of some 14% in terms of income demands more marina space unless the charges rise and are accommodated by that bulging Waterworldist wallet.

Despite the restrictions in terms of further physical moorings, here is a part of the tourism industry that does offer riches. It is the familiar argument of wealth generating more wealth, in the secondary sense to the restaurants and establishments near to the marinas. Which does raise the question of how diffuse that wealth generation is and would be in the whole of somewhere like Puerto Alcúdia. And the same might also be said for the new port terminal which is now under construction and which promises further riches from cruise ships using it as an alternative to Palma. It's good news for the port, in fact potentially very good news, but for all ...?


QUIZ
Chain - Van Morrison did a track called "Whatever Happened to P.J. Proby?", a question many of us will have asked. What's the link between Van the Man and "I Will Survive". Yesterday's title - "Come Fly With Me", Frank Sinatra. Today's title - which Liverpool band did this?

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