Mother Knows Best - The cultural tourism myth

Buried among the items in the "Balearic news round-up" in "The Bulletin" yesterday was something that deserved to be in front-page huge type and copied and sent to IBATUR, the Balearic Government's tourism department, the Mallorca Tourist Board, the "Mesa del Turismo" and to any of the other blinkered and deluded little islanders who regularly fail to see the point about the very industry that they are meant to be promoting.

A bus company in Menorca, which last year ran a tour service for visitors, is in two minds whether to bother with it this year. Over five months in 2009, a total of 2,000 people made use of this service which took in certain historic and cultural sites on the island. There were some logistical issues in respect of coinciding with some opening times, but chief among the reasons why the service was not a success (and 2,000 people is anything but) was that - as the head of the company says - people are mainly interested in "sun, sea and sand" and that there was not much demand for cultural tourism.

Praise the Lord. Someone gets it. Despite the best attempts of the various Mallorcan (and Balearic) tourism bodies to convince both themselves and others that there is a whole world of alternative, cultural tourism out there, waiting to be tapped into by hordes of summer tourists (and indeed those at other times) strapped into a bus with a set of earphones playing some audio guide, these attempts are wrong - plain wrong. There is of course a small minority of tourists that do enjoy such cultural experiences, but the overwhelming majority have little wish to move themselves from the nearest pool or beach. They come for the sun, sea and sand. Why does anyone try and pretend that they don't? For most tourists, a cultural experience is a day out at Marineland.

Though a Menorcan example, it is every bit as applicable to Mallorca. The tourism bodies should listen to people like the bus company's boss, but the problem is that they don't - or don't appear to. They don't listen to anyone much. The other day I was told about a meeting of "Europeos por España", one of the rather curious quasi-political organisations whose purpose it is difficult to understand. At this meeting, there was a discussion about tourism problems. Fine. Another talking shop, I suggested. Even if anything of merit came out of this meeting, who would listen to the results, especially if - God forbid - they were coming from "foreigners"?

The different tourism bodies act as some collective defender of what we might call Mother Mallorca, and the members of these bodies suckle at the breast of this abstract motherland, gurgling contentedly what has become a politically acceptable line that there is all this "other" alleged tourism. Mother often does know best, but not always. The kids don't want to be poring over their textbooks when they'd rather be out playing in the water and on the beach.

So much nonsense emanates from all manner of groups and organisations. You can add to the tourism bodies, the hoteliers' associations. Remember that garbage about all hotels being open for Easter? Try this. In the east of Mallorca there will be no more than some 55% of hotels operating. In Portocolom, for example, not a single hotel will be open.

So much delusion, so much wishful thinking and so little realism.


QUIZ:
Today - For once some C&W. A great of the genre, to whom Garry Shandling bears something of a resemblance.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.