Houston, We Have A Problem: Hotels - smells and receptions

From the Exagon in Son Bauló, along the bays of Alcúdia and Pollensa, into the coves, into the towns and finally to Son Brull by the golf course in Pollensa, there is barely a hotel that I have not been into.

To varying degrees, the resorts are defined by their hotels. The towns - Alcúdia and Pollensa - merge into a oneness of the "petit" or interior hotel, all designer-chic or townhouse stone walls with boutique room and furnishing heterogeneity, the total opposite of the standardised sprawls of the holiday camps of Puerto Alcúdia - what are now Clubs, Bellevue and Mac, Resort (Sunwing) or both Club and Resort, Sea. Can Picafort, to an extent, shares the gardens and airiness of Iberostars and Vivas with its neighbour, Playa de Muro, where are also the Romanesque columns of the imposing Palace de Muro five-star.

The coves and remoter parts are a mix of the homeliness of the More and the heavy doors of the Cala San Vicente, which one takes it were the model for Son Brull (same people) where the doors are even heavier and larger, like gates to a castle, and where one expects a Swiss Guard to be standing to attention.

Then there is Puerto Pollensa. More modern, purpose-built tourism hotels there may be, but it is the grand old dames of Pollensa bay that are emblematic of the resort - from the Uyal to the Illa D'Or. I happened to be in both yesterday. In the latter, there is rarely ever a sound to be heard, save for the ticking of a clock. The hotel's connections with Agatha Christie are unsurprising. In the Illa D'Or everything probably stops for tea and a Miss Marple will be served her Earl Grey and scones, while reminding the waiter of her six o'clock gin and tonic order. As I left, some pink-faced old buffery was stumbling out of a taxi. The Uyal, like its twin great aunt, the Pollentia, has the feel of a southern England seaside hotel from the '60s. It seems perfectly suited to the pith-helmet, straw-hat home from home of Puerto Poll-esra. It is hard to reconcile the fact that Puerto Pollensa once had something of a Bohemian reputation.

The Uyal also has a smell. It is reassuringly musty and antique; in the lounge at any rate. It is also poignant. I had forgotten about hotels and their smells until yesterday and was transported back to the sixties and indeed to southern England seaside hotels which had a smell I couldn't explain then but was probably the accumulated, cloying and trapped odour of beef, Yorkshire pud and gravy.

Other hotels around and about have smells. Two of the sweetest are the air-conned fragrances of the Alcúdia Beach and Molins. There is little more pleasant than to enter a fresh reception and whiff vanilla. While hotels can define resorts, it is their receptions which define the hotels. And it is these, the receptions, that, more than most aspects of the local hotels, are changing. Moreover, like the default style of the "new" architecture is straight-lined, neutral-coloured, steel, so the receptions are being interior-designed to complement this contemporary landscape. The Playa de Muro Village went space age a few years ago. The Las Gaviotas, or what we must now call Las Gaviotas Suites, is similarly a showroom reproduced from the pages of the latest design bibles. The receptionist could be in touch with Houston. Even the Sol Alcúdia off The Mile (not to be confused with the Sol Alcúdia Center opposite) has been made over with the faux-industrialism of Kraftwerk receptionism. None of it looks bad. Far from it. It all looks fantastic, but it is also clinical. And is it comfortable? One hardly dares to sit on a sofa at Las Gaviotas for fear of marking the white light of the upholstery.

J'adore the Illa D'Or for its bonkers colonialism. I want more of the More and its permanent smell of old breakfast. Do you-yal? You should do, before it ceases to be pinafored into its Upstairs Downstairs old civility. The problem is that the drive is towards renovation and upgrading. All receptions may one day be out of a catalogue. While this will often be no bad thing, the fear is that a loss of charm follows. President Antich is calling on the hotels to reactivate their investment, reminding them of the funds available to do so. Much is made of the ancient nature of some hotels and of the resultant lack of competitiveness with other destinations, but renovation needs to be sympathetic. And if you want the best example of a reception that was modernised in tune with the atmosphere of the hotel and indeed the previous reception, then take a look at the Niu in Cala San Vicente. It can be done, and done very well.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.