It Gets Knocked Down

Then it gets up again. Eventually. Maybe.

The re-development of Playa de Palma in the south of the island has been talked about for years. It has taken on a mythical dimension in that it is meant to hold the key to a prosperous Mallorcan tourist second life. A thing of beauty, unlike what grew up in the sixties and has been more the stuff of nightmares ever since.

Playa de Palma means not just Palma but also Can Pastilla (which is in Palma) and Arenal (which isn't). When I first came to Mallorca - in 1969 - it was to Arenal, in the days before it was colonised by Stein und Sauerkraut. Much of the area is a dump. It was then, but holidaymakers lacked the sophistication to realise it. They were in awe of the notion of the cheap and available "foreign" holiday. From the room in the hotel I could see a shanty town. It isn't there now, but as a young and idealistic teenager, it left a lasting impression - one of the obscene dichotomy between wealth and poverty that were the early years of island tourism, and one that has been, and is being repeated in other countries.

When mass tourism arrived on the back of the package deal, Clarkson and BEA, Playa de Palma was the Mallorcan Red Barrel to the Spanish mainland's Lloret, Benidorm and Torremolinos Luton Airport. It's where it all started. There is a mitigating factor to the grossness of what emerged. The Costas and Mallorca were first movers in mass tourism. Like any initiators of an "industrial" revolution, as with Britain and its industrialisation, there were no manuals to go by, no mistakes to learn from. Thus, the errors were made, and one has today's rotting corpse of the tourism progenitor.

They want to knock a lot of it down - residences and hotels - and erect what might be more a palace of Palma, one to compete with the oriental pleasure domes of Turkey or the pyramidal extravagance of Egyptian accommodation. Understandably, not everyone is too keen on the idea. The protests have caused them, the politicians, to backtrack. A new "definitive" plan is promised later this year, one that will replace the previous definitive plan. Even this may be delayed. There are elections next spring.

Without the re-development, so it is being said, Playa de Palma has no economic future. The architects are among those saying this, to which one might suggest that they would, wouldn't they. Wrapped up in all of this is the notion that the beautification of what is a generally unlovely stretch of coastline will bring benefits for out-of-season tourism - to Palma itself. This might be true, but as with any pronouncement regarding non-sun and beach tourism, there is more than a hint of the ill-defined blue sky, or blue waters if you prefer in the Playa's case. No one knows of course. Which isn't to say that it shouldn't be done. It should be. But lurking in the background are two things. One, as ever with Mallorca, is the suspicion that someone (or more than just someone) stands to "benefit". No project on the island can be viewed in any other way; history, much of it recent, is too littered with examples to suggest otherwise. Two, there is the what-about-me question. If there is seriousness as to the overall improvement to the coastal resorts, then Playa de Palma is, or should be, merely the first port of call. You can add on others - Magalluf, Can Picafort's front line, parts of Alcúdia, for example.

Yet amidst all the debate and the argument, there is another factor, and that is, as has been pointed out by one architect asked to voice an opinion about Playa de Palma, the influence of tour operators. TUI, for example, wants four-star hotels. Good for TUI. But what will they fill them with? Do you dismantle resorts and establish new, bright and shiny, all-inclusive hotels instead? Because this is what is likely to happen. And so a different type of obscenity, one for the twenty-first century's mass tourism, emerges. The result may be palatial, it may be architecturally more wonderful, it may fill new hotels, but it may also simply create division through what become little more than gated-community ghettoes lining the beaches.

Knock it down by all means, but be very aware that the Phoenix that rises from the burnt ashes of the old hotels may be a monster.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.