The Wheels Go Round: Sports tourism

There's going to be an international fair and forum of tourism and sport in Palma in October. It will be held at the Palma Arena.

I leave these two sentences hanging, and wonder if you can detect anything slightly disconcerting about them. If you can't, well I can. Not for one moment am I suggesting anything untoward when it comes to these October events, but if you put sports forums in Mallorca and the Palma Arena together, you can, were you to so wish, come up with Iñaki Urdangarin, the Duke of Palma. As part of the "caso Palma Arena" corruption investigation, mainly to do with former president Jaume Matas and the money that was spent in the name of the arena, Urdangarin's involvement in the whole affair came initially when it was revealed that his organisation had been issuing the government with invoices relating to international sports forums.

Let's just say that the irony, if that's the right word but probably isn't, of there being a new sports forum and, moreover, being held at the Palma Arena is not lost. Not lost on me, anyway.

The forum, so tourism and sports minister Carlos Delgado says, will form part of the government's strategy in improving tourist products. President Bauzá, accompanying Delgado at the announcement of the forum, adds that, thanks to a benign climate, excellent sports facilities and numerous air links with Europe, sport will lead to all-year tourism. You can't knock his optimism.

One can, I suppose, nit-pick and suggest that the climate isn't always benign. There are more grounds for nit-picking in respect of the numerous air links. When they operate, fine, but when they don't, less fine. One shouldn't nit-pick where the sports facilities are concerned. Mallorca does do these pretty well, and it isn't only the facilities; it is the natural and road environment, hence why Wiggins & Co make the island their base.

One can also nit-pick when it comes to the assertion that, thanks to this forum and fair no doubt, Mallorca will suddenly be blessed with hotels that are all full in winter with sporting types. There already is all-year tourism thanks to sport. Just. The key issue is not that there will be all-year tourism but how much. If Delgado or Bauzá could put a figure on this, then I'm sure we would all be immensely grateful. But then, maybe we have to wait until they have all forumed away in October. Then we'll know. Or not.

As is usually the case with any discussion regarding winter tourism, there is more than a touch of the we've-been-here-before about it all: been here before, many, many times. The mention of Urdangarin is relevant. His forums and anything else it was that he was meant to have been doing in the name of marketing Mallorcan sport and sports tourism hark back to the dark days of Matas' presidency. Several years on and things haven't moved on. Indeed, one might say that they've gone backwards. Back to the future in arranging another forum.

The recent history of attempting to tackle seasonality through sports tourism hasn't been that positive. One initiative, in one resort (Puerto Alcúdia), that of the dreadfully marketed "estación náutica" concept, was meant to extend the season by making it a stipulation of the resort being branded as an estación náutica that certain facilities as well as hotel accommodation had to be open. And has it? Erm, I don't think so. But even if it had, this extension would still have excluded the really fallow months of December, January and February, the latter made more bearable in a sports tourism manner by the arrival of the cyclists.

The truth is that the politicians go round and round like the circular wheels of a bike in vain attempts at cracking the all-year conundrum, forever spinning the rest of us some promise of the new, when new it ain't. And if they really wanted to show solidarity with out-of-season tourism and give a boost to one of those other unlikely saviours of the winter season, conference tourism, why don't they hold the fair and forum in November and not in October, given that October is still in-season and November isn't? Well, why do you think?

An international fair in Mallorca in November. Numerous air links. I'll let these two non-sentences hang, and let you work out what is wrong about them.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.