The Dinosaurs Of Mallorca

The film director Mel Brooks, if I remember rightly, once came up with a gag about Hasidic park. I'm reminded of this because Mallorca may well find itself, only some kilometres apart, with two theme parks. One, the Christian theme park in Inca, is meant to embrace religions other than Christianity, hence, possibly, Hasidism; the other, in Sineu, would appear to be some sort of Jurassic Park (which was the basis for Brooks' gag). The two parks could be put together, and an element of one might mean that the gag was realised.

The plan for a dinosaur theme park leaves me feeling distinctly underwhelmed. The developers say that everyone is interested in the history of dinosaurs and so it will be a great success. I don't know, is everyone interested? Or is everyone just a little tired of dinosaurs? The idea has a touch of the dinosaur about it: a lumbering concept that had been Spielberged into popular culture and has been done to death ever since to the point of extinction.

Possibly dinosaurs haven't reached the end of their life cycle as excuses for theme parks or any other dino-based venture, but like pirates and their increasing proliferation on Mallorca, dinosaurs are a default setting for me-too family entertainment. They are unimaginative and old news. Does Mallorca really want to be a repository for re-working familiar themes? I'm far from convinced that a Christian theme park gives the island the right image. Add a dinosaur park as well, and Mallorca might look like somewhere that has run out of ideas while at the same time offering an attraction (the Christian park) that is out of keeping with a general touristic style.

The dino park will require that the Council of Mallorca declare that it is in the island's general interest. This is a procedural necessity and one that has been brought to bear in, for instance, approving new hotel developments. Because it would occupy a plot of so-called rustic land, there are certain constraints which might need to be worked around, such as the provision of energy sources and guaranteeing the integrity of flora and fauna. As with the Christian theme park and any other development of whatever type, one can already hear the rustling in the undergrowth of the environmental lobby preparing its objections. Things can take an awfully long time in Mallorca because of all the challenges to developments. By the time these have all been exhausted, it may not only be dinosaurs which are extinct.

It appears that the land that is being earmarked for dino park could do with a spot of tidying up. It is rustic but it is also, in a natural way, rusting. Neglected (it had been used for paintball before it was realised that there wasn't authorisation for this), it could do with being put to some use, and use that might actually make it appear attractive. This is not the sort of argument, however, which carries much weight with the enviros.

Sineu town hall backs the scheme. It would help, so it says, with bringing more tourists into the town. But would it? Like the Inca theme park site is out of town, so is the land for dino park. The chances are that visitors would be bussed in and then bussed out, never setting foot in Sineu itself. And then there is the location. Sineu is pretty much at the geographical centre of Mallorca. This might sound like an advantage in that the theme park would draw on the different areas of tourist accumulation, but there is an inherent disadvantage in not being right in or by one of these tourist centres. The House of Katmandu, just to give one example of a fairly new attraction on Mallorca, was sited in Magalluf. In all likelihood, it would have been a complete flop had it been in Sineu or some other part of the island's centre.

Of course, dino park could be fabulous. It could get the excursions coaches rolling in. But does it really set the pulse racing? The other theme park, the one about which we no longer hear anything and about which we may never hear anything more, did at least have something going for it in that it sounded exciting in its array of attractions. Mallorca, if it is to have theme parks, needs parks that really grab the attention, those that are innovative and could be considered representative of a dynamic, modernising tourism destination. Dinosaurs don't really do it in this respect. Like all the johnny-come-lately pirates should be forced to walk the plank or come up with something more inspiring, then so the dinosaurs should be threatened with being meteored by 2012DA14, the asteroid discovered by the observatory in Costitx, and made to think up something less dinosaur-like.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Coveting Thy Neighbour's Tourist Market

The Christian theme park, "Tierra Santa", has been hawked around Mallorcan towns like the lost tribes of Israel going vainly in search of some room at an inn. Capdepera and Ses Salines have both been fancied runners to house the theme park, Alcúdia and Calvià are among other towns that have been spoken to, and now the park may well have its final resting place - Inca.

This is not the first time that a theme park has been talked about in Inca. The park between Llucmajor and Campos about which there was considerable publicity towards the end of last year - and about which not a peep has been heard since - was originally planned for Inca (or Calvia) some ten years ago. Inca may now finally get its theme park, though the impression being given is that the town hall administration is cool on the idea.

When the possibility of Inca being the location was first mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Inca's mayor, Rafel Torres, insisted that the only contact had been an informal one. Now that the theme park is starting to seem like more than just a possibility, the mayor has made clear that there will be conditions - jobs would have to be for people of the town only, and businesses inside the theme park could not be in competition with any in the town.

The regional government says that the plan to site the park on rustic land at the foot of the Puig de Santa Magdalena would "probably" be in compliance with provisions in the new tourism law that allow for construction on such land. 21 hectares would become theme-parked, and the environmentalists are, as you might imagine, distinctly unimpressed; the Salva Mallorca platform has set up an online petition to campaign against the theme park.

There are plenty of hoops to go through before Tierra Santa becomes a reality, but if it does become reality, what would it mean? Apart from 800 jobs (all for Inca people, the mayor hopes) and 30 million euros of investment, the promoters say that the environmentalists shouldn't worry. The park would be "ecological", it wouldn't be "cement" and it could be dismantled. It would be inclusive in terms of religion, though clearly there would be a concentration on one particular religion. Quite what is made of the whole idea in local ecclesiastical circles, I'm not sure, though the promoters say that it has the approval of the Bishopric of Mallorca and of the Vatican.

The park would consist of a re-creation of Jerusalem at the time of Christ, of figures and actors representing that era, of exhibitions to show customs, traditions and the origins of spirituality, of music and dance shows, of ancient Arabic, Jewish and Armenian gastronomy as well as of restaurants more in keeping with contemporary times; it might be the latter which cause some conflict with businesses outside the theme park.

But most important is what the park would generate in terms of tourism. The promoters claim that there will be more than 60,000 new tourists each month, and note that they say "each month". If it were to, then it would go some way to boosting winter tourism, but would it?

The projected number of tourists needs to be put into context. Palma Aquarium, the most visited attraction on Mallorca, registered its highest number of visitors in August this year - 78,000. The Aquarium, however, has made quite clear the difficulties that it and other attractions have out of season and that earlier months of the summer season were relatively slow.

The Christian theme park would be a totally different attraction, but unless it were to create a whole new tourism market (one coming to Mallorca because of the theme park), it would still be in direct competition with other attractions. It would have to work extremely hard at its marketing to meet its 60,000 per month. And hard it might well be. Attractions rely heavily on their relationships with tour and excursions operators and travel agencies. One wonders if a Mallorca Holy Land might be a tough sell when up against the likes of the Aquarium, Marineland and others; might it be simply a bit weird for the general tourist public?

Then there is the location. Would Inca be a disadvantage? Stuck in the middle of the island, it might seem to hold an advantage, but the main tourist population is in the south and it has any number of attractions right on its doorstep that don't require travelling any real distance. 

There is one other consideration. For various reasons, would a Mallorca Holy Land send out the right message? I'm not sure that it would.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Inca insists on jobs for town's people at theme park

Plans for the Christian theme park, which may be sited on 21 hectares of rustic land in Inca, would need to include guarantees that all jobs related to it would be for people of Inca. This would be one of the conditions that Inca town hall would set for the theme park ("Tierra Santa").

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Government supports Inca Christian theme park

The regional government tourism minister Carlos Delgado has informed Inca town hall that plans for the Christian theme park ("Tierra Santa") are in accordance "probably" with the new tourism law.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Now the Christian theme park might be in Inca

First it was Capdepera, then it was Ses Salines and in between there were apparently discussions with other towns, now it would appear that the Christian theme park planned for Mallorca could end up in Inca. Mayor Torres says all he knows about the idea is the consequence of an informal meeting.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

God Only Knows: The Christian theme park

Capdepera. A town with a walled castle fortress, not one but two golf courses, and a resort, Cala Ratjada, that is its own little piece of Germany. It is a town, like all in Mallorca, with plenty of old-time religion, but also a town with an old-time rubbish dump, which may well form part of a 17-acre site housing some new-time religion - a Christian theme park.

A company that owns just this type of a park in Argentina wants to create something similar on Mallorca's north-eastern tip. Capdepera's town hall is looking at the plans. Envisaged among the biblical scenes that would be performed at the theme park would be "live" resurrections. Not that you could have dead resurrections; that's not how resurrections work. There would also be Last Suppers throughout the day, rather like all-day breakfasts but minus the bacon.

What else have they in mind? Live crucifixions maybe? Being greeted by beaming Gospel mascots cajoling visitors into having a nice day? "Hi there, I'm Matthew, praise the Lord. Here's your complimentary miracle party bag with five loaves and two fish." As freebies go, this doesn't sound like a bad deal, and it would be the stuff that plays well with lard-arsed, Lord-rejoicing Americans. Unsurprisingly, there are several Christian theme parks in the US.

A question, though, is why Mallorca? One answer is probably the volume of tourists, all those bible-bashing ones, regurgitating pizza and lager over the morning's hymn sheets of the day's come-dressed-as-a-disciple entertainment. But this would be unfair: you don't have to be a church-goer; the theme park might actually be fun, you never know. Another answer, oddly enough, is religion. Catholic, saints and all that jazz. Jesus loves you in a theme-park style might also help reverse a local decline in the influence of religion, regular church-going having slumped to under 20% of the population. As a non-believer, I can't find much to object with the scheme, so long as it's not proselytising, ram-it-down-your-throat, happy-clappy religion. Moreover, the bible has some cracking stories, whether you believe them or not: the scope for performances is immense.

Try starting a Christian theme park in the UK and the objections would be long, loud and ludicrous. We all know why. In Mallorca there is not quite the same sensitivity, thanks God. Nevertheless, some socio-religious doubts have been raised, for example, about the fiesta street theatre of the Moors and Christians. What sort of an alternative could be arranged, short of stopping it, who knows. Maybe they could let the Moors win once in a while.

The theme park, though, would be something different, more directly subversive of inherent faith: it might undermine certain long-established religious performances, such as the portrayal of the Last Supper during Pollensa's Easter celebrations. Having a rolling show of the feast of Christ and the Apostles tucking into a loaf of Bimbo and demolishing a carton of Don Simon at times of the year other than Easter does seem somewhat sacrilegious, and you'd have to pay for the privilege, which you don't have to when it comes to fiesta time.

Put the words theme and park together, and you can usually be sure that there would be objections, those of the environmental lobby which, for instance, successfully scuppered the plans for the anti-Christ theme parks in first Inca and then Calvia. A Christian theme park, which would presumably be environmentally neutral as well as righteous, could well place the enviros in a quandary. Object or not object. They'll be hoping that there are plans to flood Capdepera in order to bring on Noah or to create rivers with blood.

Mallorca could do with theme parks. All sorts of them. The Capdepera proposal is small beer, or small communion wine if you prefer, certainly by comparison with the devil's work of the casinos, multi-theme parks and God knows what else of the Gran Scala in the desert by Zaragoza on the mainland. Capdepera would be modest, but it shouldn't be the last, either Christian or profoundly unbelieving and profane. There need to be more, but they wouldn't be on the grand scale of Gran Scala. Shame. The bible doesn't specifically proscribe gambling, but it's clear enough on its underlying sin: "for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil". There again, what the hell does God know?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.