Magalluf Gets A Bad Rap

Rap. It's been around long enough for, one would think, older members of society to remember their youth and remain aficionados of the art. But as time marches on, so musical tastes change. Rap, more than most genres, is youth music, especially given some of the posturing, the lyrics and the attitude.

In its ability to cross cultures, rap, I have always felt, has the capacity to appear ridiculous when white boys are performing it. Essentially a product of black, urban, American culture, it doesn't fit with other cultures. But such an analysis takes no account of how other genres crossed cultures. In the 1960s, the Americans rediscovered the blues and R&B courtesy of British groups. An American record label, Atlantic, was to have major worldwide hits with a white soul group - the Average White Band.

There has always been a cultural intermingling. And rap is no different. It is another form along the continuum of popular music globalisation. And global is how it is. There was no global in the days of rock 'n' roll or The Beatles. Communications technology transformed everything.

Mallorca has its rap. Famously, there is Valtonyc, still awaiting the outcome of the Supreme Court's sentence for insulting the crown, wishing harm on the King and various others, and apparently supporting ETA terrorism. Meanwhile, he turns up at different events, one of which will be in Arta this weekend as part of the town's fiestas.

The fiestas have their mix of music parties. There are those for the more mature members of the local community, which typically feature "orchestras" or "trios". Such groups carry an ominous threat. Not of course because they are in any way dangerous or edgy in a rap style, but because they are so depressingly middle of the road. Other parties, usually categorised as "jove", reflect the word in providing more youthful styles - punk, indie, metal, electronica, rap. Some of it can be quite good; some of it can be absolutely dire.

But such is the way with musical democratisation. Punk is said to have been the first expression of this, though the early skiffle groups were really the first. Musical ability wasn't a priority. With electronica, anyone with a creative flair, a good imagination and the right kit (generally speaking not expensive) can make music. Likewise rap doesn't demand an intimate knowledge of instrumentation. Quite the contrary. Sampling provides all that's needed. Plus a stream of lyrical consciousness conveyed with the appropriate gestures, postures and vocal.

The essence of rap is the lyric. The message is all important. Or at least, in its purest form, this is the case. In Calvia, there is a rap group who recently won the Musicalvia contest. They're called Tabú and are a duo - Yerroh and Nilo - embellished by a DJ/electronica producer who is somewhat older than them and goes by the name of Franbass. 

Tabú have released a short video on YouTube. Its title is Punta Ballena. The video includes clips of fights, of balconing, sex and medics attending to victims. According to the group, they are "street people" taking their rap to the street in highlighting the problems of their neighbours. They will be undertaking musical projects of protest, denunciation and social message.

The rap includes lines such as (with modified translation): "This Molotov cocktail is composed of sex, drugs, alcohol. As they have been for many years, no solution. Punta Ballena is outside the system."

The timing of the video - it was published on YouTube at the weekend - might seem somewhat curious. Just a short time after winning an award with the support of Calvia town hall, Tabú have stung this very administration in suggesting that no solution has been applied to the problems of Magalluf (and Punta Ballena in particular). There again, it isn't so curious. For all the efforts being made, there is evidence of backtracking with the likes of bar crawls and little intervention to prevent them, contrary to town hall bylaws.

At the weekend there was a report of yet another Friday night. Of tourists (British possibly) having passed out because of excessive drinking. Yet here we are in late July, a time when the tourist profile supposedly changes. It is persistent, just as it is in Playa de Palma.

Tabú are criticising this type of tourism, but they are also criticising the permissiveness of administrations. No one, they say, has dared to get a grip, because the interests of a few are more important than those of the people who live there and suffer from the problems.

Rap. The message is all important. And in this instance so are the images. Punta Ballena is not especially remarkable in terms of its musical quality, but it packs a powerful message. It deserves to be seen and heard.

The Sun Always Shines On Magalluf

And The Sun was not only on Magalluf. It was The Sun what did it, along with The Mail (among others). It ventured last week to where no sun in fact shines but where the air-con doesn't work. Thousands of British holidaymakers were being condemned to spend their entire holidays camped out in queues for passport control at Palma airport, deprived of cooling air and even bottles of water.

Does The Sun have a specific strategy for Mallorca? One that it doesn't have for all other holiday destinations? It can appear so. There again, passport control mayhem is a surefire media winner. Vast queues of bedraggled tourists, begging to be released. What could be better? And for the privilege of doing so, they'll be stumping up twice as much tourist tax next year. Rip-off Mallorca, The Sun will say.

Still, one trusts that the interior ministry might have sorted things out by next summer, assuming that Britain hasn't been bombed by the combined forces of the 27 member states. "We'll fight 'em on the beaches," The Sun will maintain. But the beaches will be those of Brighton and Skegness, not Magalluf.

Ah yes, Magalluf. Now where were we? All that high-quality tourism converting the resort into a giant beach resort of high-spending, respectful tourists with as much interest (if not more) in culture and heritage as in lying on beaches. Unfortunately, and much to Calvia's chagrin, not everything is going according to plan, and it was The Sun what told everyone. Again.

This time, though, Calvia took exception. They're considering seeing The Sun in court. Enough was enough. Declaring Magalluf a war zone and defaming the local police was too much. The Sun's special envoys to Magalluf might be advised to go even more undercover.

It's fair enough, the town hall wanting to sue. But where might they file an action? In a UK court? Tricky business taking a Murdoch paper to court or any other paper. Expensive as well. The town hall might consider asking the UK justice minister to change things, just as he plans to do with false claims. But dealing with false claims isn't the same as suing for defamation. The Sun will return. Watch out, Magalluf.

Targeting All-Inclusives Doesn't Stop Drunkenness

They've been fighting again in Arenal. Germans, that is. One was knocked unconscious during a scrap that took place around half two in the afternoon. The incident may well have been missed unless one was looking at the Spanish or German media. Arenal, Playa de Palma don't register like Magalluf does. Had the location been Maga, had the protagonists been Britons, you wouldn't hear the end of it.

Not of course that the local politicians aren't aware of fighting in Arenal. These politicians are very much aware of Arenal (Playa de Palma) and Magalluf. They are the only resorts they are aware of. There is political capital to be had from both.

When politicians wish to be seen to be getting tough with drunken tourism, they show their interest and displeasure in these two resorts. They ignore all others. There is political capital and there is media capital, even if the British have no real interest in Arenal and the Germans feel likewise when it comes to Magalluf.

The Balearic government, bless it, is going to tackle drunken tourism (and its related incidents, such as fighting). The government will do this by introducing measures to curb access to so much free booze in all-inclusives. At a stroke, therefore, it is wishing to make itself popular among the locals, who despair of both drunkenness and all-inclusives (as well as Magalluf and Playa de Palma), by combining the two in a package of apparent toughness.

There was a revealing photo with a report of the brawl in Arenal. It showed a group of young tourists (presumably German) with a container of alcoholic beverages. This container was on the beach. Many were the bottles. There was a second photo. A young tourist (again, one assumes he was German) was seated on a bench. He had just vomited on the ground.

There have been other revealing photos, such as ones for Magalluf when drunkenness and fighting rear their ugly heads, i.e. every day. What was so revealing about these photos? The clue lies with the first photo. Can you figure it out? Remember that the government is drawing the strands of drunkenness and all-inclusives together. Are you getting warmer?

If not, let me explain. The photo with the container of bottles would have been taken some time in the afternoon. At precisely the sort of time when inmates of an all-inclusive would be getting legless. In their all-inclusive. Not on a beach. The other photos (as was the case with the first one) have one absent thing in common: wristbands, i.e. all-inclusive hotel wristbands.

If you are drunkenly availing yourself of an all-inclusive's alcohol, you would not take a sizable container full of bottles purchased from the nearest supermarket to the beach. If you are not availing yourself, then you would. The clues are obvious in these various photos. Tourists get drunk because they get drunk. Not because they stay at all-inclusives. The photographic evidence is clear in this regard.

Yes of course there is drunkenness at all-inclusives (certain ones, the economy-class ones). And if the government wishes to reduce this drunkenness brought about by the all-inclusive booze, then fine. But targeting this in-hotel booze is no remedy when a particular class of tourist just wants to get drunk. The government is missing the point.

And what, in any event, will happen if all-inclusives have restrictions placed on them? The nearest bars will sense an opportunity. Come outside the hotel, and drink as much as you can with us, they'll advertise. Though of course the government (or let's say Calvia town hall where Magalluf is concerned) is attempting to stop bars from doing cheap deals. If the bars can't do this, then the supermarkets will gladly take up the challenge.

The point isn't being missed entirely, however. The government also wants tour operators to stop bringing drunken tourists: Palma's new mayor, Antoni Noguera, call this breed "junk tourists". And will the tour operators grant the government its wish? Will they hell. For all their grand words about responsibility (normally of a sustainable, eco-style), the tour operators (the large ones) don't give a toss who they sell holidays to. When their businesses are as vertically integrated as they are, then of course they don't care. Volume has to be sold: both beds and airline seats.

The government can ask, but it won't get anywhere. The tour operators even openly admit that there is a market for the type of tourist who just wants to come and get drunk. But by saying it will get tough on all-inclusives, it can demonstrate (it will believe) that it is determined to root out the problem. Pilar Carbonell, the tourism director-general, says that the tourism law is to be modified in order to introduce restrictions. Ah yes, Pilar, whose grasp of her role was summed up when she once came to Alcudia and seemed totally ignorant of the existence of the island's largest all-inclusive (Bellevue) and of certain practices that all-inclusives adopt.

But then there's no political capital in Alcudia, a reflection of which was the complete refusal of her ministry to take any notice of communications regarding Spanish students at Bellevue. Among the latest of these was a group which decided to trample on a car and dent its roof (captured on video). An isolated incident, claimed the organisers, studiously ignoring town hall complaints in previous years about students vandalising town hall property.

Incidents, you see, are only ever isolated. Like the fight in Arenal. Which is nonsense put out by the police, as the residents maintain. If these incidents were only ever isolated, then why would anyone wish to legislate against drinking or against a class of tourist?

The 64 Commandments Of Magalluf

And lo it came to pass that Alfonso took miscreant hoteliers, bar owners and the Children of Albion to the Mount of Magalluf (sometimes referred to as the Hill). There was thunder, for Alfonso was in a thunderous mood. Although the Great God of Magalluf was otherwise detained at his majesty's pleasure, facing Lord knows how many charges, other gods (of greater virtue) gathered on the Mount and spake unto the assembled masses. While the hoteliers and bar owners were vaguely afeared (not much in truth), the Children of Albion were not in the least bit afeared. Nor did they hear the words that the gods spake unto them.

Given this lack of attention, Alfonso went into the midst of the cloud atop the Mount, which wasn't a cloud as such but more a sort of peculiar ozone created from the accumulated fumes of strong alcohol. For forty days and forty nights, he disappeared. Meanwhile the Children of Albion wreaked merry hell. They had no shame, naked in front of the gods. They fought and they fell, either through drink or because of a fist. After the full forty days, Alfonso descended from the Mount with a tablet. He was going to share all his images on the town hall's Instagram channel, but his thunderous mood had grown even more thunderous. It came to pass that he returned to witness scenes of the Children of Albion that he had thought had been expressly forbidden by the gods of municipal ordinance.

Lo, Alfonso's anger waxed hot. He cast the tablet out of his hands and did break it beneath the Mount. But before doing so, he did utter the 64 Commandments. Were the Children of Albion (and miscreant hoteliers and bar owners) paying attention? Were they to be advised that they could not covet a resident's ox and drive it along Punta Ballena?

Thou shalt not argue or fight in public places; Thou shalt not utter abusive language; Thou shalt respect others; Thou shalt not damage street furniture; Thou shalt cooperate with the police or officials; Thou shalt respect tourist facilities; Thou shalt not cause any interference to public events; Thou shalt not give false information about thy identity; Thou shalt not carry any sort of prohibited weapon; Thou shalt not disrespect police officers; Thou shalt not shine laser beams; Thou shalt respect any physical barriers put in place by the police; Thou shalt not damage litter bins, statutes, parks, gardens; Thou shalt not rip branches off trees; Thou shalt not carve names or initials into tree bark; Thou shalt not climb trees.

Thou shalt not litter the street; Thou shalt not damage flowers in parks; Thou shalt not cause discomfort to others with skateboards or balls; Thou shalt not defecate, urinate or spit in public places; Thou shalt not throw down chewing gum, cigarette ends, cans, papers or containers; Thou shalt not interfere with street lighting; Thou shalt not do any type of graffiti; Thou shalt not scratch surfaces.

Thou shalt adhere to safety rules on beaches; Thou shalt not swim when a red flag flies; Thou shalt not bathe anywhere that is prohibited; Thou shalt not wash any type of garment under beach showers; Thou shalt not place buckets under them; Thou shalt not drink from showers; Thou shalt not use soap or gel under public showers.

Thou shalt not have sexual relations in a public place or anywhere visible from public places; Thou shalt not beg; Thou shalt not drink alcoholic beverages in public places; Thou shalt respect the right of people to rest, especially between 8pm and 8am; Thou shalt not take drugs in public places; Thou shalt not go naked or semi-naked in the street; Thou shalt not commit balconing.

The remaining Commandments were ones directed at the miscreant hoteliers and bar owners. Meantime, the Children of Albion scratched their heads. Had there been any mention of an ox? Not as such. So the Children did covet oxen, not all of which were oxen, as they couldn't tell the difference to bulls. And these oxen and bulls were driven along Punta Ballena and the streets of Magalluf until the combined bovine squadron did spy females with red tops or red leggings. And they did charge at these women, scattering them and making the Jezebels flee, never to return.

Whereupon Alfonso did look favourably on this and heard the cheers of the people, who had been released from the scourge of the Jezebels. He called to the Children of Albion, who had coveted the oxen (and bulls), prophesying that they would inherit the Earth, or that bit of it that was Punta Ballena. Which is what they did.

Happy hour again, and again and again ... .

* My thanks to The Independent, which listed all the various regulations ("commandments") for behaviour in Magalluf and Calvia.

Nothing Changes: Trouble In Resorts

Oh dear, things aren't going too well, are they. You remember - how are you allowed to forget - all that stuff about tourism heading up-market, about "quality" tourism, about transformations (Magalluf's, if nowhere else), about improvements to image, about eradication of drunken tourism. You do remember, don't you. Do you remember thinking it was all nonsense? If you did, then well done. Have a banana, but don't whatever you do use it for a purpose other than eating.

Shall we put together an inventory of the past few days? Where shall we start? Ah yes, the beaches in Cala Ratjada (and sorry if I offend those who insist that Cala Agulla and Son Moll aren't Cala Ratjada). The dunes being used as a communal toilet. Loud music on the beaches. Drinking, as in alcohol in glass containers (bottles to you and me), which are verboten. German tourists may not know that they are verboten, though normal German common sense (of which there is a great deal in most circumstances) should determine the fact that taking glass onto beaches isn't one of the best ideas in the world.

From Cala Ratjada we move south to Playa de Palma. What did we find there? Among other things, the image of a colossal, pale German youth sort seated at the wall in der Nähe vom Ballermann Sechs (aka Strandlokal, aka Balneario 6), surrounded by all sorts of debris of a drinking nature. My, how the locals lapped that photo up. Elsewhere in Playa de Palma, there was someone defecating in the street (captured on video).

Then we nip over to Palmanova. Normally dwarfed on the antics' front by its rowdy neighbour, it was subjected to the unedifying spectacle of eighteen young British (male) tourists taking a jog in broad daylight across the beach road, while another one was stopping traffic (or attempting to). Just a bit of high jinks? Possibly so, but try telling the locals that, in particular any who might have had kiddies at a nearby playground.

Into Magalluf itself and there were English and Scottish so-called supporters enacting normally nightly battles on the Punta Ballena in broad daylight. It was curious to hear match reports speaking of England fans applauding their Scottish counterparts and everyone having got on famously. In Magalluf, ludicrous enmities were persisting. Bar chairs were substitutes for seats hurled in a stadium. And it was all on video and all over YouTube. Thanks to the video, as was the case with Palmanova, plod were able to identify some of the miscreants.

And plod have definitely taken an interest in the video in the Bierkönig. Yep, we're back in Playa de Palma, where a group of German neo-Nazis caused uproar by shouting "foreigners out" and brandishing the Kaiser's flag. Their fellow countrymen, very much in the majority, responded with "Nazis out". The local police service for hate crimes and intolerance has referred the matter to the prosecution service. The target of these repulsive Nazi foreigners was a "foreigner" with black skin.

So, what do we learn from all of this? We learn that there is nothing new under a burning Mallorcan June sun or within the confines of a beer hall. Nazis? Get them every year. Their targets are always the same. Drunkenness in Cala Ratjada? They've been lamenting that for ages and identifying the same cause - German youth. Streaking naked? Somewhat original perhaps, but largely because it was on video. Fighting in Magalluf? Well, who would have ever have thought?

Calvia town hall, virtuous Calvia town hall, with its transformational bylaws to support transformational Meliaisation, insists that nudists in Palmanova and brawling Scots and English are the fault of some businesses which are not adhering to the model of change. They are continuing with happy hours, with pub crawls, with low-quality all-inclusive. They're just not playing the game.

Maybe Calvia is right. But it seems all too easy to blame problems on certain businesses in-resort and not others. Not everyone travels with tour operators, but a lot do, and tour operators need to start walking the talk of responsibility rather than just filling planes, ferries and rooms with whoever can meet their volume requirements. They really don't care, even if - where British tour operators are concerned - they are starting to care about false compensation claims.

But let's not castigate British and German tour operators. What about some Spanish? Part of Alcudia is about to be laid waste to, courtesy of a Spanish tour operator. Magalluf, Playa de Palma, Cala Ratjada know the same or similar scenario.

The worst aspect of all this is that it neglects something else that hasn't changed and shows no sign of changing. Lads having a bundle, other lads streaking; they divert attention from the mugging prostitutes, the ones about whom virtuous Calvia can seemingly do nothing. Do nothing, and nothing is changing.

Three Years On: Mallorca's Dark Side

Three years ago I wrote an article entitled "Conspiracy of Silence". It was provoked by a report in the German magazine "Stern". On the cover of a mid-summer edition was the headline "Mallorca, the dark side of the holiday island". Germans who I spoke to all knew of the report. It covered a range of issues, summed up in the leader column. Behind the facade of the Mallorcan brand, it read, was a great mass of misery, criminality and despair.

The subjects of the report were varied: corruption, drugs, poverty, the enormous gap between rich and poor and prostitution. Being a German publication, this latter subject was located in Arenal.

Since that report it might be said that little has changed. Yet there have been developments. Let's take one. Prostitution. In Arenal there have been several successful operations by the National Police against human-trafficking gangs controlling prostitutes, whose modus operandi has typically been the same as that of the prostitutes of Magalluf. The prostitution is essentially a front for violent criminality.

I'm not suggesting that the report had anything to do with those subsequent operations, but taken as a body of work with the range of subjects it covered, the report certainly didn't go unnoticed. No major holiday destination worth its salt wishes to see a foreign magazine on racks in resorts highlighting that destination's dark side.

"Stern" did or should have done everyone a favour. This was not a sensationalist report. It was serious as well as accurate. Yet of course there were, as there always are, the noises of the apologists and of those who are swift to condemn negative reporting: those who appear to prefer censorship and to shield their eyes and ears from realities that offend a paradisical sensitivity. Oh, so the narrative can go, this happens elsewhere. So what? We're not talking about elsewhere. We're talking about here. This was a reason why, three years ago, I referred to a conspiracy of silence. The truths that "Stern" spoke of were rarely confronted with honesty, and this is something for which there has been little development in the past three years, except the National Police's actions in Arenal and in the investigations of alleged local police corruption.

Only a couple of weeks ago I wrote another article: "See No Evil". This concluded by addressing what is arguably the single greatest blight not just on Magalluf but also on Mallorca's tourism reputation - the prostitutes and associated criminality. In Arenal there has been some success. In Magalluf ... ?

There are further conspiracies: those of obfuscation and diversion. These are ones designed to conceal (or at least fail to coherently tackle) the dark side, preferring the diversion of actions to eliminate (it is hoped) behaviours which, while unacceptable, principally result in self-harm, the injuries of alcohol-fuelled fist fights and the run-ins with cops. The youth of Great Britain (or indeed from elsewhere) parading along Punta Bellend with its collective arse hanging out of its shorts or taking a tumble from a hotel balcony is not - per se - acting with criminal intent. The response to this, though, is to apply ordinance with fines attached. Communications are then used to demonstrate how change and transformation are to be brought about and are being brought about. Welcome to the "new" Magalluf of Calvia Beach. Fine. But what about the dark side?

These conspiracies - silence, obfuscation and diversion - were displayed at the time of the Stacey Dooley documentary. Whatever one thought about that, it was not fundamentally wrong. Rather, it was fundamentally right, including the part about the prostitutes. Criticised for having been sensationalist, it lacked (an argument went) the seriousness of, say, the "Stern" report. But lo and behold, what was to happen? The mamading video is what happened, and it gave ample excuses to concentrate on anything other than the real dark side.

"The Daily Star", it might be said, also lacks seriousness. Even within the ranks of British red-tops it struggles to be taken seriously. But it has now turned its attention to the prostitutes. One takes it as a compliment that, as part of this, it quoted pretty much word for word from a "Bulletin" report. (I know, I wrote it.)

Because of its sensationalism, assuming it and the Trip Advisor comments the report also referred to, are ever taken any notice of in Calvia village, there will doubtless be the silence, the obfuscation and the diversion. It simply isn't good enough. It is time that Calvia and the national government's delegation to the Balearics (because of its responsibilities for security matters and the security forces) started making clear, totally clear statements about the prostitutes. Started being totally clear as to how there is to be eradication. And if not, why not. People have had enough of the obfuscation. Let there be honesty. In the process, people might then have belief in elected officials.

See No Evil: Magalluf crime

The July-August 1989 issue of a publication devoted to Palmanova and Magalluf offered its thoughts about Magalluf. The publication was "Entre Tots". The main article had to do with "everything being in a mess". There was building work going on in the middle of summer. The then deputy mayor was quoted as saying that the town hall (Calvia) was wanting to "beautify" Magalluf. The plan was for a transformation into green areas with a boulevard of fountains, new street lighting, more trees, more benches within three years. That would have meant 1992.

It may not have escaped your attention that there has been a transformation in Magalluf. It started to take place nineteen years after the previous one was meant to have been completed. You surely have to know about this transformation, because it is constantly referred to. The town hall and hoteliers, a mix of public and private sector, have brought into being the "new" Magalluf.

That same edition in 1989 also featured an interview with the local police. There was a reference to there being a "restructuring of the force". Sounds familiar? Yes, because there's now another one. This restructuring, as with the current one, was in response to specific needs. In 1989, these were identified, inter alia, as illegal street selling, the activities of PRs ("tiqueteros"), night-time noise and public order and security on the beaches. The police would not be engaging in "repressive" action, it was said, but with "preventive" action.

Twenty-seven years on, and what has changed? Well, as part of the transformation into "new" Magalluf, bylaws and commands are issued with regularity. Together with police restructuring, these will deal with anti-social behaviour and the sort of petty illegality, such as street selling, that had existed well before "Entre Tots" was talking about it in 1989. Bylaws are made. Enforcing compliance is another issue.

There have been big changes since the late 1980s. Back then in what was still a pre-internet era, there were no videos of sexual activities to be disseminated via YouTube and other social networks. There was no specific talk of the phenomenon of "balconing". If there was prostitution, then it was prostitution as it was described on the tin: selling sex and that was all.

If you consider these three aspects, you get a clear impression of how the "new" Magalluf is working, or isn't working, and of what the main messages from the town hall (and others) have focused on and are focusing on. One of the latest attempts is "#Magalive". How to be responsible (young) tourists, how to have fun without getting totally bladdered or totally off the head on drugs or both. Well intentioned enough, but there will have been those not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

The petty illegality is as it was in 1989, but since then something very much more sinister has emerged. Everyone knows what it is, and yet the town hall (and others) bang on endlessly about anything but. Behind the campaigns to stop the use of laughing gas or people falling off balconies, there is the very much darker side - the muggings, the violence, the drugs.

I once wrote that there was a situation of the three wise monkeys' see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil in Magalluf: a situation of heads in sand, hoping that no one pays any heed to people being assaulted by violent prostitutes and others. Amidst all the campaigns and notices that have emanated from the town hall in recent months, where have been ones addressing the prostitutes and the other attendant sinister aspects of the resort? Three wise monkeys. The question is: who are they?

There is a new Facebook page (see how things have changed since 1989). It is called Calvia Crimewatch. Essentially, it is Magalluf with some Santa Ponsa thrown into the mix. Since being launched last Friday, it has at time of writing (Sunday lunchtime) almost 500 group members.

It would be easy for me to simply quote from this page, but to do so would not do justice to the overwhelming sense of outrage and to the numerous anecdotes related to violence, theft and more, or to some of the photos that are appearing and the threats targeted at those who attempt to photograph acts of criminality. No, it would be far too simple. You can see for yourselves anyway. So can the town hall, were it of a mind to. So can foreign media. So can police, so can the national government's delegation to the Balearics. So can anyone who might want to actually gain an appreciation as to realities in "new" Magalluf.

We've heard the excuses, we've heard the announcements of action to be taken which seem rarely or ever to materialise. Excuses, reasons are no longer acceptable. What does it take? People to get killed?

The Island That Lost Control

I'm looking at a one-litre bottle of olive oil, the light variety, not the extra virgin type. I'm not sure if it would make a difference which sort it was for something I'm trying to figure out without going and trying it. How much oil do you suppose you need to make a hotel corridor (not carpeted) slippery enough in order to ensure that guests slip over? I'm guessing that a litre - of whatever type - wouldn't be adequate. You could do part of a corridor, but the whole corridor ...?

Now I'm looking at a chopping-board and at a ring on the cooker. How long would it take, I'm wondering, for the chopping-board to catch light on a full ring (electric)? Wooden, plastic: I reckon the plastic one would go up quicker. I'm not about to find out. To be honest, until only a short while before writing this, it had never occurred to me that one might put a chopping-board on a ring, go out and trust that it catches light - in a hotel apartment. Nor had it ever struck me that one might pour oil along a hotel corridor.

I've been looking, millions have been looking, at a video. Have you seen it? Fancy seeing someone being beaten and kicked senseless by security guards? A hotel's security guards? A hotel to the fore of a transformation. I don't need to tell you which one, do I. You already know. You'll have seen the video. As I say, millions have. The Mail has seen it too. As has The Star. The victim wasn't a guest as such. The hotel has explained this. What the hell difference does that make? You'll know the hotel. It invites the public in to enjoy its facilities. That makes the public guests. This is a hotel asked, by its relevant town hall, to assist in sending out positive messages for somewhere undergoing transformation. Here's the message: end up black and blue. What does the mayor say?

This is not the same hotel as the one with the items from the kitchen. Which one do you reckon that is? Do you suppose it's the same one that apparently only has one security guard at night for a complex of ... Of, ooh, quite a large size. It is.

Tourism is booming. But you know that. With or without booming tourism there is a need for control. Control of different types. Though when things are booming, you don't really want the absence of control or the wrong type of control to go and cock everything up. I know, I know, it's always been the case that where there has been tourism in Mallorca there has also been its less savoury side: its violence, its misbehaviour, its crime. It's just that I have an uneasy feeling. Far from there being greater and better control, there seems to be a deterioration. This uneasiness stems in part from a further sense of impotence - not mine but that of the rightful authorities, be they police or administrations.

Impunity. That's the word. The point is that efforts are made in one way, and the target of those efforts (the anti-social behaviour or whatever) move somewhere else. You can take the lads off the streets of Magalluf, but you can't take the lads out of Magalluf, except by party boat aka booze cruise. You'll have seen the videos of that as well, no doubt. And no one appears to know how or to be able to enforce control. Impunity. You take the lads off the streets of Magalluf, stick 'em in a hotel, and they (one at any rate) get their heads kicked in by security. Done with impunity, but captured on video. What in God's name were those security guards thinking? Do they think? Or are they incapable of thought? It would appear so.

You put lads and lasses in another hotel with all but non-existent security, and they run riot. Maximum control is to be exerted, says the town hall. Really? One security guard? There's your booming tourism for you. Kerching! Take the money, stick 'em in your crumbling hotel and don't bother to engage any security.

There's something else. It's quite extraordinary. The nightclubs association has been complaining about it. Private houses are being used as nightclubs. People are paying to get in and for drinks. All illegal, and to make matters worse for the association, whose members have to charge the top rate of IVA (VAT) for entrance and drinks, there is not one cent of tax paid. Well, of course there isn't. Impunity.

In this instance, there is also an absence of inspection, from whichever government department or other agency might be relevant: as with hotels, for which there is a total under-resourcing for inspection. So things just happen. Noses are thumbed. We don't care. There's your boom for you.

Followers Of Resort Fashion

Meliá Hotels International has seven hotels in Torremolinos. They are all more or less dotted along the resort's fairly lengthy front line. The number isn't, therefore, so different to those in Magalluf. The mayor of the Costa del Sol resort has been in Magalluf. He has met with Calvia's mayor, Alfonso Rodríguez, and with the CEO of Meliá, Gabriel Escarrer.

Torremolinos is undergoing a process of renovation and repositioning. Sounds familiar, doesn't it. A closing-off of traffic, pedestrianisation of its old part are designed to make it a space for the citizens. Goodness, how familiar it does all sound.

One hesitates to call it a transformation (a word seemingly reserved for Magalluf, aka Calvia Beach, aka Meliá New Town), but the resort's improvement, says the mayor, has brought about a 30% increase in the number of licences for new business openings this year: even McDonald's has returned to a resort that had fallen into decline.

Torremolinos and Magalluf are like resort blood brothers. Go back in time and they were icons of touristic naffness: Torremolinos more so than Magalluf. It was Torremolinos that Monty Python chose when sending up the package holiday of the early 1970s rather than Magalluf. It seems wholly appropriate that its mayor should now have come and seen for himself what transformation entails.

It is not, one imagines, that Melía is about to embark upon something as grand as Calvia Beach. It is, however, upgrading its hotels. There is a Sol House (the Aloha, Costa del Sol) just as there is in Magalluf, though it appears not, as yet, to be "mixed" by Ibiza Rocks. Oh well.

Calvia Beach has been and is something of an experiment. It is not experimental, as that would imply that the results had not been carefully thought out: they obviously have been. No, it is an experiment in the creation of a different type of resort. It is a model that Meliá has itself suggested others may wish to follow. But that begs a question. Who are these others?

Even were Meliá of a mind to get heavily involved in a Torremolinos makeover, there wouldn't be the same inherent advantages as existed in Magalluf. The number of hotels was one of these. Their comparative proximity was another. An integrated transformation, one involving the town hall-owned immediate environment was facilitated as much as anything by this proximity. Torremolinos is different in this regard.

It has been an experiment in another way: to determine the degree to which one hotel chain can effect change and fairly fundamental change at that. Sure, there have been others - BH, Fergus - but they are followers, catching the wave (or is it Wave House) and in the slipstream of a hotel chain that has engineered the remodelling of a resort.

For Torremolinos, Calvia Beach will certainly offer an intriguing example to try and imitate, though how all-embracing this might be would be debatable. The Magalluf experiment, if nothing else, suggests that resort transformations require a sugar daddy hotel chain, one certainly with vision but one also with strong investment backing and that inherent real-estate advantage of hotel locations.

And for Torremolinos, read also other Mallorcan resorts. The point has been made previously. If Calvia Beach is a model to be taken up by others, then who is it that would drive this? Meliás don't grow on resort trees. The model would need its own remodelling. It would demand a consortium approach and shedloads of investment.

But would everywhere want to be like Calvia Beach? Meliá has spoken of how the traditional resort bar is being supplanted by the beach club (clearly not completely, it has to be said). This is all part of the complementary offer upgrading itself in line with a resort branding determined by the sophistication and aspirations inherent to the Millennial Generation (the young market which doesn't get totally blotto or down its pants on Punta Ballena). It's all in the marketing, of course it is.

Magalluf's family tourism market would seem to also demand beach clubs. Or is it that they are to be weaned off alternatives and made to want them? This is nothing against beach clubs, rather a fear that resorts, looking at the Calvia Beach experiment, will somehow contrive to lay their hands on investment and copy it. One would end up, therefore, with a sort of standardised resort model.

And in marketing terms, that would make little sense. Rather than standardisation, the marketing mantra has to be differentiation. But in order for that to apply, someone has to have the vision as to what a resort should be. Meliá has done this. It has re-thought the vision. But for Magalluf and only Magalluf. It doesn't mean, it shouldn't mean that others slavishly follow. Torremolinos should look, see what might make sense for it, and go its own way.

The British Abroad: In images

I didn't know the name Peter Dench until the other day. Many of you may not have known his name. Which is not to say that Peter Dench is not well-known. He is. In the world of photojournalism, that is.

Because of where we are - Mallorca; because of what we all know - Magalluf and its attendant attractions; because of the insatiable appetite of journalism in its different guises to record the moments, we are presented with an example of Peter Dench's work. Bloke on holiday. Brit bloke on holiday. Brit bloke slumped over a wall. A Magalluf wall. We don't know quite how old Brit bloke is. It's hard to say when he's face down and enquiries are being made as to his well-being by a passing and caring female who seems to be in the wrong resort. The only surprise with the photo was that Brit bloke still had his shorts on. That's Magalluf for you. Usually. Keeled over and kit off.

Taken as a single image, the photo could have been misconstrued as merely another attempt to exploit the Magalluf reputation and present it to the world in the name of journalism. A single image that could have been taken a thousand times. And not just in Magalluf. But the single image needs to be considered within the context of the whole Peter Dench oeuvre. He records Englishness and Britishness. Warts and all, but principally the warts.

The Sony World Photography Awards are broken down into numerous categories. One of them is Daily Life within a wider category of Documentary and itself under the heading of Professional. Among the Daily Life nominees are, for example, Espen Rasmussen with "The Curse of Coal". And then there is Peter Dench, "The British Abroad".

The very title gives the game away. "The British Abroad" presupposes a type of Brit. The legend immediately suggests that this is Brit abroad of a less than wholly edifying nature. It is a title that has been with us pretty much since mass tourism jetted into the skies in the early 1960s. Brits abroad have always been, variously, uncouth, ill-educated, slobs, drunks, xenophobes, small-minded. Brits abroad have long required low-lying walls, designed and built by tourist authorities to permit being slumped over following the intake of a year's worth of alcohol in one night.

The only variables within this generic are those of age. Brit abroad doesn't necessarily grow old gracefully. Indeed, quite the contrary. But for the marketers, this particular segment of the Brit market can only be defined, apart from age, by its lower ratings in the ABC socioeconomic scheme of things. Lower in fact. Here are Huxley's Deltas and Epsilons. These are non-beings in the new schemata of, for example, the marketing brains trust of Meliá New Town, the brave new world of As and B+s, segmented in their own ways, such as by membership of the Millennial Generation, one in which all youthful(ish) tourists have excellent dental work, surf the artificial surf and that of the internet, are attached permanently to social networks and want for no more than a glass of extraordinarily expensive sparkling water.

These new-age beings do not, therefore, inhabit the stereotypical land of The British Abroad. They do not conform with an image that has been carved out with such mindless dedication over decades. But were they to be the subject of an alternative exercise in photojournalism, they would likewise be a kind of pastiche but within its own narrow terms of reference. And that's because there have to be certain defining images, ones that make sense and have coherence as being representative in order to be displayed to the world, be it via Sony awards or otherwise.

For all this, and in the context of Magalluf, it needs to be said that The British Abroad is an evolving being. And it is here where I have to question Peter Dench. Not because of his fine work, not because of his excellent eye and composition, not because of the virtues of photographically capturing images that together create a powerful representation of a particular strand of British existence.

A collection of The British Abroad, replete with bloke in tutu standing on a balcony, Bollocks Karaoke Pub and others, that is on a Getty website carries a description and explanation: The Dench Diary Foreign Special. It is the written support to the images, some of which are from Magalluf (others are from elsewhere, such as Ibiza). The feature, this collection of images, comes from spring-summer 2012 and 2013. It is this, therefore, that I question. We've moved on. Haven't we? Why drag out the bloke on the wall now?

This is not to say that all has changed in Magalluf. But can the imagery be said to deal with the passé? Or will The British Abroad always be with us?

Between Fact And Fiction: Tourism re-development

And so the president of the Balearics was given a tour of the new Magalluf. Bright, shiny Magalluf. A resort for the new age built against the background of a political new age. There was a notable absentee from this guided tour. The minister for employment was there as well. The tourism minister was not.

President Armengol, somewhat bizarrely, called upon the private sector to bring more investment to the Magalluf fiesta. Who is that has been making the investment until now? She may have had the so-called complementary offer (non-hotel sector) in mind, but the plea to the private sector implied a greater role that has been played by the public sector than is strictly the case. Nevertheless, to hear her talk of private investment was heartening. Where was Barceló?

The political new age is, in a sense, not new at all: not where tourism is concerned. It is a sector that has over the years been moved from pillar to post because of political changes and political whims. The current new age is newer because of the additional maverick factor on top of Més, and that is Podemos. Left up to PSOE alone, and one fancies there wouldn't be too much alteration to the path laid out by the Bauzá PP regime. Modification, yes, arguments, surely, but investments would be allowed to proceed without overly much interference.

The guided tour came against a further background: that of criticisms that Calvia is dragging its heels over giving projects the final green light. One such, so it has been suggested, is Meliá's re-development of the Jamaica, the final part in the Meliá jigsaw. During the tour it was said that the Jamaica will reopen in April or May 2017, which is how Meliá have planned it. This was a statement of intent. In earshot were Calvia's mayor and tourism councillor. In a very public display, the message to the town hall was don't go messing with our project.

Alfonso Rodríguez, Calvia's mayor, is caught between the stools of progress and the politics of his administration. If heels are to be dragged, they aren't necessarily his. He is a PSOE man after all. But it is this complex political arrangement - in Calvia and also at the regional government - which creates the chasm between tourism re-development fact and tourism re-development fiction. The constant drivel of tourism newspeak that we are fed - sustainable this, sustainable that - is what breeds this chasm. While Armengol might call for more investment, there are those who seemingly would prefer to minimise it and to place barriers in its way.

Take the tourism ministry. Barceló's ministry. Away from Magalluf, there are and have been some thirty projects for renewal which were approved by the Bauzá government in 2014. Some have gone ahead. Others are still waiting in the queue. Roughly a half of them. They are all ones that need the ministry's approval. But the ministry doesn't have the staff. It is also now the bailiwick of Més.

Meliá didn't suddenly pluck the Calvia Beach Resort project out of thin air shortly after Bauzá won the 2011 election. It would have been anticipating a PP victory, as it would have been aware of what was to emerge in Carlos Delgado's 2012 law. It went ahead and started work, all the green lights signalling a fast-track re-development of unprecedented scale. Once the less salubrious side of Magalluf was exposed to the world and embarrassed Manu Onieva, the regional government and Meliá, there was a political (as well as commercial) necessity to ensure nothing got in its way. Despite the allegations of heel-dragging at Calvia, Meliá's very public display this week will have surely put paid to this. Rodríguez can't possibly allow it for his own sake and for PSOE's.

But this fast-tracking of Magalluf, this continuous rejoicing in and self-congratulation  of transformation sucks big time when you look at the rest of Mallorca's resorts. There are positives, however, and these have to do with town halls which aren't beholden to the handbrake ideologies of the likes of Podemos (or indeed Més). Alcudia is one, for example. This is a town which might be penalised because of the tourism ministry's inability to process certain projects, but others are its own domain. Thankfully.

The apparent bureaucratic hold-ups at the ministry make one wonder what on earth will happen with the tourist tax revenues, assuming that they aren't all ploughed in to environmental conservation and do indeed - some of them - find their way to resorts and to their infrastructure overhauls. Left to the ministry to process them, the re-development fact is that it will probably take a further change in government to make them something more than fiction.

Hey! Remember Us?: Other resorts

Manacor town hall was proud to have announced that it had presented "relevant information" to the World Travel Market last week. Prior to the fair, it was able to say that the "capital of the Llevant" had "very important" projects in hand, such as for cycling and sports tourism, one of the big Balearic themes at the fair. No one from Manacor actually attended, partly one suspects because the town hall was in the process of change: the vote of no confidence had ushered in a totally different ruling administration. But the town hall had probably, in any event, not planned on sending anyone. Unless I'm mistaken, there were only four town halls with official representation at the fair, two of which needed no introduction: Calvia and Palma. The other two were Alcudia and Pollensa.

In Manacor there is a resort that has been badly neglected for years. Calas de Mallorca has, however, been attempting to up its image, and an innovative website has been part of the process. It isn't the only resort to have been active web-wise, so have Cala Millor and Pollensa, for example.

Pollensa is very British, but it's not as though Cala Millor and Calas de Mallorca don't get British tourists. So should these resorts, and others, have been in attendance? Ultimately, it's a financial consideration. If the regional government is tight when it comes to spending money on tourism promotion, then the town halls are decidedly Scrooge-like. It's hoped that others assist them with promotion at events like London's travel fair - the Balearic Tourism Agency and the hoteliers - but what hope did most of Mallorca's resorts have last week? Alcudia and Pollensa were doing their best, but the only games in old London town were Calvia's and Palma's.

In Palma's case, this was principally to promote the city as a weekend-break destination. Where Calvia was concerned, it was clear why the town hall was keen to be in London. This was a fair which, from a Mallorcan perspective, had one message and one message alone: Magalluf.

This was clearly a message that needed getting across, but one does have to wonder what the rest of Mallorca makes of the apparent monopoly (or duopoly, if Palma is included) of the island's marketing. Fair play to Calvia (and Meliá) for the public relations exercise, but where do other resorts fit in? And among them are others only a short distance from Magalluf. Like Santa Ponsa. It's not just resorts to the north, west or east which are overlooked, it's others in Calvia as well.

The hoo-ha over the missing 63 million euros investment for Playa de Palma was a useful ploy by the regional government. They did, after all, know about this the week before the fair but only revealed the news once they were there. Diversionary tactic for dealing with the tourist tax? Possibly it was, but the argument over this investment merely went to reinforce what has been recognised for too long: the obsession of governmental bodies and of the media with two resorts and only two resorts. Everywhere else appears inconsequential.

And a consequence of this is that you never hear about investments in other resorts, if indeed there are any. Nigh on 200 million of Meliá investors' cash in Magalluf, plus that of others. 63 million that the government is desperate to retrieve from Madrid for Playa de Palma. Vast sums of money that are constantly mentioned, held up as achievements or as examples of central government "aggression" towards Mallorca and the Balearics. Yes, there is investment elsewhere, but it is not of a fundamental character as it is in Magalluf and Playa de Palma: a re-invention of old and tired resorts.

Perhaps the government hopes that it can convince tourists and tour operators that the tourist tax is the means for making Mallorca less of a two-resort island, that the revenue will go to other parts destined to also become like Miami Beach. It's unlikely to convince anyone, and the case for the tax was arguably made less convincing by all the Calvia-Palma puffery in London. If there is investment of the levels spoken about for Magalluf and Playa de Palma - investment without the aid of a tourist tax - why should a tax be necessary?

The point is though that very little of the Magalluf investment has thus far been public money. Meliá, because of its strong interests in the resort and its access to investment, was able to circumvent the type of delays that have dogged the more publicly funded Playa de Palma. Other resorts don't have a sugar daddy hotel chain. They thus rely far more on public funds to bring about change. In a couple of years time, will the World Travel Market be learning about the changing faces of Cala Millor, Alcudia and Calas de Mallorca?

Keeping Quiet About The Tax

Travel fairs don't, as a rule, generate enormous interest except among those attending and who are associated with the travel and tourism industry. They can seem like almost ritualistic affairs for business to talk to business, business to talk to governments, and governments and everyone else to talk to the specialist media. London's World Travel Market was different. Magalluf aside, the general interest lay with the tourist tax.

If there had been an expectation, hope even, that the ExCel was going to be the location for an almighty bust-up, then the expectation was misguided. This was never going to happen. The closest call was the set-to between President Armengol and national tourism minister, José Manuel Soria, a somewhat one-sided affair in any event (with Armengol doing the talking). It was one for Balearic public consumption and was of little interest to anyone else, apart from amused passers-by. Moreover, it wasn't specifically to do with the tax but with the withholding of investment, an arcane matter of internal Spanish regional financing of no interest to anyone else in London. Soria may have called the tax a nonsense or a folly, depending on your translation, but what little interest there might have been in internal Spanish affairs would have been supported by knowledge of the political differences at play. No real story there, then.

Of greater importance than Soria were the tour operators, ABTA and indeed the Balearic hoteliers, none of whom have a good word to say about the tax. But they were saying little in the public forum of the fair. They weren't ever going to kick off a rumpus and a ballyhoo because, much though they might dislike the tax, to draw even more attention to it by engaging in great rows with Barceló and Armengol would have been totally counterproductive. Regardless of the tax, there are holidays to be sold, flights to be filled, contracts to yield returns (and the contracts for the Balearics are more valuable than ever).

So, the tax opponents would have buttoned their lips and pretended that it was all business as usual, which it almost certainly will be, given the forecasts for 2016. Why go and potentially spoil this?

Casting an eye over the British media, there seemed to be comparatively little interest in the tax. "Travel Weekly" managed to mistranslate Soria by insisting that he had called the tax "crazy" when he hadn't. The British media wouldn't of course have laboured a point regarding the IVA (VAT) tourist rate, an increase in which had been an "error", Soria conceded. He, as with other opponents of the tourist tax bang on about the harm it will have for competitiveness, blissfully ignoring the fact that the basic tourist rate was upped while various sectors of the tourism industry, previously in the reduced category, were suddenly subject to 21% IVA.

Hypocritical though this might be, it is perhaps proof that taxes have limited, if any impact on tourists. There again, who pays any real attention to the IVA component of the cost of accommodation, meal or attraction?

Magalluf, it seemed, was of greater interest to the British media. Reports sounded like old hat for those of us here who have become used to Meliá telling us how much they're investing and on what and to the town hall in Calvia saying how much better things are. "The Telegraph" couldn't help pointing out that one of the hotels in the Meliá transformation inventory was the site of a British "balconing" death three years ago, while the same journalist noted that a colleague, who had been in Magalluf in September, had reported that the Punta Ballena "was still packed with drunken revellers". One fancies that it is going to be like this for the next couple of seasons at least: claim and counter-claim as to just how effective or not the changes genuinely are.

Baby And The Bathwater: Selling Mallorca

Let's just imagine ... There is no ISIS. North African countries - Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia - are oases of peace and harmony. Turkey does not have Syria next to it and does not have its own internal troubles. The pound, rather than strong against the euro, is weak. As opposed to wage growth of around 3% in the UK, growth is stalled.

Tourism is a product of politics, international relations and events, economies, spending power. This, more so than marketing, consumer behaviour and logistics, determines its success or it failure. No one in the tourism industry is blind to these underlying determinants, the ones which create an environment for investment and renewal, for branding and niching, for the development of air routes. These are the products of the basic product, one that is beyond the control of the industry, a basic product which can turn with unpredictability.

Were the factors listed above present, Mallorca and the Balearics would most likely not be registering a further record year for tourism, and the same can be said for other parts of Spain. But they aren't present. They have thus created a perfect set of circumstances for tourism. They have created a perfect situation for greater exploitation. Would there be a tourist tax in the Balearics if tourism was not as buoyant as it is or indeed was enduring a slight decline? Is the tax, therefore, pure opportunism?

When Catalonia was discussing, approving in its parliament and then finally implementing its tourist tax, the circumstances were less favourable. Yet, the tax went ahead nevertheless. Perhaps Catalonia got lucky, as the circumstances turned very much in its favour. It has experienced healthy, upward tourism growth since the tax was introduced three years ago. Or perhaps its imposition is considered to be one of those things, just as it is in so many parts of the globe.

Four out of five British holidaymakers, says ABTA, will be choosing not to go to Muslim lands next summer. Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey - each a direct competitor - will be avoided, as will less direct and more distant competitors, such as Dubai. To the British, you can probably assume that a similar mindset exists with German, Scandinavian, French and Italian holidaymakers. 2016 will be another bonanza for Spain and Mallorca, tour operators from the UK, Germany and other European markets having been desperate to tie up contracts for 2016 and beyond, ones that have placed greater power in the hands of the hoteliers. It's payback time for the years of lost profitability.

The British market is now, once more, the darling of Mallorca and of Spain. To the virtues of safety, reliability, proximity, air connectivity (in summer anyway) are those of affordability and perceptions of value for money. One trusts, therefore, that at the World Travel Market, they are not about to allow a view to take hold of the baby being about to be thrown out with the bathwater. Supply and demand, yes, but over-pricing and greed, no. Which brings us back to the tax. Many will consider that three per cent wage growth, resultant increased spending power and a weak euro should not be eaten up by a fiscal measure.

The fact is, though, that the tax is unlikely to be damaging. If it isn't finally implemented until late 2016, then it will have no impact, other than the uncertainties surrounding it. Even if it does come in for the season, a harmful effect is questionable. A tax is worth paying when contrasted with terrorism.

The big items to be sold in London are Magalluf and the tax. The sales message is not straightforward in either case. When presented with the challenge of appraising the changes in Magalluf for the Bulletin's World Travel Market supplement, I spent an age looking to get the right words for the British market. There has been much talk of the more diverse tourism market, of other nationalities moving in to Magalluf. The last thing that's needed is a perception that the bedrock market ever since Magalluf became a resort is becoming less valued. Great care has to be exercised in not alienating this core market.

With the tax, there are two options for the government's selling of it: either ignore it or confront it. The latter brings the potential for overstatement and of too much attention being paid to the tax, but this is preferable to pretending it doesn't exist and isn't - perhaps - opportunistic. How best to sell it, though? As one who isn't convinced of the merits of lavishing spend on prime-time broadcast advertising, here is an instance when there may well be merit. Not in mentioning the tax but in hammering home the benefits of Mallorca and the Balearics in case there are those who are wavering because of the tax. This won't be done, though. The tourism budget is to be cut again. Where's the tax going?

Season 2015: What did we learn?

Resorts can be changed
The naysayers said it couldn't and wouldn't be done. These were naysayers whose beliefs were clouded by self-interest and an inability to see beyond the status quo. A resort, its image, its offer is for all time. Long live the old resort! The naysayers operated, however, from a manual that does not exist. There is no rule which says that a resort has to remain the same. No rule which says that it should have been as it was in the first place. Magalluf changed.

There is still more to be done
But before we get carried away, and one suspects that too many have, we can't overlook what hasn't changed. The glowing tributes for Magalluf's makeover constantly fail to address the cancerous continuance of the mugger-prostitutes. One thing that was learned was that police operations can make a difference. They did so in Playa de Palma, where the National Police broke up a human-trafficking gang and arrested some thirty individuals. A judge issued restraining orders, some women were taken into care, others were detained. The keys to this were police observation and also, crucially, reports by victims. More than anything, this was a lesson that goes beyond the scope of local police forces. It is an international criminal matter, and one for which the National Police and Guardia Civil should be given all resources possible in working with other police forces and agencies to eliminate. A mantra for Magalluf and Mallorca that politicians and the tourism industry chant is that it is a safe destination. Indeed it is, but it could be safer still.

The end of youth tourism?
We became confused by what this meant. The drunken, loutish element was seemingly being shown the door, and this was heralded as a success. Yet why should there not be youth tourism? It frequently has good levels of disposable income. The question became and now is, what type of youth? Perhaps BH Mallorca - and further developments in Magalluf to come next year - point the way, but not everyone is convinced that this represents such a dramatic shift towards a - might one say - more mature youth market.

Elsewhere, meanwhile, there was the problem of the spring-breakers from different countries but not least from the Spanish mainland. This is a youth tourism that is having potentially disastrous consequences in resorts already dominated by all-inclusive where the season is now compacted into three months. Spring breaks of two to three weeks strip away much of what business there might otherwise be. This might not seem a long period, but where the season is so short, then it most definitely is.

Did someone say all-inclusive?
The strength of the pound, the upgrading of hotels were contributing to a lowering of the all-inclusive offer, or so it was said. Yet all-inclusive was being spoken of as never before, partly because - praise be - politicians had woken from a twenty-year-plus slumber and cottoned onto its existence. The change in government brought with it an apparent determination to regulate, and the administration was provided with a cause into which it could sink its teeth: self-service alcohol. This was bizarre, and it demonstrated how out of touch the political class appears to have been. All that was happening was that the means of delivering alcohol was changing, not the principle of as much alcohol as one holidaymaker can stomach. But it did at least hint at tighter control over what is allowable as part of the all-inclusive offer. Regulation should follow in the not too distant future, but it has to be matched with far tighter inspection. There was a lesson from a different source - the campaign against fraudulent work contracts. Deemed a success, it was because of the additional inspectors specially brought in from the mainland. Regulation is meaningless unless there is the inspection capability to enforce it.

Overcrowded Mallorca
Other regulation was in the air, that of private accommodation, but the emphasis shifted this summer. It was no longer a case of whether to permit the commercialisation of private apartments or of how to enable this, but of the sheer availability. The previous government had sat on its hands and flatly refused to consider any meaningful regulation, and this summer highlighted the absence of such regulation. The massive growth in rental accommodation via the internet was identified as the principal reason why the island reached saturation point. But whatever regulation there might eventually be, without the resources to control it, it will prove as toothless as any for all-inclusive standards.

A record-breaking season it proved to be (for some at any rate), but there was no disguising some reasons why - instability elsewhere most notably. The chief lesson was that, for any advances made, they are inextricably linked to the ups and downs of the competition.

Resort Obsolescence: Financing mature zones

Amidst recent talk of Magalluf and its changing face, something quite important has slipped under the radar that is highly relevant to this face-changing. It applies also to Palmanova, Santa Ponsa and Paguera, where facelifts or other cosmetic surgery are spoken of less. That's the power of Magalluf, one supposes. Mention Calvia, and the assumption is that Magalluf is what is meant, but other resorts in the town have just as much of a need for makeovers as Magalluf: more in a way, as they have not gone under the operating scalpel of Meliá.

Businesses, small ones for the most part, met with town hall representatives last week to talk about concerns they have. While they raised once more the prostitutes and lookies' issues - ones that for all the triumphal talk are not getting any better - and also called for greater police presence in Santa Ponsa's Ramon Moncada (a street every bit as bedevilled as Punta Ballena has been), top of their list were "mature zones".

To remind you, these are areas of resorts deemed to be obsolete and outdated. Rundown might also be a description. The zones' levels of maturity reveal their age - fifty plus years - and there are legacies that date back to the first years of development, as is the case with other resorts on the island. The tourism law that the Bauzá government introduced contained provision for resorts (or parts of them) to be declared mature zones. Making such declarations is largely the responsibility of town halls, and if and when these are approved, the process is set in motion for eradicating the outdated and replacing it with the up to date, or possibly even futuristic.

The carrot, where the law is concerned, is that bureaucratic procedures will be relaxed. Financial assistance should also be available. The carrot is for the stick which demands that mature zones and business premises within them are redeveloped, and done so within a set period of time. In Magalluf, Palmanvoa, Santa Ponsa and Paguera, businesses such as bars, restaurants, shops and clubs have three years to get their modernisation act together: approximately a thousand premises across the four resorts are affected.

These businesses had until Monday to submit the initial documentation in order to get the ball rolling and to qualify for the plan. There was talk of extending this deadline, but at the heart of the concerns, one fancies, is the question of money. Where will the financial assistance come from? Will it be forthcoming?

A mature zone declaration brings with it an obligation on behalf of the local authority and businesses. It isn't a jargonistic term but an item of law, the first application of which - to Playa de Palma - is set out in suitably legalistic fashion. It is also a concept which doesn't only apply to Mallorca. It was adopted by the last regional government (and the new one would have no reason to abandon it) as part of a national scheme for modernisation, and nationally there is a fund for the modernisation of touristic infrastructure. This totals 200 million euros but only one eighth of it is targeted at mature zones: 25 million for the Balearics, the Costas and the Canaries.

The rules of engagement suggest that 30% of finance for business modernisation has to be private. Some would argue that it should all be private, as these are not public-sector businesses, but the scale of the task of modernisation in resorts demands government intervention and government cash. The problem is that there seems so little of it.

The Balearics of course have a fundamental issue with national government over investment funding, but even were Madrid (of whatever political colour) to up this investment for tourism infrastructure, would it go to businesses? There's no guarantee that it would, as the resorts themselves need improvement and modernisation, while with Podemos in the equation, public funding going to the private sector would probably be a no-no: they've said that the tourist tax benefiting the hoteliers would be unacceptable, and they might well have the same attitude towards restaurants and clubs.

There are other funds, such as the Balearic tourism "bolsa" that was created from levies paid by hoteliers to legalise all the places in their hotels that hadn't been legal. This is used for resort improvements, but of a general nature. And then there will be the tourist tax, but it won't go into private hands.

There are other funds in the form of generous lines of credit from certain banks, but a key problem, as identified by Meliá's Mark Hoddinott in Magalluf is that bars and restaurants don't operate in the long-term. It's why convincing them of the merits of Magalluf's transformation and changing market profile is not easy. And that means that it isn't easy to convince them that there will be profitable returns on borrowing.

Self-Service Alcohol: A red herring

So, President Armengol is saying that the government is considering the banning of self-service alcohol in all-inclusives. Here is an issue that was first highlighted by the Calvia councillor who shares the same name as the mayor. He is the Alfonso Rodríguez from the Esquerra Oberta open left grouping, the one who is also the president of the Facua consumers' association in the Balearics.

When this issue first arose a couple of months ago, the reaction to it - in general political terms - was muted. The problem was noted, but it was an issue said to be confined to a few hotels in one resort - Magalluf. As such, any talk of banning or regulating was premature and/or unnecessary. Now, it is said, the practice has spread, and so other resorts are implicated: in Playa de Palma, most notably. Waking up to this more widespread self-service activity, the government is hoping to have a ban in place by next summer.

Am I alone in believing that this is a colossal red herring? The means of making alcohol available is merely an extension of what has existed for years. Be it self-service or via a solitary waiter at the end of a long queue, the consequence is much the same. If holidaymakers want to get drunk on cheap local spirits and beer, then they will.

The greater ease of access to the booze, though, is said to have led to fewer holidaymakers taking to the beach in Magalluf. And the point of this is what exactly? All-inclusive guests going to the beach doesn't mean that they are necessarily spending any money. They are just going to the beach.

There have been some strange observations that have resulted from the self-service affair. We have had the tourism minister saying that there had been attempts to curb the use of plastic glasses in all-inclusives because they give the impression of low-quality tourism. Far better to have proper glasses, but these are dangerous around or in a pool. So plastic glasses have been retained, but, and Barceló said this, it was "surprising" that guests would use these plastic glasses, fill them with alcohol and turn pools into scenes of real drunkenness. Surprising?

The point with self-service is that one of the biggest complaints guests have with all-inclusives at the low end of the offer is the queuing for service. Hotels typically allocate minimum staff numbers to bars, a reason being that they employ the minimum number possible because all-inclusive isn't terribly profitable for them. One would guess they've made cost-benefit analyses and concluded that it is cheaper for guests to fill their boots with all the alcohol they can consume than it is to employ a meagre number of bar staff.

Behind all this sudden concern regarding guest alcoholism and bingeing is, as I've noted before, just as much if not more concern for jobs. Which is fair enough, but the attention now being paid to self-service alcohol makes me suspect that the government will single this out and champion it as the government regulating all-inclusives, while ignoring any other regulation. It is, in a sense, easier to target specific consequences of all-inclusive than it is to get to grips with all-inclusive per se. Hence, it is a red herring, but a convenient one for the government.

Armengol went on to say that a ban on self-service would come from analysing regulatory gaps that apply to all-inclusives. And these are? How can there be gaps when there isn't regulation. Tourism legislation barely mentions all-inclusives and it certainly doesn't have any specific regulation. She's talking nonsense. At least Jaume Font of El Pi appears to have more of an appreciation of the issue in calling for wider regulation in time for next year.

Again this is fair enough or would be if it weren't for the fact that holidays are being booked on the basis of what is currently the situation, not on what it might or will be in a few months time. It is the same with the tourist tax and does, therefore, give rise to the potential for misrepresentation. Tour operators will be livid. Introducing regulation has to have a longer timeframe. 2017 not 2016.

But we still come back to what regulation for all-inclusive there might be. No one knows. Just as no one truly knows the extent of all-inclusive or its type. Font has called for there to be a register of hotels which offer all-inclusive, which begs two questions. One is why there hasn't long been one, and the second has to do with the fact that this was supposed to have been undertaken. Early this year Jaime Martínez, the former tourism minister, said that it would be. Were there to be a register though, what would then be done with the information?

Keep Helping Yourselves

So, to what should have been the surprise of no one, it has been discovered that the tourism ministry has no legal means by which it can ban self-service alcohol in the all-inclusive dens of iniquity in Magalluf. Why did anyone believe that it could be banned? What goes on inside hotels is a matter for hotels, unless there are specific proscriptions or regulations. Allowing the punters to help themselves to bottles of free vodka is one of them.

Still, you have to hand it to the town hall in Calvia for wishing to apply pressure in the movement towards tighter regulation of all-inclusives, something which is all but non-existent. Apropos the self-service alcohol, the ministry said that law regarding all-inclusives is "generic". It is generic to the extent that there is barely any mention of it in the tourism law.

What will Biel Barceló, the tourism minister, write into law regarding all-inclusive? Anything? Or is he too busy flying the flag of the eco-tax and encountering all those who wish to tear the flag down? To whom can now be added Thomas Cook. CEO Peter Frankhauser has gone further than Jet2's Steve Heapy in attacking the tax. He has left no room for doubt. "Tourists will stop coming to the Balearics if they have to pay one or two euros more a day."

Frankhauser and chairman of the Thomas Cook board, Frank Meysman, have been in Palma, explaining how the tour operator has invested 25 million euros into its "star destination" of Mallorca and praising the island for the qualities that make it the leading destination it is: safety, quality, taxation, variety of offer, sun and beach, and a positive price-to-quality ratio. Note the reference to taxation.

Tour operators lining up against the tax is nothing new. The minister who was responsible for the original eco-tax, Celesti Alomar, pointed out recently that there had been a concerted and co-ordinated effort that involved tour operators and hoteliers to undermine the old tax. It was as though he was surprised that there would have been anything other than an effort to stop it.

Someone else who has been speaking recently is the vice-president for real estate at Meliá Hotels International, Mark Hoddinott. In an extensive interview for "Hosteltur", a variety of topics were discussed, including all-inclusive and the nature of the non-hotel complementary offer in Magalluf. Hoddinott spoke of the urgent need to break a "vicious circle" by which bars don't invest in changing themselves or improving themselves because they don't believe there is the demand to do so, by which he was referring to the continuation of a customer profile that Hoddinott notes is changing, largely because Meliá is changing it.

It's chicken and egg of course. There has to be more of the up-market clientele, many of them not in all-inclusive, in order to convince bars to change. Or is that the bars have to first change in order to attract the clientele? Whichever way round it is, the Meliá vision does not include tables of all-inclusive self-service Rushkinoff. Or at least, you would imagine that it wouldn't.

The Thin Blue Line Of Magalluf

It was some time last summer. There was talk of the Thin Blue Line being etched into the sands of the Calvia coastline. A certain newspaper, Spanish, which isn't part of the same group as "The Bulletin", considered the matter. Oh deary me, how they considered it. Let's just accept that it was a typo. Or was it? British "boobies" could soon be patrolling the streets of Mallorca's streets. Rowan Atkinson's "Thin Blue Line" would relocate to the island with inevitably hilarious consequences. In fact, were they to do another "Blackadder", Edmund and Baldrick (suitably attired in feminine uniform) would be pursuing the latter's cunning plan. "Patrol in hours of daylight, Mr. B. It's when they'd least expect it." "Don't be a booby, Baldrick."

Instead of course, and unbeknownst to anyone, they were bringing back "The Bill". June and Carver were reunited for a one-off summer special. Knowledge of Mallorca and Spanish and all that, having been acquired at Sun Hill Police Station on account of all the Spanish crims that Roach, Tosh and Burnside had been banging up. If it was Mallorcan knowledge they were after though, then why not Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt? John Simm and Philip Glenister did after all spend time on the rock filming "Mad Dogs". "Life on Mars" policing circa the first half of the 1970s, a time when Judith Chalmers could appear on a pedalo with a champagne flute at the water's edge in Magalluf and utter the words "wish you were here" without the slightest sense of any irony.

Those were the days. Gene would have been his own one-man drunken tourism ASBO case. It's not how plod are today because they are all Sam Tyler: a plate of tapas, a discreet glass of tinto and early to bed. And truth be known, the M-resort is not what it was. Something had to be done in order for us all to talk about it again, as it is too damn quiet and well-behaved. June and Carver's arrival had all the flavour of After The Former Mayor's Show. With Simm-like doctoral transmogrification, Manu had morphed into Alfonso and the sun from this new era shone brightly on the shiny utopia of Calvia Beach, with the police box planted along Punta Ballena. The House of Tardis. Be agog when you enter this spectacular attraction, brought to you by the Sol brand of Meliá Hotels International. Everyone was smiling and happy and were so without the aid of chemicals. The trouble of course being, from June and Carver's perspective, that they were dealing with a load of Italians instead. That was it. It wasn't "The Bill" after all. It was Alex and Gene from "Ashes to Ashes" bringing their knowledge of the Italian restaurant.

The Perfect Storm Of August

Might this August mark a watershed in Mallorcan and Balearic tourism? Within the context of the political change in spring, various factors are colliding, producing a perfect storm of tourism dynamics which might go beyond this weekend's anticipated storm and produce responses to more than simply the collapse of the road network caused by tourists seeking an alternative to the beach on account of poor weather.

In fact, the roads, especially in and around Palma when the weather is less than benign, have already provoked tourism minister and vice-president, Biel Barceló, into declaring that saturation point has been reached and surpassed. Palma struggles to cope when the clouds gather: its roads clogged, its car parks full to overflowing. Why are there so many tourists? Many are the factors, but always taking some into account, such as instability in parts of the Mediterranean, there is one which, more than others, is being singled out: private holiday accommodation.

It will be some months before they release the figure for the day in the middle of this month when Mallorca and the Balearics reached their highest level of human occupation, but when it comes, it will surely be higher than ever before. It may even be substantially higher. Aptur, which is the association that defends the rights of the private owner to rent out his or her accommodation to tourists, is not blind to the problems that the internet has caused. It is speaking of a "bubble" which it believes will burst because of the rotten quality of some of the accommodation, thus fuelling the arguments of the hoteliers that the private apartment is not up to scratch in all manner of ways. This is a fallacious argument because there is plenty of high-quality accommodation, but it is also correct, and Aptur accepts that it is.

The association is pressing the case, therefore, for legislation to get to grips with this private supply, to finally introduce a system of properly regulated accommodation with standards to be attained and maintained. It is the pragmatic approach that the previous government simply refused to recognise the need for, preferring to outlaw all apartments rather than bring them into line with a system of standards akin to the keys' categorisation for the hotelier-owned tourist apartments.

The trouble is, of course, that even with regulation the bubble might well keep growing in its illegitimate fashion. Reservations via web portals for Spanish destinations are up on average by 40% this summer. These include perfectly legitimate accommodation, but they also have much which isn't. As Catalonia has discovered, regulation can bring success in one way - by enforcing standards and by also boosting tourist tax revenue - but it doesn't eliminate the problem of the illegal supply, despite the swingeing nature of sanctions. Governments can say all they like about cracking down, but they - their tax and tourism agencies - are massively under-resourced.

Nevertheless, the need for regulation in the Balearics is urgent. Barceló, minded to be permissive towards the private accommodation sector, is an environmentalist at heart, as is his party, Més. He wants a brake applied to the number of tourists, so any regulation would need to be carefully drafted in order to still allow good accommodation to be made fully legitimate. But brake there surely has to be, and the perfect storm of this August is increasing the urgency.

In a different respect, all-inclusives, something else seems to be happening. It is never perhaps wise to cite Magalluf as a benchmark but if, as is being reported, some all-inclusives there have been knocking in occupancy levels substantially lower than those for other types of board, is the consumer worm finally turning? It was always going to be the case, regulation again notwithstanding, that the consumer would decide. A problem in Magalluf is knowing what type of market is leading to the lower AI occupancy. If it is family, then the worm might indeed be moving in a different direction. Ot is it a case of the family having been deterred by negative publicity?

Meanwhile, Menorca has added its voice to the saturation argument. Formentera already has but can seemingly do little to prevent its small size being flooded by tourists. In Menorca, the threshold of human pressure that it can withstand and keep within the boundaries of its status as a biosphere reserve is likely to be exceeded this month. Wherever one looks around the Balearics, the message is much the same: there are just too many people.

There is another factor contributing to the perfect storm: attitudes of residents. For too long overlooked, they have played a part in Alcúdia and Capdepera addressing the type of tourism they receive on occasion, while in Playa de Palma, residents have had enough. Noise, filth, crime, anti-social behaviour and a consequent inability to relax or sleep are pushing tensions high. They are similar in a way to what led Barcelona to come down so heavily in La Barceloneta. When mayor José Hila speaks of a cleaner Palma, he has to take into account that Palma means more than just the old centre and the neighbourhoods.

It is understood, quite clearly understood, that Mallorca lives by its tourism. But it is tourism which should be on Mallorca's terms, not those of others. It is for Mallorca to decide on the balance of its accommodation, not websites, not tour operators. The overwhelming majority of the island's visitors are respectful. And this majority needs to be cared for properly. The perfect storm has arrived: kick out the dross of the minority, kick out the rotten accommodation, kick out the poor quality end of the all-inclusive market. And keep the traffic moving.