Port Mayurqa: Another Failed Scheme?

The history of theme parks in Mallorca is a short and undistinguished one. This is mainly because ideas have come forward and been presented only for them to disappear. Much publicity has in the past been given to, for instance, the project of the Theme Park Group, which was supposedly going to have been sited somewhere between Llucmajor and Campos. Representatives were photographed with the then president, José Ramón Bauzá, much was said about how marvellous it would be for creating employment and tackling seasonality, and it was soon forgotten. Planning permission, investment, environmental issues and some mutterings behind the scenes regarding the credentials of one of the principals involved all saw to it that the project for the "Mallorca Experience" sank without trace.

There have also been the proposed dinosaur theme park in Sineu and the Christian theme park "Tierra Santa" that was touted around numerous town halls and failed to get anywhere. Theme parks such as there are, i.e. Katmandu Park in Magalluf, aren't really what one thinks of as constituting a theme park. It is nothing like on the scale of what's to be found on the mainland, e.g. Port Aventura. It never will be on the scale and, moreover, there never will be any theme park in Mallorca that gets anywhere close.

When the Bauzá government came into office, the tourism minister Carlos Delgado was an advocate of theme parks. By the time the Bauzá administration was drawing to a close, Delgado's successor, Jaime Martínez, was admitting that theme parks were pretty much dead ducks. Environmental considerations, foremost, would never permit them. It was an obvious conclusion, as these considerations had scuppered projects in the past.

The current vogue, such as it is, for theme parks in a Mallorca style is essentially that of the large retail complex with attractions grafted on. This is the case with a project still doing the rounds which, when it was first being given publicity in the summer of 2016, seemed as if it would go the same way as Jaime Martínez's other dead ducks.

Port Mayurqa, so we are told, would involve an investment of 500 million euros. It would provide 2,000 jobs for its construction and a further 3,000 once it is up and running. The chosen site would be Son Malferit in Palma right by Ikea and the Atlético Baleares football stadium. In addition to shops and restaurants, it would include a spa, a ski zone, a surf zone and some form of a lake for boats. There would also be cinemas, an amphitheatre for staging concerts, a botanical garden and an aquarium in which visitors would be able to swim with its different types of fish.

The project is the brainchild of Intu-Eurofond, essentially a British concern and one with very solid credentials. There are none of the business misgivings about Intu that there might have been about the Mallorca Experience scheme. Port Mayurqa is clearly a realistic venture which has attracted support from Mallorca businesses like Quely and World2Meet, which is part of the Iberostar group.

One says realistic, but the realities may well be different. When the project was spoken about in 2016, it was said by the developers that there had been positive meetings with the government (President Armengol and Biel Barceló) and with Palma town hall. The hoteliers federation was in favour, as were the leading unions. Almost as soon as these positive meetings were announced, the now mayor of Palma, Antoni Noguera, said that the project did not meet with the model of the city being envisaged under the revised general urban plan.

Noguera also referred to the moratorium on the development of large commercial centres and to the "saturation" of such centres in Palma. The moratorium had come from the Council of Mallorca. It was imposed while the Council considered the whole future of large centres. Its deliberations are all but over, while it is also in the process of revising its territorial plan for the whole of the island. This plan takes account of all development.

The fact is that Port Mayurqa is highly unlikely to be given the Council's blessing. Palma town hall, especially with Noguera in charge, will also probably veto it. The concept, notwithstanding the future employment and the potential to satisfy the government's wishes for tackling tourism seasonality, comes with rather too much political baggage in terms of it potentially further undermining local business and of it causing "saturation". The mere mention of it incurs the wrath of GOB, Terraferida and others.

It had seemed as if it wasn't going anywhere, but in fact the support from business and unions has strengthened, while market research surveys conducted by GfK point to a favouring of the project among the public. Will it come to light? Personally, I would very much doubt that it will.

* Image is of the scheme for Port Mayurqa.

How Many Shopping Centres Do You Need?

It was before I got to the meat of the subject that I thought oh no, here we go again. And once I had got to the meat, the feeling hadn't altered. The first part was to do with theme parks. There it was, another plan for a theme park. Not quite bang in the centre of Palma but well inside its urban sprawl. It turned out not to be quite as thematic a park as the intro had intimated. Indoor ice-rinks, surf machines and botanical gardens aren't themes, they're attractions: add-ons to the meat of the beast - a shopping centre.

Mallorca has form with theme parks, very little of it positive. Anyone remember the Tierra Santa, the Christian theme park? Even Christians (ones with whom I discussed the project) were either sceptical or aghast. Last heard of, some years ago, it was being lined up for some land in Inca, having been touted around much of the island. And that was the last that was heard of it, thank God.

Or perhaps you'll recall the Danish operation, The Theme Park group, with its plan for a lavish project somewhere between Llucmajor and Campos. You must recall this one, what with the photos of representatives around a table with the Balearic president, José Ramón Bauzá. It was getting on for five years ago. Since then, nothing, though the website's still there with the promise of "an environmental and sustainable approach to the design of the project". One imagines that this is not necessarily in line with the sustainable philosophies of the current Balearic administration. It might have met with the philosophies of the Bauzá administration, but some time after its announcement, the tourism minister, Carlos Delgado, said he had no idea what was happening with it. Nor did anyone else.

Delgado was something of a theme-park advocate. Or at least he was when he entered government in 2011. There were various items on his wish-list, and theme parks were one of them. Perhaps it was the non-emergence of any which contributed to his resignation. His successor, Jaime Martínez, offered no such wishes, but when once asked about the possibility of theme-park development in Mallorca, he admitted that the possibilities were low if not zero. The regulatory and environmental hoops to go through would be tortuous and in all likelihood prohibitive.

So, when there was this recent reference to a theme park, my reaction was that it was dead in the water even before the announcement was made. But it wasn't of course a theme park as such. It was for a shopping centre. Oh no, here we go again. How many shopping centres does one city need or to be planned? Of the latter, we have, among others, the one for Ses Fontanelles in Playa de Palma. On, off, on, off, and so it goes on. With regard to the realities, shopping fans are counting the days until FAN Mallorca Shopping throws open its doors in September and the multitudes rush forth and strip Primark bare.

I would like to be able to give an answer to the question regarding the number of shopping centres but unfortunately cannot. There may be worthy research into shopping centre-population ratios, but if there is it would be subject to all sorts of variables, such as the number of shops, while with Palma there is the additional and far from insignificant variable of tourism (one already on the island rather than one drawn by a shopping centre.)

Intu, which wishes to create Port Mayurqa in Palma, has been knocked back by the town hall and the government but it isn't giving up. The moratorium on new large commercial developments may well be extended when new regulations are approved (probably next year), but there's always a more compliant Partido Popular regime lurking round the corner of the ballot box. At least Intu is a company that knows what it's doing: you don't get to operate as many shopping centres as it does without having some idea. One would therefore assume that it has done its numbers and worked out that Palma does indeed need another shopping centre.  

But there are needs and there are needs. Those of smaller retailers are all too easily overlooked by the land grab by larger retailers and shopping centres. When MediaMarkt opened in Palma, there was a campaign against it because of potential impact on local traders. Emphasis on this local trade is very much a theme of the current government, for which sustainability goes beyond vague promises of it, as with Intu's "sustainable tourism product", a claim that one has to question. If it were a genuine theme park, then perhaps. But it isn't.

Sure, it would generate jobs, but at what cost? Sustainability infers observing the needs of whole communities, which aren't only those of Palma. They are island-wide.

Into Extinction: Theme parks

On becoming tourism minister in 2011, Carlos Delgado reeled off what was either a wish list or a series of initiatives he genuinely believed that he was going to bring about. Condohotels were one. Well, they were in the tourism bill, but they have proved to be thin on the ground to the point of non-existence. Reducing IVA was another. Not sure how he proposed doing this as it was not and is not within the remit of a Balearics tourism minister to do so. And then there were theme parks. Ah yes, theme parks. Whatever happened to them?

Some time into his period as minister, Delgado was asked about one particular theme park - the one that was going to be created somewhere between Llucmajor and Campos. He replied that, in effect, he didn't know what was happening with it. In so doing, he joined a sizable club.

The age of the theme park that Carlos had seemingly been intent on ushering in has failed to materialise. Another scheme, the dinosaur park in Sineu, has gone the way of all dinosaur theme parks - meteored into oblivion by the urban planning commission at the Council of Mallorca which has archived the processing of the project. A year ago, the Council told the promoters that it had to supply proper documentation for the project and to pay a tax. The promoters have done neither. The Council has now, therefore, concluded that the project has been dropped. Another fossilised skeleton of a theme park is thus consigned to the earth of Mallorca and buried for years until someone exhumes it, comes back with another bright idea only for it to be made extinct as well.

The Llucmajor-Campos theme park is still, in theory, a possibility. Or put it this way, its website is still in existence. Where there is internet presence, there is always hope. The chances of it ever becoming a reality, though, are probably about as likely as dinosaurs once again roaming freely across the plain of Mallorca (rather than being animated replicas, which was what the Sineu Jurassic Park had supposedly envisaged). The likelihood is unlikely because the whole scheme had rather depended upon the land being reclassified. The well-publicised meeting with President Bauzá to present the project had all been part (one presumes) of an attempt to persuade the government to smooth the way with some reclassification. None has been forthcoming.

It is an all too familiar tale. Every blade of grass (some of it not even on land but under the sea) and every grain of sand in Mallorca is subject to some form of plan or other or indeed to more than one plan. One of the people involved with the Llucmajor-Campos theme park is also behind a scheme for the development of Ca'n Angelí in Palma. One of the objections to this development has been based on the fact that Ca'n Angelí is considered to be open public space under something known as PGOU. Which is? The general plan for urban organisation. Last heard of, the scheme was in any event being held up because Palma City Council had ordered a report from the Institute of Municipal Sports to check whether the project (for recreational purposes) was or wasn't complementary with existing sports facilities in the city.

Why does any promoter ever try to get any project off the ground in Mallorca? Occasionally, one gets the green light and even manages to get underway, such as the Hyatt hotel complex in Canyamel. But it takes forever for decisions to be made, and there always seems to be a threat that somewhere down the line a legal challenge will be made that means paralysing a project, demolishing it or having to restore the land to its former unspoilt state.

In another recent case, that of the project for a five-star hotel with golf course in Marratxí, documentation that had been required by the Council's urban planning commission had also not been forthcoming. The commission has, as with the dinosaur park, called time-out on the project, which cannot now be considered for being declared as being in the "general interest", which is a catch-all notion that can - theoretically - supersede plans for this or that. Perhaps the developers decided the project was a non-starter. Perhaps the dinosaur park people thought likewise. Or perhaps they thought that neither project was worth all the aggravation. 

Mallorca's land has to be protected. No one is suggesting a free-for-all, but while Paramount can plan for a theme park in Murcia and while Ferrari plans to open its theme park at Port Aventura next year (the same area where the BCN World mega casinos and theme park are going), nothing happens in Mallorca. And nothing is likely to happen. Stagnation, if not extinction.

Of Paramount Importance: Theme parks

Paramount Pictures needs little introduction. From the early Marx Brothers output to the more modern-day likes of "Star Trek", Paramount has been one of Hollywood's most famous studios. It is, in marketing parlance, a highly recognisable brand and, as with other brands, its value can be exploited in ways other than the cinema and media.

The Walt Disney Company was probably the first studio to truly appreciate branding potential. And boy did it appreciate it. Arguably, Disney is now better known for its theme parks than for Mickey Mouse, and theme parks have become an important additional line of business for other studios. Universal is one. It used to own most of the shares in the PortAventura theme park in Salou but sold out in 2004. Now, there is another studio coming to Spain with a theme park - Paramount.

The move into resorts and theme parks is a recent venture by Paramount. Its first resort is being built in Dubai but it may be a close-run thing as to where the first one becomes operable. Paramount Murcia is scheduled to be completed some time in 2015, the same year as the Dubai project.

Alhama in the region of Murcia has a population of a little over 20,000 people. It is a town noted for nature parks and protected natural areas. Its economy is based primarily on agriculture and industry. There is a tourism economy, but this is confined to those natural areas. It is some way inland in a region that is not that well known for its sun and beach tourism. Murcia obviously has a coast but it doesn't have resorts of the type which are to be found in the Alicante province to its north and along the Costa Almeria and therefore Costa del Sol to its south.

When the Paramount project was first announced in 2010, concerns were raised that it was just some sort of publicity stunt that wouldn't see the light of day. Interestingly, despite the location and all that nature, there was surprisingly little opposition. Naturally it has caused some controversy, but the benefits seem to outweigh this. Leading unions have, for example, accepted that it would be a great opportunity for Murcia.

It was fair though for some scepticism to have been expressed. At the time of the initial announcement, the Gran Scala project in Aragon was still seen as a goer, but it was to soon collapse through a mixture of co-ordinated opposition and, more importantly, a lack of investors.

Investment for Paramount Murcia - Paramount Park and Lifestyle Center to give it its official name - hasn't yet been put in place totally. The promoters behind the park is a company called Premursa (Proyectos Emblemáticos Murcianos), which is made up by the institute of development in Murcia, the Murcia Tourist Region body and Santa Monica Financial Services. The whole project is expected to need investment of 450 million euros. Premursa expects to get this investment mainly from foreign sources. In the meantime, the first phase is to start now that Ferrovial, a company which is known of course for its airports, has been awarded a contract worth 52 million euros.

The schedule for completion in 2015 does therefore seem a little tight for what will be a project occupying 133 hectares that will combine Paramount theming with the lifestyle of casino, hotels, restaurants, shopping mall and culture and which will be notable for utilising advanced technologies, including 3D and 4D. And the schedule might be even more optimistic if all the investment doesn't pour in. The hope is that now that Spain is seemingly being seen as a good investment opportunity it will.

But there are concerns about theme park viability in general. The Murcia minister for tourism has sought to dispel these concerns, pointing to, for example, a 1.8% growth for Spanish theme parks in 2012 as well as to the unique features of Paramount Park. If it all comes off, the theme park is expected to create 23,000 jobs and attract some three million tourists per annum. And if it does indeed all come off, then it will be a theme park on the Spanish mainland of the type which Mallorca does not have.

Murcia makes a great deal of sense as a location because it is a region that is crying out for tourism investment. But just as regions which are deficient in tourism terms need investment so also do those which have been heavily invested in, such as Mallorca. Constant new investment is required in order to create new attractions and so keep up in the tourism competition race.

Theme parks, so we have been led to believe by the Balearics tourism ministry, are on the cards. If so, then where is the evidence? And even if there were evidence, 133 hectares in an area of nature parks as in Murcia? Forget it. It would never happen.

* Photo from the Premursa website.

Gran Scala: Lessons ignored?

I was lying on the beach and my thoughts turned, as no doubt yours turn as well, to the issue of major theme park projects. These thoughts centred on one project in particular; well, two actually, but the first thought was with desert near Zaragoza on the mainland and with Gran Scala.

I first became aware of Gran Scala almost five years ago and did so not because of any coverage in the media in Mallorca but because of the occasional article in "The Times". While this was a project for the mainland, it was nevertheless curious that it was totally ignored locally, except by myself. The scale of Gran Scala (and the name speaks for itself) was so grand, the proximity was that close that it had to pose some sort of threat to Mallorca. Moreover, it was just the sort of project, with its capacity for all-year tourism, that could only ever exist in the dreams of the Mallorcan tourism industry.

If you don't know about Gran Scala, let me tell you what had been envisaged: over 200 restaurants, 70 hotels, 32 themed casinos, six large theme parks and 12 smaller ones, golf courses, a racecourse, pyramids and sphinxes plus 25 million visitors by 2020, two and a half times the total number of visitors that Mallorca receives in a year. Its first phase was due to have opened this year. Things dragged on, arguments raged, and the option for the developers to acquire the land expired earlier this year.

The developers are International Leisure Development, registered as a PLC in London and a consortium comprising numerous companies from several countries. The authenticity of ILD and of the Gran Scala project were never really in doubt, though some would argue otherwise, but the project ran up against all manner of problems, not least of which has been financing in the economic climate of the past few years.

Gran Scala isn't totally dead in the water, though its future must be highly questionable. There is still talk of ILD finding new investment, but since Gran Scala was first presented (and the presentation was hugely impressive) another casino-based project has emerged, one that is as if not more controversial - Eurovegas in the Barcelona area. Just one of its controversies relates to an investigation for corruption.

As far as opponents of Gran Scala are concerned, the project is dead. Dead and good riddance to it. One has to accept that views of environmentalists, unionists, the Catholic charity Caritas would probably automatically be negative, but these views were gathered by one of the many blogs that has covered the whole Gran Scala story since it was first announced. And it is some of these views that demand being paid attention to in connection with projects in Mallorca, those that are far less grand or are of a different nature, and projects that might yet emerge.

Apart from the obvious resistance on environmental and ethical grounds to the development and to gambling, the analysis of the Gran Scala affair is striking for the way in which it condemns the whole project from the point of view of public policy (what the politicians do or don't do, in other words). "Gran Scala is a good example of what can happen when there is an absence of a coherent project for land and when support is for any proposal that generates (real or not) employment." This comes from the Granscaladebate blog, and it continues by observing that "much of the current (economic) pain is about the madness of walking in the wrong direction: the economics of real estate speculation".

Basically, what this is saying is that Gran Scala would have been a further, massive example of the type of project, with regional government political blessing (this one from Aragon), that has got Spain into the mess that it is. Lessons would have been completely overlooked therefore. More than this, the argument against Gran Scala was that the real estate speculation was one of speculation without genuine feasibility to support the numbers of visitors and the number of jobs and so the whole economic viability of the project.

It is when you consider projects in Mallorca, those both ongoing or planned, and when you consider the greater permissiveness to be allowed by the current regional government, that the arguments above do resonate. One ongoing project (now it's going, now it's stopped) is the Palacio de Congresos, a project about which I have asked numerous times where the business plan is. It is a purely speculative project. One that isn't ongoing is the plan for the theme park (that may or may not be located between Campos and Llucmajor). What has happened to it? Tourism minister Delgado was ambiguous when asked recently. But has it ever been more than speculative?

Gran Scala was a hugely ambitious project, but its sheer scale do not prevent it offering lessons and cautionary notes regarding other much smaller projects, be they hotel complexes, be they theme parks, be they convention centres, be they velodromes or sports centres. The real lesson of Gran Scala is that politicians need to demand that such projects are given a thorough, rigorous and independent analysis, because politicians in Mallorca and Spain are the last people who should be making the final decisions.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Fantasy Football: Real Madrid Resort Island

Are there no limits to the global ambitions of football clubs? Once upon a time, these ambitions were reserved for sweatshop workers in the Far East churning out replica kit for sale to workers in the Far East who didn't work in sweatshops. Now, they have become altogether grander. How better to market your football club than to name an entire island after it.

Real Madrid Resort Island is due to open its doors (turnstiles might seem more appropriate) at the beginning of January 2015. It is far away from Madrid and far away from Spain, a tourism complex and theme park in Ras al-Khaimah, an emirate among the globally ambitious, sporting-linked collective of the United Arab Emirates.

There is more than a touch of the bizarre about this concept. It has overtones of Python's "Whicker Island", though in Python-land, Real Madrid Resort Island would probably have been Accrington Stanley Resort Island, a theme park comprising grimy northern scenes, back to back houses rather than luxury apartments, next to a slag heap instead of yet more velvety white sands.

"When an emotional brand creates an emotional place," says the promotional video, replete with a quickening heartbeat, which then, against a soundtrack with a suitably Arabic hint, announces the delights that await the anticipated one million visitors in year one. Among these will be the world's first hologram football show, reconstructed Ronaldos taking on imaginary Barças and Uniteds and presumably always winning. Let's face it, the last thing Real Madrid Resort Island needs is an unsuccessful team, so why not just stage an illusion of a football match and make sure the result always goes the right way.

The emotional brand creating the emotional place is the "perfect partnership", continues the video. Perfection is the collision of one of the world's leading and richest football clubs with one of the richest parts of the world. Perfection lies in richness and in two partners with plenty of moolah at their disposal. One billion dollars are to be invested.

The resort with its amusement park, its 60 bungalows, its 400 apartments, its 48 villas and its own Real Madrid museum is of a scale unimaginable in Mallorca. Well, not completely unimaginable, but while a new theme park ever actually opening on Mallorca is probably unlikely (and what, pray, has happened to it?) and while Utz Claassen, were he to in fact untangle his legal issues at Real Mallorca and offer a footballing holiday to a few hundred Germans to bolster the crowds at the Iberostar, would have to wait approximately five seasons' worth of home matches to get to one million attendees, the United Arabs just go full steam ahead, create a whole island and eventually, and don't dismiss the possibility, end up uprooting an entire football club of their own. Real Madrid Resort Island will also boast the first ever football stadium "open to the sea". And who will be playing there?

If anything exposes Mallorca's place in the grand scheme of international tourism, then the Real Madrid-ing of an emirate no one had previously heard of is it. Years of faffing around attempting to raise a few bob to rebuild Playa de Palma, and what happens? The Arabs come along, create an emotional place and nick a football team into the bargain.

This all said, who would actually want to go to the resort? A Real Madrid fan? A real Real Madrid fan? I'm not so sure. The unreal Real Madrid fan from other emirates, from the Far East (those not in sweatshops), from Japan; they will probably go, as will those persuaded by a global branding exercise which, through theme-parking, puts the club on a par with Disney.

Football is now the least of it, which is probably why Real Madrid will ultimately dispense with footballers completely and simply play virtual matches in the United Arab Emirates Hologram League of endless games against a simulated Manchester City for whom Carlos Tevez may as well have been a hologram for the past few months. It is the ultimate in fantasy football, played on a fantasy island in front of cheering Chinese fans as a make-believe Mourinho leads out his team.

If you hadn't previously been convinced that football had lost touch with its roots, then you now should be. The roots are being replanted far, far away in the pursuit of what we now have to call "sportainment". It's enough to make you hanker for the days of Accrington Stanley before they went bust in the sixties, for cloth caps and rattles, and for back to backs rather than luxury apartments. Real Madrid Resort Island? Football's last resort? No, a resort to football was last with us some time ago. Football's first resort, but football it isn't.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Theme For An Old Theme Park

Would you go to a theme park in Inca? Would you go to anything in Inca? The market brings in plenty of visitors, but it is a generally unlovely town, stuck in the centre of the island and filthy hot at the height of summer. Nevertheless, an old theme is to be revisited - that of a theme park.

This is the sort of thing that Mallorca could do with more of. Whether Inca would be the right location, or whether it would be the right sort of theme park; well, these are legitimate questions. The mayor of Inca is to make representations to a Danish company which had previously been interested in a theme park development on the island.

The story of the theme park goes back a number of years. In 2002, a plan for a park in Inca was halted on environmental grounds. The same company, Theme Park Group, turned its attention to a potential development in Calvia, one that caused an almighty great enviro stink. It, too, was abandoned. There was talk of its being revived, but this time in Campos where, you might recall, there has been yet another eco-controversy surrounding yet another golf course. Moreover, it would seem that the company at one point had an option to buy the Son Bosc finca in Muro, the site of the golf farce. Could you imagine the uproar that would have caused? It's a great shame they didn't buy it. The sport alone from the warring parties would have been wonderful to behold. A theme park in Muro would have made far more sense than a golf course, but not of course to the enviro-ists, various tree-huggers and bee-eating birds.

That the Inca project has resurfaced has to do with the creation of a third industrial estate on which there is to be provision for entertainment. It may also have to do with a shift in attitude at the Council of Mallorca under the land plan. The boss of Theme Park Group once asked whether Mallorca wanted a theme park, the answer to which seemed to be no. But now there might be a yes.

However, the report on Inca's new interest from "Ultima Hora" refers to 50,000 square metres of land on the industrial estate being given over to entertainment. Now just think about this. If you are familiar with the Bellevue complex in Puerto Alcúdia, that stands on some 200,000 square metres of land, sufficient to put up a decent-sized theme park perhaps. But on a quarter of the land? That doesn't give you much theme or park. Unless the report is wrong, it is hard to see how the company would be interested. When it was talking to Inca before, it had in mind some 900,000 square metres. This was reduced substantially, by a third, when the Calvia alternative arose, but this would also have stripped the theme park of an aquatic element.

A theme park has to be on a grand scale. And grand scale is pertinent when you consider the colossal "Gran Scala" in the desert near Zaragoza, a development that would have Mallorca's hoteliers salivating in anticipation, far more so than a damn golf course here or there, were something similar to be created on the island, which it wouldn't be. (Gran Scala, when and if it is finished, is due to occupy more than 20 times the land area of the original Inca theme park plan.)

Mallorca can ill afford to turn down the sort of projects that Theme Park Group had in mind. The smaller Calvia development would have represented investment of almost 200 million euros and the creation of 3,000 jobs. What the original Inca one would have entailed, Heaven only knows. And we are unlikely to ever know, just as it seems unlikely that the company would accept something as mini as Inca now wants.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Keep The Customer Satisfied

More on the “Gran Escala” project near Zaragoza (25 November: Bond Themes). “The Times” confirms what its Sunday sister paper had spoken of before; indeed it fleshes out what this complex will comprise – 32 themed casinos, 70 hotels, five theme parks, pyramids, sphinxes and golf courses. 25 million visitors are anticipated each year by 2015. And for those 25 million, there will doubtless be innumerable bars and also shops that stay open when people want them to be open, unlike in Palma for example. 25 million is well over double Mallorca’s current annual tourism intake. 25 million people heading to a piece of reclaimed desert, modelled as the new Las Vegas, more or less on Mallorca’s doorstep and only the same flying-time from the UK.

But why is it that this news is coming from “The Times”? Where is the local reporting? This development is something of huge interest to Mallorca in different ways. Firstly, it poses a potential threat, especially to what there is of winter tourism. One waits to see what the theme parks will be, but they are sure to be of a variety that attracts family tourism as well as any short-breakers wanting to risk their money in a casino; they will not get 25 million visitors just for casinos and a round of golf.

Secondly, the Gran Escala highlights the muddled thinking regarding Mallorca’s tourism. To digress a little: In the late ’70s, Jan Carlsson, the boss of the Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), transformed the airline’s culture and performance by creating a structure with the customer at the top of the organisational pyramid; everything else was subordinate to or supported the customer. SAS was one of the first organisations to have a recognisable customer-driven philosophy.

SAS was representative of a wholly different approach to management and organisations. Take this approach and place it in the context of tourism strategy, Mallorca’s tourism strategy, and where is the customer – the tourist – in the structure? Place it in the context of the whole economic model of Mallorca and where is the customer? It is the tourist, the customer, to whom the island is beholden. What fraction of Mallorca’s wealth would exist without that customer?

To continue the business analogy: Mallorca is at the mature stage of its life cycle. A business faced with the same situation has different choices – carrying on the same but with improvements, diversification, acquisition or sale of the business, progressive decline. Mallorca has three of these choices, unless those German businessmen who wanted to buy the island were really for real! To an extent, the first two of these choices are being pursued: hotel stock being upgraded, infrastructure improved, new products (and, yes, that includes all-inclusives). Otherwise, the diversification is clouded with ambiguity and irrelevance: the vagueness of “quality” tourism, the offer of tourism served with a gastronomy of culture and history – what culture, what history? These are minority niches of tiny portions for an island business grown fat on the mass market. As ever, where is the beef?

The thinking is too defined by an insular (inevitably perhaps) and romantic view of what tourists might want, as opposed to what tourists really want. The tourist, the customer, is not at the top of the pyramid. Much of the thinking is couched in terms of “sustainable tourism” with the environmental overtones this implies. This is the wrong adjective. Meaningful tourism is more accurate. Much as it may offend, for every one “cultural” tourist there are a hundred more who have mainly hedonistic pursuits at the top of their list of priorities. The tourist wants entertaining. This means attractions, this means fun. And this is where Gran Escala comes in.

A similar project was never going to be created in Mallorca and never will be. Land is too scarce and too expensive. The environmental lobby would not permit it. But more fundamentally, the building of some giant fun palace in Mallorca would conflict with the current group-think that can conceive of only culture and gastronomy. It is this group-think which denies the tourist, the customer, his or her place at the top of the pyramid.

Yesterday, I defended the Balearic Government. But I also said that things could be done differently. No, there would never be a Gran Escala in Mallorca, but the thinking behind it is precisely the sort of thinking that is required in Mallorca to shake the island out of its winter torpor and to sustain, yes sustain, meaningful tourism in the summer as well. The customer comes first – on a grand scale.


QUIZ
Yesterday – The Jackson Five. Today’s title – which duo?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)

Bond Themes

“Me llamo Bond, Jaime Bond, zero-zero-siete.”

Bond looks into the mirror in the room of one of the 32 hotels, adjusts his bow-tie and white jacket, sips his Martini and then slips away, intending to make for the Casino Royale, one of five casinos that comprise “Gran Escala”, somewhere in northern Mallorca. As he makes his way around the vast complex, he is taken aback. Is that John Wayne - “truly he was the son of God”? And that shady KGB agent, he looks remarkably like Vladimir Putin. “What are they doing in these casinos?” thinks Bond. Wayne he could count on, but Putin? What threat could be lurking for the numbers of innocent people here at Gran Escala, a proportion of the 12 million that come each year? But then he realises that they are not real; they are just actors, one from the Roman casino, the other from “Spyland”.

12 million visitors a year, a site that will eclipse EuroDisney, a couple of hours flying from England, huge numbers of jobs, a new version of Las Vegas, a haven for gamblers from the UK and Spain alike, with five theme parks and those 32 hotels to boot.

In your dreams, Mallorca, in your dreams. Or maybe in your nightmares, Mallorca. The Gran Escala is the working name for a complex planned near Zaragoza on the mainland. The environmentalists don’t like the idea, but a number of politicians, attracted by the injection of money and the employment, do. The article in today’s “Sunday Times” makes it clear that it is not, as yet, a done deal, but were it to be then it could be a nightmare of another sort for Mallorca, certainly where the limited winter season is concerned.

This theme park idea. Where have I heard of this before? I know. Right here. On this blog. It has actually been mooted in the past. And it has of course been turned down. Why? The environment. The environment and an abstract retention of the past - a Mallorcan equivalent of John Major’s old maids, cricket and warm beer.

So the mainland maybe gets the gig, while meantime Mallorca struggles on in winter with its closed hotels, rejected golf-course applications, some brave attempts like the Aquarium in Palma, handfuls of walkers, and groups of cyclists who enrage many and mean precious little in terms of real business. And then there are the other ideas that only nibble at the edges of the winter-season biscuit. Here’s another one. In yesterday’s “Brisas” magazine, there was an interview with a German (Jörg Link) who has lived in Mallorca since 1975; his father had bought a house in Son Serra de Marina two years before. He is an enthusiast for the works and thoughts of Ramón Llull, one of Mallorca’s most prominent historical figures. He is planning a centre devoted to Llull. It is a fine idea. I would go. Llull deserves far more attention than he has. But it won’t bring in a load of people. Now a Llull theme park with a heavy techno element in recognition of his role as a founder of computing theory; a theme park combined with the history of King Jaime I, more or less Llull’s contemporary. Maybe we would be getting somewhere. Meantime, the projected complex on the mainland will both shake and stir.


QUIZ
Yesterday - Big Country, “In A Big Country”. Today - not related to the title as such; the question is which artist or artists, apart from John Barry, has/have performed more than one main Bond film song?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)