Close To You: Tourist supermarkets

When I was at university, there was a Spar on campus. I hesitate to use the word supermarket to describe it, because supermarket and student in the same sentence, back then, meant little more than tins of corned beef and those sausages they shoved in with baked beans.

Nowadays, there are probably Tesco Metros on British campuses, pandering to a student class that places purple-sprouting broccoli and gourmet fresh pastas above getting bladdered in the union bar or being served up with the sort of animal droppings my university's refectories specialised in.

Sophistication may have grown these past thirty years, but the Spar is still with us. In Mallorca, as elsewhere in Spain and on the Continent, Spars have become good Europeans. They are EuroSpars.

The Spar always was European, in that it was originally Dutch and still is. Though the logo of a fir reflects the Dutch word for the tree ("spar"), the word can also mean save, as in saving money.

It is here, the saving money angle, that the original Spar philosophy of everyone regularly profiting has tended to become a tad one-sided. In favour of the Spar operator. The Spanish slogan for EuroSpar has been, may still be, for all I know, "always close to you". It sounds soothing enough, in a Karen and Richard Carpenter way, and is probably necessary in order to soothe a customer startled by a price tag.

It is not just EuroSpars that are close to you. The tourist supermarket of whatever name appears to be taking over as the main representative on the streets of Mallorca's resorts. The restaurants are disappearing and are being replaced by emporia with stands of flip-flops and Bells whisky piled high.

The tourist supermarket, like the Chinese bazaar, is very much on the march. In Alcúdia, a large, now ex-restaurant has been supermarketed, bang opposite another that has been there for some years. Why do you need two of them in such proximity, especially as there would appear to be at least partial common ownership? Perhaps it's all the McDonald's strategy of street saturation.

Or perhaps it's ... . No, actually I don't know what it is. I can't think of any good reason why so many of these supermarkets are in fact necessary. Some, but not so many.

The trend towards tourists eating in may have something to do with it; where food shopping is concerned at any rate. But any savings on eating out are eroded by the prices that can be paid. You can hand over up to twice what you might expect to pay in an Eroski, a Mercadona and others; more perhaps.

Unless it is a matter of convenience or sometimes necessity, it is hard to understand the attraction of the tourist supermarket, though there is a further factor. Bone idleness, to which you can add heat. In ninety degrees, the nearest supermarket, even at higher prices, becomes distinctly attractive, compared to schlepping a kilometre or so with bags of spuds, bottles of Coke and a five-litre container of water.

It's unfair to damn all tourist supermarkets, as there are those which, in addition to convenience, do some things well - better ranges of alcohol than mainstream supermarkets, the occasional deli, their own cafés, bakeries, home deliveries, plus friendly and attentive service. I can name a few, if you wish, and so it is unfair to tarnish them all. But there are those whose practices can be questionable, if not illegal.

Before the pound dived, there was one which used to advertise booze - in huge front-of-store displays - at prices quoted in pounds that appeared to be significantly lower than the real price in euros which was shown in small print. In others, newspapers can attract price stickers, above their proper prices. Paracetamol is sold at an inflated price when it shouldn't even be sold at all. Names can be misleading. How about an Aldi which most certainly isn't?

One of the problems for Spar is that, although its Euro shops may be perfectly ok, its name has entered the vocabulary in the same way as Hoover has to mean a vacuum-cleaner. The name is synonymous with the tourist supermarket. Whether Spar or not, whether any good or not, the supermarket is Spar-ed. But does it still sell corned beef?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

For Another Euro More: Prices that take you for a ride

You may or may not appreciate what a grind it can be, hacking around hotels and other places - on a daily basis - distributing copies of HOT! Especially when it is as warm as it is now. Not that I complain. That's how it is. And it can also be highly illuminating. Stop and talk to the receptionists about how things are. Many an insight is to be gained from a few moments snatched with hotel personnel.

But when it is hot, one has to either take oneself off to a bar for some liquid or - on the hoof - get some from a shop. And so it was, at the peak of yesterday's afternoon temperature, I went into a tourist supermarket. Water, no. It's always overpriced in these places, and it's not what you really need, which is either fruit juice or a sports drink - water's fine, but you've got to get your vitamins, minerals and salts as well. So I choose a sports drink. There is a sticker on the cool cabinet - across the row of drinks from which I take an orange half litre. 1.95. The "botellas" (bottles) are 1.95. Ok, bit over the top, but I can live with it. What I can't live with is when I go to the checkout and the girl says 2.95. No it's not, says I (and this is all in Spanish). It's 1.95. That's what the sticker says. I pick up the bottle and point out the 500ml - half litre, and then I head over to the cabinet, and she comes with me. She removes the sticker. Rumbled.

The supermarket has encountered someone who isn't a tourist, who speaks Spanish, who's damned if he's going to pay a euro more than what is clearly stated - or was, before the sticker was peeled off. I pay 1.95. The girl and her companion look somewhat pissed off. It's not really their problem; they only work there. But they have to deal with it. Deal with a little example of attempting to rip-off.

When we get all the Mallorca's expensive anecdotes, some are related to the cost of items in tourist supermarkets. I have some sympathy. They try it on. And it gives a bad impression. Like, for example, this nonsense with upping the price of newspapers - a twenty cents here, a thirty cents there. It's wrong. Its legality is also a moot point. But the deal is that the supermarket, or whatever, assumes you'll be prepared to swallow the added tariff because it's convenient to do so. Oh, that the practice were confined only to the less-than-official outlets. Because it isn't. I was going to buy a copy of "The Observer" last Sunday from a "tabacs" (which double as official outlets for newspapers). Not when I saw the sticker with the added cents. They're having a laugh. One of these days I will look to buy a paper with its inflated price and insist on paying the price quoted - in print - on the paper. Again, it won't be the problem of the shop assistant, and he or she shouldn't be placed in the position of having to be confronted by a stroppy non-tourist, such as myself. But it's poor. It niggles. Niggles tourists and niggles me. They should stop trying to make fools out of people, which is why I do - sometimes - have every sympathy with those who complain about prices.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.