BCM Meets Mallorca Rocks: Magalluf youth tourism

Update of 13 January: Since writing this article, which was based to an extent on press information from Cursach, I have received further information from the Ibiza Rocks (Mallorca Rocks) group which seeks to clarify inaccuracies, which I am more than happy to do. The agreement between Ibiza Rocks and Palladium in respect of Mallorca Rocks expires after this year's season, so a new agreement will be in place as from 2015. This is the one which involves Cursach taking on the management of the four hotels. Mallorca Rocks, the brand, will not be a part of this new arrangement. My understanding is that options are being considered for maintaining the Mallorca Rocks brand in Magalluf at a different location to the current one. So, the implication in this article that there will be a coming-together of Mallorca Rocks and Cursach (BCM) is inaccurate, and I am pleased to set the record straight.



The hotel business is not a straightforward matter when it comes to who does what. We may see the name of a hotel chain shining into a night sky, but behind the neon, the logo and the brand there are invariably other businesses involved, while the appearance of a hotel chain's name isn't always an indication of ownership.

The move towards hotel theming and branding makes the who-does-what equation rather more complicated than it used to be. Brands, if they aren't specifically hotel ones, don't necessarily want to be involved in hotel day-to-day. Indeed, they may not want to be involved at all, other than to be informed as to how much they are getting by way of royalties and commissions. Brands can have "hotel operations", but these are not managerial operations; they are purely strategic and financial.

A brand which does have day-to-day involvement is Mallorca Rocks (or Ibiza Rocks). It has to. Its holiday offer isn't conventional, given that it is predicated on live music and all that goes with it. Be it customer service, marketing or pandering to the needs of a chart-topping pop or rock act, it is essential that the organisation has control and involvement. But Mallorca Rocks doesn't own the Mallorca Rocks hotel. Ultimately, the ownership lies, through the Palladium Hotel Group, with GEM, Grupo Empresas Matutes. Palladium was, until the end of 2012, known as the Fiesta Hotel Group. Name change notwithstanding, its principal owner is Abel Matutes, a one-time minister for foreign affairs with the Spanish Government.

Palladium, an Ibiza-based operation and not a Mallorcan one, had announced towards the end of last year that it intended to rent out Mallorca Rocks. It was said at the time that the company which would be doing the renting, the Dutch investment firm Evertaas, would take on the management. In fact, there will be another company which will be doing the managing. It is Cursach. Yes, that Cursach, which, among other things, owns the BCM club in Magalluf.

A year before Palladium made the announcement about Evertaas' involvement, Cursach had gone public about its interest in having the BCM brand name used for a theme hotel in Magalluf. It said that this wouldn't just be a branding exercise; it would want management involvement. In considering this, I suggested that the move would make a great deal of sense for BCM and for Magalluf and that it was an understandable move in light of the tourism law which permitted secondary activities, such as concerts and clubs open to the general public, in hotel grounds. It appears that I was pretty much spot-on; Cursach is citing the tourism law as a reason for it now realising its interest in hotel management.

There is an irony in all this, though. It is no secret that Cursach opposed the concerts at Mallorca Rocks. But there is a further irony in that it was the support for the concerts offered by the then Calvia mayor Carlos Delgado, something which brought forth all manner of complaints channelled via the tourist businesses association Acotur, which acted as a template for the provisions for hotel secondary activities in the tourism law that Delgado was to draw up once he became tourism minister. Mallorca Rocks, revolutionary in many ways, was, without necessarily knowing that it was, the secondary-activities pilot scheme in Mallorca, the Ibiza Rocks hotel having trialled the secondary-activities scheme some time before.

It is remarkable, given the fuss about Mallorca Rocks, that Cursach should now end up managing it. But in so doing, it will create a mega youth brand that combines Mallorca Rocks and BCM, while at the same time keeping them distinct. It sounds like very good business, and there is more to it. There won't be just one hotel. There will be four. Mallorca Rocks, Tropical, Sahara and Magamar, and they will form one complex with over 1,000 rooms, one for which an upgrade to four-star is envisaged and which will have all manner of attractions for the much-hyped "Millennials" age group.

But where, you might be wondering, does this leave Evertaas? Very much in the thick of things. It is an investment company, one that invests in real estate. It, one has to conclude, is going to be the prime mover behind the financing of the changes that Cursach plans. And it has form in this regard in Magalluf. Though it has been reported that there is a fair amount of British money sloshing around in Magalluf (rightly so, as there is), Evertaas is the front organisation for a good deal of the investment that Meliá Hotels has been pumping into Magalluf.

So, as you can see, things aren't straightforward when it comes to who does what. But then, the hotel business isn't straightforward. Not nowadays anyway. It is the melding of brands, hotel chains, investors, management companies to meet the demands of new market segments and enhancements to the overall holiday experience. And Magalluf demonstrates this as well as anywhere. The Cursach move is intriguing and potentially a very good one.

From Malia To Magalluf

Over a fifteen-year period I was a regular visitor to Greece. Andros, Mykonos, Skiathos, Symi, Rhodes, Zakynthos, Crete, to name some islands. Over those fifteen years, little really changed. The islands remained mostly unspoiled. It never seemed as though there were masses of tourists. Even in 1986, a resort such as Laganas in Zakynthos was capable of being described as "quiet".

The last time I went was 1988, and something happened. It was at Heraklion airport in Crete. A fight broke out. There was total mayhem. It had been caused by a group of lads who were totally off their faces. They were British. Something happened because something had changed.

Twenty-five years on and a British teenager is in jail in Crete, accused of stabbing to death another teenager in Malia. It, along with Faliraki in Rhodes, Kavos in Corfu and Laganas, became the total antithesis of what a Greek island resort and holiday had once been, and now its reputation is well and truly sealed.

The stabbing in Malia occurred only a few days after the second anniversary of the stabbing to death of a British teenager in Laganas. That stabbing was the culmination of hostilities between locals and young British tourists. The circumstances behind the stabbing in Malia were different, but the two cases bear, in aspects of their reporting, some similarities.

I have two reports, both from "The Guardian" and by the same journalist, Helena Smith. The actual details of the two incidents are not what interest me so much as the background to them. In Malia, as well as in Laganas, local people have had enough and are taking matters into their own hands, which can mean even greater trouble. In both resorts, there is a recognition that they - the Greek people - have to assume some responsibility for the situations that have arisen. They have to accept some blame for tourism developments that have occurred, for tourism having become, in the words of the police chief in Laganas, "seriously toxic".

The similarity, though, which is the most striking is that which apportions blame beyond that which the tourists or the locals have to assume. This is Laganas in 2011: "Every night there's a fight, someone gets beaten up. Tour operators are to blame; all they are interested in is getting the kids drunk." This is Malia in 2013: "Locals have looked on aghast as holidaymakers, egged on by tour operators or commission-seeking reps, have encouraged the bad behaviour." "Tour operators put pressure on hoteliers to drop their prices because they say it is the only way of attracting more people, and the result is tourists get younger and younger."

A solution to the problems in Laganas is to improve infrastructure and focus on a better-quality tourism. Mention of this solution gives you an indication as to where I am heading, if you haven't already guessed. Improvements to infrastructure? Better-quality tourism? Sound familiar?

The solutions for Mallorca's "problem" resorts of Magalluf and Playa de Palma are identical to those proposed in Laganas. The circumstances of these problem resorts are not, however, quite the same. Both resorts are that much older than the Greek resorts. They are also resorts where, before even the days of Club 18-30, drunkenness among tourists was not exactly unknown. Whereas the Greeks may have been naïve when they allowed resorts to be changed as they were in the 1980s and may well have been unaware as to what they might be letting themselves in for, the Mallorcans should have been fully aware. Perhaps they were, but they still went along with the tour operators - yes, the tour operators, who should admit for once that they are a very major part of the problem - and so now reap what they sowed many years ago.

But the solutions will solve everything, won't they? Get rid of the low-grade tourist, the youthful binge-drinker, and everything will be fine. Except. In Faliraki, they did exactly what many would like to be seen done in Magalluf. There was a massive crackdown on bad behaviour ten years ago. The young tourists stopped going, but they weren't replaced. So now, businesses there want the youth back again.

Unfortunately for the likes of Palma town hall's Alvaro Gijon, who sees salvation in four or five-star hotels and a different class of tourist, there is simply no guarantee that Playa de Palma (as with Magalluf) will be able to replace what it wants to rid itself of. Will the tour operators be able to make this guarantee? Ask the locals in Malia and see what they think. Or Faliraki.

References:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/28/bar-stabbing-crete-british-tourist-tide

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/15/grief-and-anger-over-stabbing-of-british-teenager-robert-sebbage

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/decline-faliraki-after-10-year-clean-up-2103167


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.


Index for July 2013

All-inclusives - 9 July 2013, 15 July 2013, 29 July 2013
Andratx fire - 28 July 2013
Auryn and boy bands - 30 July 2013
Balearic Symphony Orchestra - 8 July 2013
Balearics new water resources plan - 6 July 2013
Bullfight protest in Muro - 3 July 2013
Disenchantment among expatriates and home owners - 27 July 2013
Eldorado - 7 July 2013
Es Trenc hotel project on hold - 18 July 2013
Expatriate Island - 13 July 2013
Expatriates and the royal baby - 24 July 2013
Franco and artist Eugenio Merino - 19 July 2013
Jaume Matas sentence reduction - 25 July 2013
José Ramón Bauzá: Spanish premier? - 23 July 2013
Mariano Rajoy and illegal payments - 10 July 2013, 11 July 2013, 16 July 2013
Moors and Christians elections in Pollensa - 22 July 2013
Opinion poll and the Partido Popular - 2 July 2013
Pollensa Festival - 17 July 2013
Problems in resorts - 1 July 2013, 31 July 2013
Record tourism season - 12 July 2013
Residential tourism and holiday lets - 20 July 2013
Sa Pobla history and saints - 14 July 2013
Son Serra de Marina - 21 July 2013
Tourist dress protocol - 26 July 2013
Tourist infrastructure investments - 4 July 2013
Town hall consortium - 5 July 2013

Floating Fiestas: Party boats

In the episode of "Benidorm" that features the British Olympic Synchronised Swimming team, the hapless lump Liam fails to prevent the girls joining an 18-30 booze cruise, while young Michael and old Trudy, barred from getting on-board on account of their respective ages, attempt to blag their way on by concealing themselves in a crate, only to find themselves being forklifted onto a fishing boat instead. Hilarious consequences all round, naturally enough.

Advertised with the slogan "we drop anchor while you get ..." (well, I guess I shouldn't say what, but it completes a phrasal verb derived from a noun that rhymes with anchor), the swimmer girls do precisely this. It's the booze cruise after all, where shots have titles such as the "Leg Opener" and about which parents of those at the younger scale on the 18-30 spectrum (or younger still) would rather not know.

An alternative name for the booze cruise is the party boat. And it is not only to be found floating on turquoise Mediterranean waters off the Costa Blanca. It can also be found boozing and partying around on the gentle waves off the Balearics.

A year ago, the then Balearics government delegate, José María Rodríguez, announced that measures were to be instituted to tackle issues of safety, underage drinking and noise associated with party boats. Yet, were these measures that were to be designed to tackle problems that didn't really exist? In Capdepera (i.e. the resort of Cala Rajada), councillors said that there hadn't been a single complaint made against party boats, that operators respected the environment, including the noise environment, and that there had been no need for action to be taken against underage drinking.

The image of the party boat/booze cruise is very much the "Benidorm" one, but that was an image from a comedy series which, while it was often quite true to life, was a comedy nevertheless. This said, I can go back to an article I wrote two years ago which referred to how First Choice promotes its 2wentys holidays to Magalluf. "Join 2wentys for some serious party antics, with bar crawls, booze cruises and more ... ."

It doesn't automatically follow that the party boat is going to be an excuse for excessive drinking. But even if it is or it isn't, there is an issue when it comes to safety, a very clear issue - the sea. At least on a party boat, there are no balconies and there are no hard, concrete terraces, but a potential collision between a lumpy Liam sort who's taken on-board a great volume of vodka and the deep blue briny just might have less humorous consequences than an episode of "Benidorm".

Last September, it was reported that there were over 50 such party boats operating off Ibiza alone and it was further reported that there had been an increase in an absence of control. These reports were, therefore, three months after the announcement that measures were to be introduced to ensure control. A year on, and nothing has happened.

However, the director-general for ports and airports in the Balearics, Antonio Deudero, has now met with officials at the Council of Ibiza and said that there will be a study and an analysis of possible legal reform in order to regulate party-boat activity in the Balearics, the objective being to "guarantee maximum safety", words that sound very familiar, as they were ones expressed by Alcúdia's lady mayor twelve months ago when she was responding to measures that Rodríguez had been proposing.

If there really is a pressing need to regulate, then why is it taking so long? Twelve months on and all that is being proposed is a study. Well, wasn't this thought about last June? Or maybe there isn't such a pressing need. In Cala Rajada, they don't seem to have had any problems. Have there been elsewhere?

There are potential issues with party boats, just as there are with any boat and just as there are with many settings where young people gather to have a good time. But, control or no control, operators appear to understand the issues. So, is the attention being turned towards party boats just indicative of the soft target that is the youth tourism market and a perception that might not actually be real as in, for instance, all the underage drinking that's supposed to occur on party boats? "Benidorm" might only be believable make-believe, but even in this, young Michael was barred from the party boat and ended up instead having to row a rowing boat ashore.




Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Stigmas Of Stacey: Magalluf

Zante's Lagana Beach, Crete's Malia, Mallorca's Magalluf. What do they have in common? They have all been, at different times, flavour of the month for a media desperate to wring whatever sensationalism it can from a drink-sodden youth passed out on a pavement.

They are only three. There are others. And like the British media despatches its packs of journalistic wolves in order to gorge on the bodies that have collapsed under the volume of industrial quantities of what can sometimes be industrial alcohol (as in Zante, for instance) or have taken to a night sky and plunged several floors onto rock-hard concrete, so the media in other countries scavenges for its own stories of sex, drink, drugs and very little rock 'n' roll. Which resort has the reputation for being the drunkest? Not Magalluf. It's Lloret de Mar, and Lloret is where French and Italian youth go to lay into each other. Do the Germans know anything about antics in Magalluf? Not really. They know about Arenal instead; Arenal, where German neo-Nazi skinheads set about black bar workers.

Welcome to the world of tourist post-modernism. Once upon a time, in pre-modern days, Cliff Michelmore introduced an ignorant audience to the attractions of Med resorts. Like Magalluf. They were new, exciting and innocent. Presenters and presentation styles changed along with the modern days of increased familiarity with the resorts. And now the post-modernist age has arrived, one in which the travelogue has been swapped for the reality-show appeal of a camera crew hastily racing to a scene of tourist Sodom and Gomorrah, observed by a girl from Luton who has displaced the Lorraine Chase of long ago (not that Lorraine actually came from Luton).

Poor, naïve Stacey Dooley. She has investigated the already investigated. She could as easily have gone off to Malia, though why would she have needed to bother? It is ten years since Sky put out "Sex On The Beach", a documentary which highlighted the drinking binges and sexual promiscuity of young British holidaymakers. Somewhere was needed for Stacey to go to, and as Magalluf has acquired current media flavour-of-the-month status, Magalluf it was.

Stacey's efforts have been a triumph of unearthing the already known. The lesser known she revealed was that the mayor of Calvià isn't a magician - he admitted to not being one - but then mayors rarely are magicians. The greatest problem she presented to a world already in possession of the facts was that of the mugging prostitutes and their organised-crime pimps. You don't actually need the aid of a shoulder-held video camera to observe their activities; just place yourself on a convenient terrace and you can do so live. Manu Onieva's apparent insouciance may reflect the fact that the professional criminal gangs are a Guardia matter, not one that the local police can handle.

The known knowns about Magalluf have been known for long enough. They may have become more exacerbated knowns, but then who helps to make them so? The Staceys of this media world. And will her investigation make any difference? Possibly it will in that it will increase Magalluf's popularity. Bad publicity? Free publicity. All publicity is etc., etc.

Magalluf is popular with the youth end of the tourism market precisely because of Stacey's stigmas (well, not the prostitutes or death by balcony fall perhaps). Magalluf, like Malia, Lagana, Arenal, Lloret and others, and for youth from different European countries (so please, no singling out of the British alone), is popular as it is represents a rite of passage. It is a location for National Disservice in the name of getting laid, getting drunk and getting admitted to hospital. It is an initiation that becomes habit until such time as youth realises it no longer is youth. 

You reap what you sow. How did Magalluf become like Magalluf? Only partly because youthful tourists made it so. But they are mere agents of others' designs, included among whom are tour operators. Ever since Club 18-30 was first conceived (and so the history of such organised alcohol and sex-fuelled youth tourism is now heading towards middle age), tour operators have jumped onto the bandwagon, recognising a fruitful means of filling aircraft and hotel places. Magalluf has been a collective exercise in the exploitation of the easily and willingly exploitable - the youth. And the consequence is what you have, to which one pointless solution is to change its name. Sorry, you can take the dirty water out of the name of Magalluf, but - unless the resort's transformation involves the whole resort - you won't take the dirty dancing, drinking and sex out of the resort.  


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.