MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 15 March 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (6.45am): 8C
Forecast high: 15C; UV: 4
Three-day forecast: 16 March - Cloud, 15C; 17 March - Sun, cloud, 13C; 18 March - Rain, 14C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northwest 4 to 6 easing rapidly 2 to 3 during the morning.

Patchy cloud first thing and rather chilly. Possible shower later but otherwise reasonably sunny. The outlook for the week is not great: rain forecast for most days but mild nonetheless.

Evening update (21.15): Sun at times, but mostly cloudy. The high - bang on 15C.

No Frills Excursions

Parasite Of Love: Mallorca's "picadors"

A picador is the horseman who thrusts a lance into the bull during the bullfight. Is he not? He is, but there is another type of picador, one who might possibly be said to still exist but who had his heyday during the years of Mallorca's great tourism boom.

The chances are that, of things you can do over the next few days, you will not be going to the Can March Gallery in Inca on Friday or the town hall in Montuïri on Saturday in order to hear a presentation about a book written in Catalan. It's a shame. As with several other books written about some of the idiosyncrasies of Mallorca during the early boom years, it isn't available in English, but be this as it may. The book in question is by a young Mallorcan historian, Tomeu Canyelles, who first came to my attention when he collaborated with one of Mallorca's leading musicologists, Francesc Vicens, in researching the book "Beatles Made in Mallorca". This complemented a previous work by Vicens, "Paradise of Love", which looked at how pop music and tourism collided in Mallorca in the sixties and into the 1970s. They are two historians who have studied and will doubtless continue to study the ways in which popular culture was shaped and influenced by tourism in the days of innocence and not-so-innocence under the Franco regime. And into this research mix has come the latest work by Canyelles. It is a study of a social phenomenon, one that couldn't have existed without the wave of tourism from countries where attitudes were more liberal than in the Spain of the time. The title of the book in Catalan is "Els Picadors Mallorquins". Its subtitle translates as "seducers and seduced during the touristic boom". "Els picadors mallorquins", the Mallorcan picadors, derived their name not from the bullfight but from the mosquito. A picador is a synonym. You get an unpleasant bite from a mosquito, and the mosquito is a parasite. The picador, it was to become accepted, was a parasite.

So, who was he? You may have already put two and two together. Seducer, seduced, more liberal attitudes, parasite? If not, let's spell it out. The picador was the sleazy, smarmy, greasy Latin lover, the tourist gigolo of legend. He wasn't a myth. He genuinely did exist. And there were few places where he existed in greater number than in Mallorca.

It has been said that the early days of tourism made young Mallorcan men distinctly uncomfortable - probably in more ways than one. They had not previously been exposed to the amount of female flesh that now presented itself. There were many who couldn't handle the cultural and psychological upheaval typified by the bikini once it was legalised. On the other hand, there were many who could handle it, and handling was what they principally hand in mind. And this was a mind firmly devoted to the body and to its pleasures.

The picador's modus operandi was pretty straightforward. Eye up a young foreign girl, use some well-practised foreign phrases, charm her with Latin looks and, with any luck, bingo. The picador's territory was also pretty obvious. The beach was ideal and so was the disco, the latter in some ways better on account of alcohol that was in those days cheaper even than chips and served in measures equivalent to a small bucket.

Once it became apparent, fairly early on during the tourism boom, that this new industry was spawning whole legions of lecherous young men with dodgy moustaches who showered in some concoction that made Brut smell good, moral outrage began to raise its head. The church, never a great fan of tourism in any event, condemned the lack of morality, while, and the reverse of how it is today, British newspapers highlighted the perils of the picador. In the 1960s, the young Mallorcan male was the sexual predator who was worthy of contempt. Nowadays, as we know, the loose morality flies in en masse wearing lads-on-tour t-shirts, heads for Magalluf and gets filmed with its pants down.

However, there was, as with contemporary Magalluf, another side of the coin. Despite the indignant stereotyping by Fleet Street and becoming the target for British comedians and dreadful film spin-offs from sitcoms, the picador had his appeal. Tomeu Canyelles admits that, in some respects, the picador may have actually helped to boost tourism, though by the same token he did very little to give Mallorca a good reputation in the eyes of many, including mostly all other Mallorcans.

The picadors didn't last. Or not in the same way. Many clubs were forced to close because of economic crisis in the mid-1970s, while female attitudes were changing. They were less impressed and less easily won over, while there was also far greater awareness of sexually transmitted disease. The picador story ended at the turn of the 1980s, but it lives on in different ways, and one is Tomeu Canyelles' book.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 14 March 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (7.00am): 11C
Forecast high: 13C; UV: 4
Three-day forecast: 15 March - Rain, sun, 11C; 16 March - Cloud, 13C; 17 March - Cloud, sun, 13C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Variable 2 to 4 increasing Northeast 5 by the late afternoon. Waves of one to two metres later on and possible storm.

Pleasant start to the day but the clear skies are due to be filled with cloud and there is a warning for heavy rain. Quite windy at times as well. Better tomorrow but not warm.

Evening update (19.45): The rain eventually came and there was a fair amount of it in parts. Not warm. A high of just 13.6C with lows down around ten degrees.

No Frills Excursions

Patrick Of Mallorca

As if you needed reminding, it's Saint Patrick's Day on Tuesday. While Mallorca indulges itself in a saintly ritual of Guinness drinking and the wearing of leprechaun beards, forgotten is the fact that Patrick is not only the global trademark for Irishness, he is also a Catholic saint, albeit one who has never actually been canonised. As such, therefore, he registers on the saintly calendar. 17 March, the day of Patrick's death at the age of 120. Supposedly.

You may not know that Patrick, aka Patricio, is the patron saint of the city of Murcia. Separated by a few hundred kilometres of sea, this patronage does at least lend some added, though rather tenuous, religious boost to a boozy Mallorcan celebration. Patricio never actually made it to Murcia by the way. It just so happened that the reconquest of Murcia coincided with his feast day: hence, the patronage status.

Patricio's association with Mallorca is, let's be honest, altogether more secular than religious, and this association finds no greater expression than in Santa Ponsa, where tomorrow they will have conveniently brought forward the feast day by 48 hours. Saint Patrick of Ponsa is a de facto patron, one for Irish tourism and so for Joe Walsh and the Irish tour operators who discovered the Deya Apartments and other establishments in the early 1970s and colonised a resort in the style of Magalluf for the British (minus the Celtic Brits) and Arenal for the Germans.

It is tempting to think that the Celtic-Santa Ponsa association is of very much more ancient origin, from a time closer to when Patrick was knocking around in the fifth century. Both Santa and Ponsa might have their roots in an old Celtic language - "sant" and "pont" existed in this language and they both referred to bodies of water or marsh. However the name was derived, one thing is for sure: there was never a saint called Ponsa.

Wedged between this antiquity and the modernity of tourism, there is an entirely different story regarding Ireland's association with Mallorca. It is one of migration which was partly the consequence of repression and persecution of Irish Catholics by Protestant Britain, partly commercial and partly engineered.

Oliver Cromwell has to take much of the credit - or blame, if you prefer - for this association. Land confiscation and all-round tyranny drove members of the Catholic elite (those who survived) to seek refuge away from Ireland. Catholic Spain welcomed them. Without necessarily becoming Spanish as such, they were afforded great privileges - both merchant and military.

It was some fifty years after Cromwell died and the Protectorate came to an end that events in Spain were reaching a bloody conclusion which brought about its own repression. Settlement following the War of the Spanish Succession had stripped Spain of some possessions, but within Spain, Felipe V was busying himself bringing opposition to an end and securing for the House of Bourbon all parts of the country. This was to mean the defeat of his opponents in Catalonia and those from the Crown of Aragon, which included Mallorca. Felipe issued the Nueva Planta decrees, Catalonia was subjugated, the Crown of Aragon disappeared.

The loss of those possessions made it important that no more were lost. To the north of Mallorca was - still is - Menorca. The settlement had turned it into a British possession. And if the British had any ambitions regarding other Balearic islands, Felipe wasn't about to hang around and let them realise them. Mallorca was reinforced both commercially and militarily. There was, therefore, a wave of immigration, and among these immigrants were trusted and privileged Irish, loyal to the Spanish crown.

So, in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, an Irish "colony" became established. It was never vast by any means but it was to later be added to by another wave of an elite with Irish origins which, again mainly for military reasons, came to Mallorca during the Peninsular War against Napoleon in the early nineteenth century.

Of those who came to Mallorca in the eighteenth century was an Irishman who had been born after the period of the Cromwell tyranny (in Kilkenny in 1676). He became a devoted ally of Felipe V and he arrived in Mallorca in 1726 and was installed as the governor and captain-general of the island. His surname was corrupted to Laules. Originally, it was probably Lawless, though there is some debate. But, and in keeping with the current celebrations, his Christian name was appropriate. Patricio. Patrick.

There are of course descendants from the waves of Irish immigration, their names having generally been altered to fit the Mallorcan dialect. And of those one-time O'Neills, O'Ryans or indeed Lawlesses, how many will be now donning a leprechaun's beard and downing a pint of Guinness?

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 13 March 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (6.45am): 11.5C
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 4
Three-day forecast: 14 March - Rain, sun, 14C; 15 March - Rain, sun, 12C; 16 March - Cloud, sun, 13C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): East 2 to 3.

Fairly cloudy first thing though it should brighten up and give a reasonably sunny day. Deteriorating overnight with a warning for heavy rain tomorrow. Rain likely to linger into Sunday with the general pattern unsettled going into next week.

Evening update (21.30): Pretty good. High of 18.2C. Tomorrow, not so good.

No Frills Excursions

Into The Biosphere: Sustainable/responsible tourism

This has been a week during which it was revealed that Catalonia wishes to become the first tourism region in the world to obtain a Biosphere certification. Which seemed a little odd as Menorca has been a Biosphere for over twenty years: it was declared to be one by UNESCO in 1993. Whatever. Perhaps Menorca isn't a region as such. Anyway, UNESCO has a regional Biosphere which is certified by its Global Sustainable Tourism Council, a body with lofty aims to ensure, inter alia, that "tourism meets its potential as a tool for conservation and poverty alleviation". A Biosphere refers to, among other things, the encouragement of the "social and cultural authenticity of each (tourist) destination and community".

Catalonia's ambition comes at a time when, according to global trends in tourism, "a new traveller" is seeking "creative and sustainable destinations". The argument goes that by promoting sustainability (this Biosphere stuff), a destination can establish greater loyalty from a tourist who, impressed by the efforts to maintain the environment, the local culture, the local heritage, alleviate poverty, etc. etc., will become a repeat tourist. There is a further argument that this approach will enable a destination to in fact increase its tourism in the first place.

Sustainable tourism, responsible tourism and other terms do have specific meanings and grand intentions. But they have also become part of the tourism marketing lexicon for destinations for which they weren't originally intended. Sustainable tourism was derived from sustainable development, initially a UN programme with contemporary origins in the 1980s. Primarily, it was concerned (as was sustainable tourism when it was first conceived) with protection of less-developed parts of the world. Subsequently, the tourism industry latched on to the idea that all this sustainability offered product and marketing possibilities for developed tourist destinations.

This isn't to say that genuine efforts have not been made - as they have - but to come to Catalonia or indeed to Mallorca, how applicable are principles of sustainable (or responsible) tourism? Let's consider a couple. Involve local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances. Provide more enjoyable experiences for tourists through meaningful connections with local people and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues.

While it is undeniable that there are tourists who value the second of these, and do so in Catalonia or Mallorca, there is a vast number who really, let's be perfectly honest, aren't that bothered. And when they are in all-inclusives, their chances of being bothered are significantly lessened. What do advocates suggest? Bussing in loads of locals for the inmates of an all-inclusive to goggle at?

For less-developed parts of the tourism world, there are clear benefits from increasing the volume of tourism so long as this increase stays in harmony with the environment and the needs of the local people. For developed parts, increasing volume runs counter to principles of sustainability/responsbility. The creative or smart tourist destination in the developed world should not be aiming to add more tourists willy-nilly. Instead, it should seek tourists who will maximise economic benefits while keeping social and environmental costs to a minimum.

The argument goes that destinations such as Mallorca have devoted too much attention to constantly increasing numbers of tourists without truly assessing economic benefits, and in the past few days there has been an admission that this is the case. Sort of. It has come from the president of the Balearics, José Ramón Bauzá. In parliament on Tuesday, Bauzá said that there was "no direct relationship between an increase in the number of tourists and variance in Balearics GDP". "The key", he said, was competitiveness profit or loss. Through inference, Bauzá was saying what many have said before. More tourists do not mean greater economic benefits when a proportion of tourist volume contributes little or nothing to the economy or indeed can cause a loss. This is something that has been known about for years but it is not something that politicians and others have chosen to do anything about. The increase in numbers has all they have been worried about.

What Bauzá was saying comes back to a governmental desire for more "quality" tourists, but this does not mean more tourists in total. It means the opposite, and former tourism minister Carlos Delgado, in not so many words, once said as much. But while Bauzá and the PP have sought this course, we now have, repeated this week, the desire of the Mallorcan left-wing for a tourism that will permit "shared prosperity" for the people of the Balearics. From both right and left and so from different political starting-points, a common view appears to be emerging - that the islands' tourism model has to change, and it is a change that may well entail fewer tourists and not more.

Into all of this came an intervention from Gabriel Escarrer of Melià. He said that "the Balearics have to become the elite destination in the Mediterranean": not an elite destination, the elite destination. Meliá is committing itself to ever greater quality, as is the case with the Calvia Beach Resort. This commitment, says Sr. Escarrer, is one that emphasises differentiation from other destinations and - that word again - sustainability. But if Meliá's vision were to be embraced wholeheartedly and were, therefore, Mallorca to be propelled towards tourist elitism, the consequence is clear. It would result in fewer tourists. The current mass could not be converted into the type of tourist that Meliá (and the government) has in mind. And it most certainly could not be converted in this way while lousy and outdated all-inclusives remain.

By the coincidence of Catalonia and its Biosphere and of what Bauzá and Escarrer have said, this past week has encapsulated where Mallorca might be heading. While it is Catalonia that is seeking the Biosphere certificate, it can be certain that a close eye will be kept on that. And if Catalonia were to conclude that entering the Biosphere means sustainability and responsibility through fewer tourists, then others may well draw the same conclusion.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 12 March 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (6.30am): 10C
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 4
Three-day forecast: 13 March - Sun, cloud, 17C; 14 March - Rain, 11C; 15 March - Rain, sun, 11C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Variable 2 to 3, mainly Northeast from midday.

Clear sky at dawn, though there might be some fog patches in places. A good, sunny and warm day to come. Things collapse from later on tomorrow and the weekend will be wet and quite cold.

Evening update (20.00): Turned out nice again. A high of 19.6C.

No Frills Excursions

The Chronology Of A Fiasco: Palma's Palacio

In June 2003 Jaume Matas became president of the Balearics for the second time. Among his top priorities was the revival of the international image of Palma, and key to this was the building of a major conference centre which would propel Palma into the forefront of the business tourism market. This was to be the Palacio de Congresos, one of several stellar projects of the Matas administration. A conference centre had been spoken about often before 2003. Matas was praised for being the one who sought to make it a reality. Even opposition politicians were inclined to approve.

Three areas of Palma were initially considered. One of these, Playa de Palma, was ruled out straightaway as there was no obvious site. A second was Porto Pi, which was the one that pretty much everyone agreed would be the best. It was not possible because of how land was classified. This left the Moll Vell, i.e. in the La Lonja area. A fourth option then arose: near to the GESA building. This was the one that was chosen.

By November 2003 the Palacio was already being talked up. At London's World Travel Market the boss of Meliá, Gabriel Escarrer, said that it would be an "emblematic installation" and alluded to the architect tendering process, which in itself would enhance Palma's image. Various names were mentioned, including Norman Foster and Richard Rogers. On 14 June 2005 Matas and the mayor of Palma, Catalina Cirer, unveiled the winning architect - Patxi Mangado from Pamplona. The project for the conference centre, the hotel and new parking would cost 60 million euros. On 17 April 2008 work officially started on the project. It would take thirty months to complete.

Fourteen months before the work started, the cost of the project having apparently risen to 130 million euros, the Matas government approved the 40-year concession to operate the conference centre and hotel to a consortium that was headed by the hotel group Barceló. It would have half the shareholding. Others included Globalia, Iberostar and the building company Acciona. In May 2007, three months after this approval, Matas lost the regional election. He left politics and went to work for Barceló.

Two years on from this election and so some months after work had started, Barceló, which had bought out other members of the consortium and so owned 95% of the project (Acciona stayed in with 5%), announced that it was "temporarily" abandoning the project. Reasons cited included an additional thirty million euros that had been added to the bill, modifications to the project and "legal and economic irregularities". In early 2011 Barceló definitively broke off its involvement, a month before the Palacio was supposed to have opened, the schedule for opening having been modified from the original end of 2009 date.

Uncertainties surrounding the Palacio increased through a combination of Barceló's concerns and economic crisis. Election victories which installed PSOE administrations in Palma and regional government were less significant, but when the PP regained Palma and government in 2011 it was faced with major problems. The lack of a conference operator was just one. Debts were mounting. Acciona, the constructor, was owed millions. Because of this, in June Acciona downed tools  and paralysed the work indefinitely.

Tendering processes proved to be fruitless. One produced no interest. The second attracted Meliá, but Meliá was not prepared to accept the proviso of paying a bond of eight million euros to secure the concession. Why not? This remains a good question.

This was in the summer of 2012. Work was suspended, but the costs were still rising. Over half a million euros a month had to be found simply to cover the costs of maintenance and security for the half-built white elephant. Palma's mayor, Mateo Isern, attributed the problems not to lack of interest from the private sector but to "country risk": the shaky state of the Spanish economy in other words. This shaky state was such that there was a financing shortfall of 70 million euros.

Hilton was another hotel chain which expressed an interest, but nothing was to come of this. Different solutions were now being sought. One was to separate the hotel and convention centre and invite tenders for each. Another was demolition. In February 2013 consideration was being given to this. The cost, just under 30 million euros, was prohibitive. 

In November 2013 Palma Town Hall was given permission by national government to take out a 42 million euro loan. The money was to pay Acciona what it was owed. In so doing, the way was open for work to restart. When in June last year the regional government committed to spend 36 million euros to finish the project, the financing shortfall that Isern had referred to was covered.

So we now come to the present day. The conference centre may well be finished this year. There is still, however, the matter of the operator. It has been suggested that a new consortium featuring some of those involved with the Barceló consortium might emerge. But were Mallorcan hoteliers to finally decide they want to be a part of the conference centre, how would this square with one of the most damning statements made about the project? It came from Iberostar's Aurelio Vázquez, the president of the Mallorcan hoteliers federation. In October 2013 he said that the Palacio was in a "bad location". It was too expensive and did not guarantee sufficient profit. "Hotel chains know which projects are profitable and those which are not," he added.

Damning though this was, there was another observation about the Palacio which was more damning. It came from advisors in 2003. Matas was told that it was an investment which made little sense because of the strong competition from conference centres elsewhere in Spain and in Europe and because of the high costs. And as for these high costs, does anyone actually know how much the Palacio will finally end up costing?

Photo: What the Palacio should eventually look like.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 11 March 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (7.45am): 7C
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 4
Three-day forecast: 12 March - Sun, 18C; 13 March - Sun, cloud, 14C; 14 March - Rain, 11C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southwest 2 to 3.

A bit foggy this morning, but sun coming through and a warm day in prospect with minimal breezes. Tomorrow also good, but by the weekend there is going to be rain and colder weather.

Evening update (20.30): Another fine day. High of 21.8C.

No Frills Excursions

Limits To Exploiting The Beaches?

Old photos. There are several social media blogs which dedicate themselves to old photos of Mallorca. They spark off nostalgia for times past. They show people, buildings, streets, vehicles, landscapes. All of them are of interest, but arguably the greatest interest - certainly for tourists to Mallorca - is reserved for the photographic histories of the resorts: the changes to the front lines, the hotels which have gone or have remained, the beaches as they were. The tourist, by the very nature of Mallorca's dominant sun and beach tourism, invests emotion most heavily in the resorts: they are the tourist's domain, the tourist's memories, the tourist's past, present and future.

Of some of these photos, there are those which show how beaches were in the days just prior to the tourism explosion and once the explosion had occurred. The contrasts are predominantly those of bodies and of what bordered the beaches. There is a particular one for Palmanova. It is not certain when it was taken, but probably in the 1950s. Absent is the development, absent is a crowded beach. But on the beach, or rather off it - as in the sea - is what might seem to be an oddity. It is a pedalo.

While it is reckoned that Leonardo da Vinci may have "invented" the pedalo, its mechanics were, much later, adapted from those of the paddle steamer. That there was, therefore, a pedalo in the fifties' photo should not be odd, but somehow it does seem odd. I mean, beaches were just beaches then. Weren't they? Beachgoers made their own fun without the aid of the beach attraction.

The pedalo can probably lay claim to having been the pioneer of such attractions and its iconic status was such that, when the first "WIsh You Were Here" was broadcast (1974), what else would Judith Chalmers be sitting on, drinking champagne at Magalluf beach than a pedalo.

But by the time of that broadcast another attraction was making itself known. It was altogether more powerful and noisier. The jet ski had arrived. It shared its name with a brand of tourist divorced from the mass hoi polloi, the jet set, and as such became de rigueur for the TV and cinema of spies and socialites who headed for the Riviera and were normally always played by Roger Moore and Sophia Loren.

Pioneer that the pedalo was, it was not responsible for introducing artificiality to beaches. There was plastic in ever increasing abundance, a perversely natural consequence of the ever increasing levels of humanity that invaded the beaches. But it was essentially benign. A pedalo doesn't make any noise. A jet ski, on the other hand, does. A pedalo requires only human leg power. A jet ski does not.

Coming up to the present day, there is a growing debate regarding the use of beaches and sea that centres on ever more plastic and ever more noise. And Colonia Sant Jordi is where this debate is currently at its most fierce. Last Sunday, around a hundred residents of the resort staged a protest against the plan to install a floating waterpark and to permit two platforms for jet skis. Their objection does have an element of antagonism towards a Spanish (and so not Mallorcan) operator and a French one, but there is also concern about environmental harm, noise pollution and the sight of the waterpark.

Such waterparks have emerged recently in different resorts and they haven't been greeted with overwhelming support from residents and tourists. But how strong is this opposition? While some tourists might object, others doubtless approve. However the feelings are either way, the Colonia Sant Jordi case highlights a broader debate. Just how much "exploitation" of beaches and the sea should there be?

There are plenty of rules intended to safeguard beaches and there are plenty of initiatives, like the Blue Flag, to ensure quality. Yet there is a great deal of  "privatisation" of beaches and the sea immediately by them. This is privatisation in the widest sense, i.e. private enterprises operating businesses, but it is something which rubs against deep-rooted feelings held by many a Mallorcan (and indeed Spaniard). Beaches, state-owned, are in the public domain. They are for the public to enjoy. This enjoyment, the complaint is made, is reduced by the excesses of privatisation, be these too many sun loungers that limit the use of the public domain, noise or multi-coloured plastic slides bobbing up and down on the sea.

And to these residents can be added the tourists with a sense of a shared common birthright to the simpler pleasures of what, in tourism terms, constitute Mallorca's greatest natural resource. But then maybe the exploitation is necessary. Gone are the days, it would seem, when all beachgoers could make their own fun. With or without the aid of a pedalo.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 10 March 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (7.00am): 7C
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 3
Three-day forecast: 11 March - Sun, 18C; 12 March - Sun, 17C; 13 March - Sun, cloud, 14C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northwest and West 2 to 3.

Quite chilly this morning with a totally clear sky. A good day in prospect and staying good through to Friday when colder weather is due, followed by rain over the weekend.

Evening update (19.00): Most acceptable. A high of 21.2C.

No Frills Excursions

Defending Loyalty To Mallorca

April Rinne is a name that probably won't mean anything to you. She is the chief strategy officer for something called Collaborative Lab, "the leading source of expertise for companies and governments that want to embrace the collaborative economy". Among other things, she is a "young global leader" at the World Economic Forum and has been an adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She has, says her biog, "illustrated her thought leadership" in various publications. Thought leadership? What on earth is that?

Depending on your perspective, Rinne is either one of those infuriating Americans who come along on a regular basis and appear to invent entire alternative universes of business and marketing replete with jargonese and gurudom or a crystal-clear visionary of a brave new future world. Whatever your perspective, these are universes or worlds remote from the man or woman booking holidays to Mallorca. They appear divorced from everyday realities but sometimes they can be important, and what April Rinne deals in is important.

The notion of the collaborative or sharing economy is simple enough. You have something to share - let's say it's an apartment that you own - and someone wants to take up your offer. This is an economy that has always been with us, but technology has vastly expanded its potential, so much so that - at its most extreme -what you might have to share can be shared with anyone from anywhere. Middlemen cease to exist. All that is needed is a facilitator, a third party which enables the sharer to be in touch with his or her potential market. This is the world of P2P, peer to peer or people to people. This is the world of Airbnb property sharing, Uber car sharing and many others.

Rinne has made an observation which sums up the rise of P2P. It has taken Airbnb, the world's leading internet portal for tourist property rental, just six years to reach a level of users (customers) that Hilton needed over 90 years to attain. It is a stark observation of the battle between hotels and private accommodation that is going on across the globe and so not just in Mallorca, and it is a battle which, despite moves to legislate, appears to be one that the hotels cannot win. Rinne believes that the onslaught from the likes of Airbnb has only just begun.

Confronted with this competition - typically decried by the hoteliers as "unfair" - how can hotels fight back? A clue as to how they can lies with understanding the appeal of P2P and the apparent shifts in consumer thinking and behaviour, in particular those of the so-called Millennial generation. Tourism, according to accepted P2P wisdom, is about personalisation, about "experiences", about contact with local people in destinations. It is the depersonalised nature of hotels which turns the traveller on to a P2P "experience" and which also deters those Millennials who supposedly are also interested principally in experiences.

Of course, much of this sounds and often is marketing gobbledegook, but there is nevertheless a good deal of truth about depersonalisation and especially that which comes with the package holiday. This said, hotels have woken up to the need for greater personalisation and also to the need for "experiences". Many can't help telling potential clients about the experiences that await them or shoehorning them in to brand sloganising. And it is this branding which holds the key for hotels and, more importantly, tour operators.

Experiences and personalisation have become the hotelier and tour operator zeitgeist as has the need for branding and so brand loyalty, but in emphasising the brand, tour operators and indeed some hotel chains shift the focus away from the destination. What is being sold, therefore, is the brand, and where it is located is secondary. A consequence is that loyalty to the destination, be it Mallorca, its individual resorts is potentially loosened. And experiences and personalisation for the P2P traveller can also undermine specific destinations. These travellers place a premium on the social-media aspect of sharing information and recommendations. If they are for somewhere other than Mallorca, then so be it.

The importance of these trends can be over-exaggerated. The traditional package holiday, for instance, and despite repeated reports of its death, is not about to disappear any time soon. But they are trends which cannot be ignored and so make it imperative that Mallorca acts to confirm and reinforce tourist loyalty to it.

There was a statement the other day that the "summer sells itself". Well yes, it does, but to believe, against the background of these trends, that "selling" is not required is wrongheaded. It is needed as never before, and so Mallorca needs its own assault, one it is currently failing to deliver, that of loyalty building through social media. And, moreover, it is an assault that needs to embrace, not deny, the P2P revolution.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 9 March 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (6.00am): 10C
Forecast high: 15C; UV: 3
Three-day forecast: 10 March - Sun, 16C; 11 March - Sun, 18C; 12 March - Sun, 17C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North 2 to 3.

Some cloud observable in a still night sky and partially cloudy during the day but so a good deal of sun expected as well. A good week of weather to come, though the seven-day forecast predicts a change by Saturday. This may well change, however, as it often does.

Evening update (20.15): Decent day. A high of 17.7C.

No Frills Excursions

The Future Of Tourism: Two euros a night

Be afraid, be very afraid? In an article a couple of weeks ago I announced that the eco-tax was back, if only back as a likely electoral pledge by certain parties. We now know more of what one of these parties - Més - has in mind. Its tax, dubbed a tax for tourism reinvestment, would be charged at an average of two euros per night per tourist. The charging would be in ports and airports and the revenue raised would amount to 108 million euros per annum.

Més has arrived at a series of programmes - fifteen in all - that will form the basis for its May election manifesto. One of these is the programme for the economy. It is this one which sets out the party line on tourism, and at the weekend the Més presidential candidate, Biel Barceló, described the tourist tax as "the future of tourism and the economy of our land" (by which he meant Mallorca and the Balearics). The tax and reinvestment that would come from it, he suggested, would guarantee shared prosperity and he went on to say that the tax would be ploughed into investments in the environment, education and innovation.

Més has spent two years debating its proposals, so one would assume that it has had sufficient time to think them through. The fifteen different programmes are detailed enough but, and the tourist tax is a prime example, they lack detail as to implementation and justification. Sure, its economic programme document starts by stating that the planet is finite and that Mallorca is finite, but justification for what it is proposing demands more than a pledge to save the world.

In principle, I am not opposed to a tourist tax. Tourists should shoulder some burden for the use of resources in the same way as the islands' taxpayers do. There is, if you like, a moral obligation to do so. But principle is not the same as practice and nor is it justification when the claims that Més is making for it are questionable within the context of broader proposals it has for economic reform. The 108 million euros are roughly equivalent to what the Balearics receive through the central government's budget for investment in the likes of infrastructure and the environment. But Més wants the whole system of financing reformed. It wants tax sovereignty, which implies much higher levels of direct investment and a greater share of the tax revenue pot than is currently the case. Were there to be such a reform, then why would there be any need for a tourist tax?

The fact is that such a reform would be very unlikely to occur unless there really was a Podemos-sized shift in central government, and even then it might not occur. But whether it did or it didn't, for Més to claim that some 100 million euros per annum would represent some tourism or economic future is laughable. In terms of overall financing for the Balearics at present that amount is chicken feed.

Coming to the implementation, there are three points to be made. The first relates to the proposed tax rate. It is more than double the typical rate that Catalonia applies, and in Catalonia the tax is only levied on tourists over the age of sixteen and on a maximum of seven nights. So, a higher tax rate might be considered prejudicial when compared with the competition that Catalonia represents. Following on from this, the Catalonian tax was initially going to be higher, but the government reduced it because it was felt to be too onerous. The revenues that Catalonia actually receives through its tourist tax are consequently much lower than originally envisaged, but the millions that are raised are clearly earmarked: for tourism promotion and infrastructure.

The third point has to do with how the tax would be collected. Més says that it would be charged at ports and airports. But how? Will all tourists have a document (or passport) stamped with a date of arrival and then divvy up on departure? Will everyone arriving at the airport have to prove that he or she is not a tourist? Sorry, but I don't think that Més has thought it through.

Més will not win the election in May, but there is every chance of it being part of a coalition, and as I observed previously, both Podemos and PSOE are also talking about a tourist tax. But what none of them seem to appreciate is that Mallorca holds far greater interest for the British and German media than anywhere else in Spain. Partly this is historical, partly it is because of stuff that goes in the likes of Magalluf. Slap a two-euro-a-night tax on tourists, and there will be media hell to pay. I might agree with a tourist tax in principle but I am more than willing to swallow that principle.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 8 March 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (6.45am): 10C
Forecast high: 15C; UV: 3
Three-day forecast: 9 March - Sun, 13C; 10 March - Sun, 14C; 11 March - Sun, 18C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North and Northeast 3 to 4.

The birds are singing as the sky begins to lighten and reveals that all is clear and calm. Sunshine around today and for the week, though the northerlies will mainly dominate and keep temperatures down.

Evening update (21.00): Not as sunny as had been expected. Not bad though. High of 16.1C.

No Frills Excursions

Jamie Oliver Would Be Pleased

It isn't known what Poppy Honey Rosie, Daisy Boo Pamela, Petal Blossom Rainbow and Buddy Bear Maurice think about prawns, but their father is a great admirer of them, especially if they are available in the port of Sóller. If you are a town hall on the north-western coast of Mallorca looking for a celebrity seal of approval for the fruits of the local sea, it doesn't get much better than if this celebrity happens to also be a celebrity chef. Yes, Jamie Oliver has four children with those names and he also rates the Sóller prawns as being among the best he has ever had, and he said so last July. But for all his appeal, Jamie has not been co-opted into prawny promotion. It is not for Sóller to make its prawn as "pukka" as a pie.

Sóller has a thing about prawns and has had for at least some two thousand years; the Romans were particularly partial to them, and they come in two principal varieties - red and white. Coming to the present day, "Aristeus antennatus" is known - no, famed - across Mallorca, but it is more commonly known and famed as the "gamba de Sóller". As a consequence of this fame, the residents of the island will have been hotfooting it towards the Tramuntana yesterday and will continue to do so today, thereby swelling revenue coffers by paying their tunnel tolls in pursuit of the prized prawn of Sóller.

In keeping with many other towns on the island which have cottoned on to the potential offered by gastronomy events and fairs, Sóller is now in on the act. The curiosity is perhaps that it has taken them so long to do so. The first ever Sóller prawn fair is taking place over this weekend, and ten leading chefs (not including Jamie Oliver) are preparing their prawn master dishes in the marquee at the Sóller municipal market.

One could say that it has taken as long as Roman times for there to be a fair, but in much more recent times it would appear that, regardless of its deliciousness, the prawn was not the target of co-ordinated fishing effort. Hence, its presence on restaurant tables was once as haphazard as the fishing. It wasn't until 1949 that prawn fishing was properly and officially organised in the Balearics as a whole. Since then the prawn catch has fluctuated, a peak having been reached at the turn of the 1990s when some 350 tonnes per annum were being netted. The number of fishing boats dedicated to the catch has been systematically reduced along with the size of the catch, a factor that contributes to the price of prawns. Depending on the size of the actual prawn, it can be anything from 25 or so euros per kilo to over 80 euros.

Price alone might indicate the quality of the prawn, but there has to be more. Why is it that Jamie Oliver - to name one of innumerable others - can go into a rapture about it? What, if anything, is unique about the Sóller prawn? The simple answer is that it isn't unique. It is the same species. "Aristeus antennatus" is hauled from many a boat on to many a pier in many a Mediterranean port. The answer, therefore, is not so simple.

There are two principal areas for prawn fishing around Mallorca. One is the north-west coast around Sóller, the other is around the island of Cabrera off the south coast. Studies of the prawn populations in these two areas have established that while that of Cabrera is stable throughout the year, the population to be found off the Tramuntana coast isn't. There is a discernible shift in prawn-fishing emphasis in later summer and so a concentration on the north-western sea, and this is because of an abundance of female adult prawns as well as young prawns. This abundance is apparently the result of water conditions and of nutrients. The currents off the north-west are such that they favour adult females in summer and the young in autumn and also winter. The water conditions also influence the type of sediment and the food chain.

The studies are, at present, far from complete. There is an understanding regarding the movement of prawns but it hasn't fully extended to factors such as what prawns eat (pretty much anything, including mud and sometimes themselves), which probably holds the clue as to why the Sóller prawns are as tasty as they are.

So the secret as to the success of the Sóller prawn remains a bit of a mystery for now. Not that those tucking into a lasagna de gambas de Sóller will be concerning themselves overly much with marine-life food chains and hydrography.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 7 March 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (7.30am): 8.5C
Forecast high: 16C; UV: 3
Three-day forecast: 8 March - Sun, cloud, 16C; 9 March - Sun, cloud, 14C; 10 March - Sun, cloud, 15C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northwest 2 to 4.

Cloudless sky to start the day and minimal breeze, so cold in areas (a low of 1.5C). Good sun anticipated today. More by way of cloud probable tomorrow, but the general outlook is for fine weather for the week ahead.

Evening update (20.30): Nice. A high of 21C.

No Frills Excursions

The Desperation Of José Ramón

"Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?" When The Eagles released this, at a time when the music world was prepared to concede that they were any good, the leaders of the two main political parties in the Balearics were mere toddlers. José Ramón Bauzá and Francina Armengol might have grown up together, their entries into this world separated by some nine months: boy and girl, childhood sweethearts, forever devoted, forever in a pact of togetherness. Alas, this was not how it was to be. Fate conspired to keep them apart, to follow different paths, if only politically. Pharmaceutically they had a bond, his family pharmacy in Marratxi, her family pharmacy in Inca. Hence we have what we have: the world of Balearics politics, run by chemists, each dispensing paracetamol to relieve the giant headaches of the populace they cause.

Francina turned on José last week. "Desperado". Not just desperate but very desperate. "Muy desperado". José wanted to turn back the clock, to discover what they had been denied in their infancy. Togetherness. A pact. Francina was having none of it. Now a matriarch, for her a craving for the rules of the kindergarten - sometimes adhered to - applies only so much in the adult world of Balearics politics. PSOE's leader rejected a post-electoral accord with José's PP.

José was desperate. Desperate for an alliance to keep the PP in power. The mere suggestion of a pact with PSOE showed he understands what the polls say. Bye, bye, Bauzá. And with all the nasty, rough boys of the left forming gangs to beat up his mayors in the sticks, José was in desperate need of his own gang, his own pact. Every other party is pacting, so why not the PP? But José has found, as he will continue to find, that no one wants to join his gang. He is being consigned to a corner of the playground, the others having stolen his ball and calling him horrid names.

Spurned, José shouted that Francina's PSOE was slipping to become the third force in the islands' politics but that he was offering her a way to be more of a force, a part of a grand force of PP and PSOE. It is the time for "responsibility, high-mindedness, for democratic participation and stability", all of which only the PP, together in peace and harmony with PSOE, can offer. Francina wasn't listening, and as usual the Bauzá Babe In Chief contributed her penny's worth. Mabel Cabrer bellowed that Francina was interested only in agreements with "radical extremists".

José's pact gambit proved that the desperado had indeed taken leave of his senses. What is it, above all, that Podemos rejects? The two-party, PP-PSOE system. Yet here was José willing a duopolistic electoral carve-up, evidence of a perpetuation and magnification of the cosy system considered to be discredited by Podemos. It would not only have been Podemos who would have smelt a very large rat. The electorate would have detected the whiff as well. Desperation leads to desperate measures, but a PP-PSOE pact would be one too far, even for a desperado.

MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 6 March 2015

Stefanos

Morning high (7.00am): 11C
Forecast high: 15C; UV: 3
Three-day forecast: 7 March - Sun, 16C; 8 March - Sun, 13C; 9 March - Sun, 15C.

Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North 6 to 7 easing 4 to 5 by midday.

Still quite blowy this morning but the wind will ease and the rough conditions by the coasts will improve. A clear sky first thing, and plenty of sun to be anticipated today. Indeed, a lot of sun is forecast for the next few days as a settled pattern emerges of mild springlike weather but with fresh northerly breezes dominating.

Evening update (22.15): Good, sunny day but not particularly warm: a high of 14.8C.

No Frills Excursions

Then They Took Berlin

And then, as Leonard Cohen very nearly sang, they took Berlin; they being the global tourism industry, one part of which is Mallorca. They have all descended on the German capital for the ITB fair, the third and final of the big-three tourism trade fairs where Mallorca is concerned. Naturally enough, because it wouldn't be a fair without them, forecasts for the coming season were being made and, depending on who you bothered to listen to (if anyone), the German market for Mallorca was at present either slow or buoyant.

Jaime Martínez, the regional government's minister for tourism statistical data (sometimes also referred to as the minister for tourism and sport), arrived early, tucking in to the 255,000 euros budget for the fair, which makes it the second most expensive promotional "action" that the ministry will indulge in this year. Strangely perhaps, the Madrid Fitur fair, the number one "action", cost considerably more - 124,000 euros more. But be this as it may, the German market is only the largest tourism market that Mallorca can call upon: a third of all tourists in 2014.

Jaime, data readily to hand, announced that following last year's "historic" tourist performance the German market in 2015 will be one of improvement and consolidation (is this not a contradiction?). Bookings figures are already up on this time last year, he said, and moreover there won't be any World Cup for the Germans to celebrate and so get in the way of what will doubtless be a new historic year. However, not everyone is quite so optimistic. There again, not everyone is a Partido Popular politician desperately hoping against hope that his party will be re-elected in May. There will be some growth but it will probably only be small, and the data, were Jaime to acknowledge them, showed a tendency in 2014 for the German tourist to spend less and to stay for fewer nights.


It was reassuring to note that individuals towns weren't relying on Jaime and the tourism agency to go into promotional bat for them. Hence, the likes of Palma, Calvia, Felanitx, Pollensa, Manacor and Cala Millor (not a town as such, I realise) were all in attendance. Interesting that Calvia had pitched up. Are they trying to entice the Germans to Calvia Beach Resort and so de-Anglicise Magalluf and make it a resort of peace and harmony? Not that the Germans should be needed in order to do this, Calvia having declared the streets of old Magalluf (and Santa Ponsa) alcohol-free zones from ten in the evening. Nary a word about prostitutes who happily divest passing tourists of their smartphones and give them a sound slapping in the process, but as Calvia has, at a stroke, eliminated drunken tourism, the lads on tour will now be more aware of a mugger lurking in the shadows. Somehow, one doesn't imagine that this will be how it is.