Never Far From The Madding Crowd

Too many people, making too many problems. “The Bulletin” reports on a report which discovers that residents of Mallorca and the other islands feel there are just too many damn tourists in summer. No pleasing some people. To be fair, they are not saying that they don’t want tourists - you bet your life they’re not wanting that - but that the concentration in summer causes overcrowding and saturation.The solution would be to spread tourism out, the favoured options being congresses, cycling, cruises and cultural tourism. A load of c-words it would seem. One might well ask, what does a congress do for tourism, or indeed a cruise (which surely takes people off of the island), but perhaps I’m missing something. And put more cyclists on the road, and there will be even more complaints about them than there are already.

The simple fact is that the overwhelming majority of tourists come to Mallorca, and would continue to come to Mallorca, for one key reason - hot sun. They do not come - in great numbers - to admire architecture or historical artefacts. Alcúdia’s Roman town - “some old ruins that we didn’t bother with” was one comment I once came across. Let’s be blunt, most tourists couldn’t care less. Sun, sea, sand, sex, sangria. A load of s-words, in other words. That’s what they care about (in varying degrees admittedly). The hoteliers know this, the tour operators know this, the airlines know this, the restaurant- and bar-owners who close by the end of October know this.

A true year-round tourism market would be wonderful, but dream on.


QUIZ
Today there is a language question. What is wrong with this (it comes from “The Bulletin”)? “70 percent of the population want to see less tourists”.
And a literary question. Today’s adapted title should be familiar, but where does the correct version come from originally?
Yesterday - Steve Lillywhite. New Order’s “World In Motion” was the best of course. Those who suggested “Blue Is The Colour”, “Ossie’s Dream” and “Ally’s Tartan Army”. No, no and no.

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