Disaster

Someone once told me that the authorities couldn't really care less what sort of holidaymakers turn up in Mallorca, so long as they turn up and turn up in great numbers; numbers sufficient to justify the investment that has been put into the development of Palma airport, and numbers which would increase that much more - and no self-interest involved here of course - so that the local government would be able to take a piece of the pie in managing the airport. But that would be some way off. Especially if the numbers decline. And falling numbers are really not what anyone had in mind. The only problem is that the number did fall - in 2008.

The movement of people though the airport is, in some ways, one of the better ways of gauging tourism activity. Not totally of course. There are enough ranges of lard mountain being herded through Son Sant Joan en route to their all-inclusive troughs to skew any meaningful notion as to numbers and indeed types of holidaymaker. But as, for the most part, the tourist arrives by air, you do get a reasonable handle on things, always assuming that there hasn't been some - how to put it - massaging of the figures. And there doesn't appear to have been, not for 2008 at any rate; there was a decline just short of 400,000. That said, of the three main tourist markets (mainland Spain, Germany and the UK), the largest fall was among the Spanish, the UK showed a fall of some 100,000, but the Germans increased slightly.

Insofar as 2008 performance can mean anything when projecting for this season, the airport numbers do seem to tally with other reports from last year, especially in respect of the slump in Spanish tourism. The good news for the north of the island is that this market is of little consequence. Anyway, despite the call by the tourism minister for some positive spin, the message doesn't seem to have found its way to one commentator in "Ultima Hora" who says that it will require a "titanic effort to avoid a disaster this year". Ah yes, that word again. Disaster. The minister said we media sorts shouldn't use it, but up it pops - regular as ... well as regular as "desastre", because anything or everything here can be a "desastre". The beach near to me is at present, according to my ancient Mallorcan neighbours, "un desastre"; the reason being that it's full of natural rubbish. One of the flats that the ancients rent out was also once "un desastre" after three TUI reps had been in it for a season. The word is actually used so much that it does rather lose its meaning.

We are told that 2009 is likely to be on a par with 2006. Now, I don't really recall the ins and outs of that particular year, but I don't remember it being "un desastre". Indeed, although 2007 was meant to have been a record year, there were those who would maintain that 2006 was better. So, quite where this gets us I've no idea. Nowhere in all likelihood. But if 2007 was indeed a record year, then is there not some consolation in accepting that not every year can be a record year, and that if there is a bit more of a decline in the numbers of Brits exiting the Luton EasyJet it doesn't actually equate to "un desastre"? There is a slight drawback in this argument in that 2008 was meant to have been a record year as well, which was probably bollocks and the lower numbers coming through the airport would tend to to support that. But we have the word of the bloke at TUI, i.e. its chief executive, who says that people will still take their foreign holiday; the thing that will prevent them is not recession, but unemployment. To that end, let's just hope people keep their jobs. Or ... desastre.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Dandy Warhols (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuFtfhOipNQ). Today's title - ok, you'll be doing well with this, but it comes from a wonderful Canadian indie group who did get the odd mention here in 2007. They take their name from some water in Saskatchewan.

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