Costalot

"It's more expensive."

An increasingly familiar refrain and complaint. Mallorca is more expensive. Of course it is, or it at least seems so if you are a British tourist. It's all that pound and euro carry-on. In real terms, it is not necessarily more expensive than 2008, even if some insist that it is, and there are of course those who are "outraged" at the increase in tobacco prices - more of that in a bit.

On the Holiday Truths forum there is an exchange, quite a pedantic one at that, as to the relative costs of holidaying in Mallorca and the Costa Brava. As usual much of this boils down to anecdotal evidence - it cost me so and so for a pint of this and that. The pedant in the exchange is not actually wrong to demand rather stronger evidence as to Mallorca being more expensive. It's fair to challenge statements that may have no more support than the experiences of prices in one bar.

One can go and hunt for cost-of-living comparisons. It is possible to compare certain prices for Palma to those in Girona. It doesn't get you very far. Some are higher and some are lower. From memory, official statistics have always placed the Balearics towards the top of the relative costs of living for the regions of Spain, but so they also have for Catalonia. So no real clues there.

Someone in that exchange argues that prices are bound to be higher in Mallorca because of costs of transport from the mainland. There is sense in that view, but not totally. Take, for example, wine. If you want a decent bottle in Mallorca, one from the mainland will invariably be cheaper. The reason is simple. Vineyards on the mainland benefit from economies of production, i.e. they can create far greater volume. It comes down to one thing - land. That bottle of wine may be fractionally cheaper in Girona than in Mallorca, but the shipping element is incidental, especially if one factors in the bulk-purchasing capacity of supermarket chains and others. However, many restaurants in Mallorca will offer Mallorcan wines; more expensive ones than from the mainland.

Land is an important factor. Not only does it impact on the costs of production of local produce, it also affects costs of property and availability of property. On top of this there is the use of technology which is not always at the cutting-edge in Mallorca, as typified by the production of almonds which can be supplied more cheaply from California.

Certain costs do not differ between Mallorca and the mainland, such as those for employment. Social security costs are as high in Mallorca as anywhere else. Certain goods are subject to centralised price controls - tobacco for instance. The prices have risen recently as the Spanish Government seeks to increase tax revenues. That certain tobacco brands have increased substantially is not a consequence of "pressure" to limit the tobacco runs to the UK. Rolling tobacco and some low-cost cigarettes have gone up significantly because they were too cheap. To hear some tourists moaning and expressing outrage is absurd, especially when the moaning relates to the fact that the profit on their "orders" would be slashed. Whatever. The prices are still no higher in Mallorca than on the Costa Brava.

Tourists now see destinations such as Turkey and Bulgaria offering cheaper alternatives. Tourists benefited for many years from Mallorca - and indeed Spain - being a cheap destination. Gradually, because of the development which meant that Spain was no longer an economic basket case, wealth has accrued, no more so than in Mallorca. That wealth has been reflected in property prices and increases in costs - of all sorts. The point is that Mallorca is more expensive, because it is not a cheap place.

Once upon a time, back in the '60s when whatever you drank cost ten pesetas and workers lived in shanties, the tourist never had it so good. The costs of the original mass-tourism packages were ludicrously low as were the local prices. Without them, then mass tourism would probably never have kicked off and nor would the wealth that came from it. The tourist benefited from the exploitation of extreme low cost. It could never last - and of course has not. But there remains something of an expectation that things should still be cheap. It is an unrealistic expectation. Nowadays it's payback time.

I don't know about property prices on the Costa Brava, but my guess would be that they are lower than in Mallorca which is one of the most expensive parts of Spain. The resultant rents are probably the main difference in making the island more expensive, if indeed it is. With some produce it is, but mostly - there's no real difference.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Who, "Won't Get Fooled Again": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zydAs5bRW1U. Today's title - who, preceding this with "Carlos", came up with this?

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