Chinese Water Torture: Tourism from China

In Palma there is an undistinguished shop which has in its name the words "El" and "Corte". Not the grand department store of El Corte Inglés, but a Chinese bazaar called El Corte Chino. Had a bit of shopping been on the agenda when Xi Jinping came a-visiting, the former would have been on the itinerary and not the bazaar. One imagines that the vice-president of China has already got shedloads of plastic flowers and tea-towels back home in the official residence.

Xi has been in town, Palma that is. Suddenly Mallorca has become the voguish destination for world leaders and their wives, Mrs. Obama having stopped over for a spot of lunch with the royals back in the summer. Of the two, Xi is considerably more important. For one very good reason: all his fellow countrymen and women. Those on whom Mallorca has its eye as potential tourists and as potential purchasers of local wine and olive oil.

In March this year the first international congress looking at Chinese-Spanish tourism took place in Palma. The background to this was the Chinese Government's intention, by 2015, to be overseeing the despatch of some 83 million Chinese tourists overseas. Mallorca and Spain are rather keen on getting some of the action. The congress looked not just at the bigger picture of all those millions hacking through Palma airport but also at the detail as to how to treat Chinese guests - what they eat, what they want to see and what they buy. And one presumes that these needs and wants extend beyond a Chinese restaurant all-you-can-scoff-for-eight-euros "buffet libre" and being unable to go shopping at a Chinese bazaar hypermarket because it's been declared to be illegal.

As importantly, the congress sought to address how to eliminate mental barriers that might impede what otherwise might be a pot of tourism gold at the Far-Eastern end of the rainbow. And these are not just barriers which might exist in the minds of Mallorcans or Spaniards. Spain is still a country largely unknown to most Chinese; there's a lot of education to be undertaken before they start flocking in. It helps of course if promotion is done with Chinese lettering, though not if it means paying a grand per letter in order to translate the name of the one-time Balearics tourism promotion agency - IBATUR.

But were all these Chinese to one day turn up, what would they want from Mallorca? Local nosebag? Sun and beach? Neither would be at the top of the Chinese tourist's wish-list. He or she is not a great experimenter when it comes to cuisine, so you can forget much of that gastronomy malarkey, but be grateful that Sa Pobla is expanding its rice output and that Mallorca has its own line in noodles.

As for sun and beach, well the Chinese might like to look at the sea, rather like British pensioners lined up on benches or in deckchairs in Eastbourne and staring out at the Channel, but they're not wildly keen on all the tanning. White skin is revered, insofar as the Chinese have white skin. The sight of a German roasting into an ever darker shade of mahogany or a Brit radiating like the stop signal on a traffic light suggests that special enclaves would need to be found for the Chinese to prevent them from being offended by all the off-white bodies.

At the risk of racial stereotyping, when a group of Chinese "lads" were on the local beach a couple of summers ago, I found it distinctly odd. I mean, you just don't see the Chinese on the beach. The sea, for them, seems to be like some sort of Chinese water torture, especially if they are confronted by factored-up sun worshippers.

There are further problems for Mallorca, one a different form of water torture to be overcome - that of cold water, which the Chinese don't drink. Then there is the fact that earlier this year we discovered that the Chinese rate Greece as their favourite tourist destination. Not, one presumes, because they head off for industrial quantities of industrial alcohol in Zante but because they are all traipsing around the Acropolis. Which means, therefore, culture. Ah yes, culture. Mallorcan culture. Of which there is so much. There is some but it's not on the scale of a Spanish city such as Santiago de Compostela, earmarked a few years ago as a "recommended" destination for the Chinese tourist and something which puts into context a scheme in Torremolinos to organise Chinese tourist guides. Torremolinos!?

So when, or rather if the Chinese descend on Mallorca, it will be to Bellver Castle or the Tramuntana mountains that they ascend. Which is probably as well in the case of the mountains, for there is one further thing about the Chinese. The smoking. That which they wouldn't be able to do in bars or restaurants.

Xi's visit will doubtless be spun as being deeply significant in terms of fostering the development of Chinese tourism to Mallorca, but if what appeals to the Chinese are culture and scenery, there are, unfortunately for Mallorca, any number of places with far more culture and far more scenery. 83 million? Probably have to settle for 83.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.