In Jason Moore's Shoes

I had Jason Moore's shoes in the boot of my car. Oh, yes, you might be thinking. And how exactly did the shoes of the editor of "The Bulletin" come to be there? Why might I have had the shoes? Were they being held as ransom? I confess this did occur to me.

There is a very innocent explanation. The shoes had been left in a wardrobe at the end of a weekend break in a hotel not that far from me. Could I do a favour and pick them up? No sooner asked ... .

The shoes weren't left in a wardrobe of any old hotel. They were in a wardrobe of an all-inclusive hotel. Hang on, no, it is any old hotel. Like many. Like many an all-inclusive. But it was quite good. And the cost for a family of four was also good. Very good in fact. Jason said so.

There is something more significant to the saga of the shoes than the shoes themselves. The greater significance lies with putting yourself in someone else's shoes. Those of a tourist with a family of four.

The debate about all-inclusives that has been called for by business associations will never be more than a repetition of all that has ever been said about all-inclusives and never more than a statement of entrenched opinion. These organisations could never put themselves in tourists' shoes and accept that all-inclusives might actually represent value for money.

It is the repetition of arguments that makes you despair. When you get someone, i.e. the head of PIMEM, trotting out the ancient reference to all-inclusives being suitable only to "South American countries", you do have to wonder. Is this supposed to be some great revelation? Because it most certainly isn't. This line of argument is about as old as all-inclusives in Mallorca themselves.

Actually, this isn't quite true. And nor is the South America, Central America, Caribbean is where all-inclusives came from argument. Want to know where the all-inclusive concept was born? I'll give you a clue. Island, begins with an "M". Resort, begins with an "A". Still don't know? Mallorca. Alcúdia. 1950.

To be fair, the current-day all-inclusive is far removed from the first Club Med tents, but to hear the arguments, you would think that this current-day all-inclusive is somehow new. The first serious all-inclusives in Mallorca emerged in the 1990s. The arguments have been around ever since. Just that they have become louder as the volume of all-inclusive has increased.

A peculiarity of the all-inclusive is that it took so long for the concept to really take off. It did indeed take the lack of infrastructure in under-developed parts of the world to truly forge the concept, but once the Caribbean and elsewhere showed it to be successful, it was only a matter of time for it to be transported back to where it originally came from. To the by-now developed tourism world. Mallorca.

Mallorca is an all-inclusive victim of its own success. A mass tourism market, ripe for the flogging of a "different" product by the tour operators. A mature market whose life cycle required energising.

Just think for a moment. What would have happened had Gerard Blitz started opening up all-inclusive hotels in the 1950s and not gone off with his tents to islands elsewhere? A very, very different economy would have been created in Mallorca. It didn't happen, partly because no one thought to make it happen and also because there was an unchallenged and seemingly natural symbiosis between hotel and outside bar and restaurant.

It has now happened. Or rather, it started to happen some fifteen years ago, and the current-day consequences could have been predicted. And now, PIMEM want a debate. Sorry to have to tell you, fellas, but you're too late. Fifteen years too late. You can't put the all-inclusive genie back. You can walk a mile in your shoes and debate till you're blue in the face, regurgitate the same old arguments. But you should put yourselves in the shoes of a family of four. The debate is not about all-inclusives per se. It is about tourism in Mallorca. It is about how you live with all-inclusives, because they are not going away.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.