Welcome To The Hotel Mallorca

Two months ago I wrote a piece entitled "Burying The Hatchet". I concluded by suggesting that the hatchet could, despite having been buried, just as easily be dug up again. And so it has been.

In truth, the hatchet wasn't ever buried, not where Carlos Delgado was concerned at any rate. The peace that had broken out between hoteliers in the Balearics and the complementary offer was intended to demonstrate that these two warring factions could create a unified front in the tourism sector. Perhaps the complementary offer - the bars, restaurants, clubs and what have you - were hoping that by appearing to be on the same side as the all-dominating hotel sector, the real enemy where it was concerned, tourism minister Delgado, might look more favourably upon it.

The hatchet had been brandished because of that part of the new tourism law which plans to grant hotels the opportunity of providing secondary activities in their grounds. By secondary activities, one means pretty much anything that is currently offered outside these grounds, which would, and this has really caused the complementary offer to engage in its war dance, be open to the general public. The secondary activities are the domain of the complementary offer; the way things are going, or the way the new tourism bill is going, there won't be an offer that complements hotels for much longer.

While the complementary offer is putting its warpaint on in seeking to encircle the wagons of the tourism ministry, its hoped-for cavalry in the form of the hotel sector has clearly forgotten that it came to some sort of agreement with the bars and restaurants back in February. I didn't think this new-found friendship would last and nor indeed has it.

When it became clear that Sheriff Delgado was intent on crashing through the saloon doors of the nearest bar or restaurant and firing from both hips an inducement to the hotels of making available 30% of their areas to new activities designed to fill further the hotels' safes, it was an offer the hotels couldn't refuse. What were they supposed to do? Say thanks very much, but we would rather our friends from the complementary sector didn't have to concern themselves with such new competition? If the bars, restaurants and so on had believed this, then they had been labouring under a serious misapprehension that suddenly the hotels were being co-operative and altruistic. These are, after all, the same hotels that have spent the past however many years being distinctly unco-operative by going all-inclusive.

The hotels have of course bitten Delgado's hand off. They are attempting to appear to still be on speaking terms with the complementary sector by pointing out that it is only 30% of their areas that might become buffets, discos, rock concerts, sports facilities, and God knows what else. They also say that there will still be restrictions in place that limit their activities by comparison with less regulation elsewhere, such as in competitor tourist destinations. The complementary sector will doubtless be reassured. Or not.

And of course it isn't, which is why it has gone over Delgado's head and demanded to see the Marshall, i.e. President Bauzá, and tell him that his underling is about to break with years of tradition and with a balance of hotel and complementary offer that has existed since mass tourism first settled in the old wild west, east, south and north of Mallorca.

The hotels are being disingenuous. 30% can equate to an awful lot of passing trade attracted by a buffet at an absurdly low price which a hotel might, as an example, wish to offer. And the price could well be low, that much lower than an outside restaurant could offer, because to provide this buffet would require only minimal additional cost. And 30%, depending on how large a hotel is, can mean an awful lot of space and therefore an awful lot of customers who aren't staying at the hotel.

To make things even more ducky where the complementary offer is concerned is the fact that hotels are going to be given the go-ahead for staging beach parties through new beach clubs. Another foul is being called, especially by the outside club sector, and that good old stand-by of the environment is being invoked as a way of trying to prevent these parties. There will be damage to dunes and so on, a concern that had probably never occurred to the clubs previously but which now suits them to express.

This is the new tourism law, therefore. Its passage is still not guaranteed, but it is doubtful to get much more by way of re-drafting. And when it is passed, Mallorca becomes one big hotel. Welcome to the Hotel Mallorca, such a lovely place ... .


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.