Before Tourism Stopped: Mallorca in the 1930s

A few months ago I wrote an article which considered what Mallorca's tourism might have been like if the immediate post-Civil War and post-Second World War period had not been one of Spanish insularity. My main conclusion was that it would have developed more smoothly rather than undergoing the massive shock that occurred in the 1960s and that it might, as a consequence, not have given rise to the environmental destruction which it did.

The island's tourism was disrupted by the two wars but prior to 1936 there had been the first great era of Mallorcan tourism. It started after the First World War and came to a shuddering halt when the Civil War closed Mallorca down.

This first great era was not great in terms of numbers. In 1930 there were just under 2,000 hotel beds available on Mallorca, serving an annual total of just over 20,000 tourists. But unlike now, when the discussion is about the modernisation of existing hotel stock, then it was about the building of more hotels. Between 1930 and 1935, the number of tourists doubled and the number of hotel beds increased by a third.

The wars prevented further hotel building, but what was interesting about this first great era was the fact that much of the basic resort infrastructure had begun to take shape. It might be thought that the resorts were essentially products of the tourism boom of the 1960s but they weren't. The first urbanisation was that of Ciudad Jardín, part of Playa de Palma, immediately after the First World War. Palmanova, Cala d'Or, Arenal (or Bella Vista) sprang up in the 1930s, as also did urbanisations in Puerto Alcúdia and, more surprisingly, in Alcanada and Can Picafort. The surprise with these two is that Alcanada is the only one of these early resorts which has not been subject to any serious development since, while Can Picafort's was not the main part of the resort as we now know it. Photos from the late 1950s show that there was virtually nothing in this main part; the urbanisation was primarily at the other end of the resort in Son Bauló.

The growing importance of tourism between the world wars is reflected in its economic contribution. By 1933 it accounted for 30 million pesetas annually (180,000 euros today). As an industry it was dwarfed by agriculture (87 million pesetas then, and now only just over 1% of GDP), but - and this is one of the unknowns of Mallorcan economic development - how much more swiftly might it have overtaken agriculture had it not been for the events which intervened?

It was clearly understood that tourism held the key to economic success. The Palma Chamber of Commerce referred in 1930 to tourism as the industry that is "perhaps the most prosperous and the most profitable". An engineer by the name of Antoni Parietti Coll published an article in 1930 entitled "Tourism: Mallorca's greatest and most urgent problem". He wasn't referring to tourism as a negative influence; rather to how it could be best accommodated and developed. The use of "most urgent" is revealing. Tourism had the potential for serious growth, as indicated by the doubling of tourist numbers in the first half of the 1930s, aided by a burgeoning transport infrastructure - seaplanes and shipping lines.

There were other indications of the growth in tourism and in the establishment of services to support it. The number of cruise passengers visiting Mallorca between 1930 and 1935 rose more than threefold - to over 50,000; Alcúdia acquired a golf course; excursions were available to different parts of the island (eleven pesetas would get you a day out on a bus from Palma to, for example, Pollensa, Puerto Pollensa, Formentor and back).

And there were also publications, numerous ones, all designed to take the message about the "calm" island, the "magnificent" island to a foreign tourism market. Perhaps more surprising was that there were local publications in English. The "Majorca Daily Bulletin" is fifty years old this year, but there were earlier, weekly newspapers - the "Palma Post" and "Majorca Sun and Spanish News" - as well as one in French and two in German. The title "Majorca Sun" is also interesting. Was this an early recognition of the importance, above all, of sun and beach to Mallorca's tourism?

We will never know what might have happened differently - if anything - but one thing that is clear is that when the boom of the second great era occurred Mallorca had an advantage because of what had been cultivated between the world wars.

* In writing this article, I acknowledge Bartomeu Barceló i Pons, "Història del Turisme a Mallorca" ("Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Geografia") and Antoni Vives Reus, "Historia del Fomento del Turismo de Mallorca (1905-2005)".


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.