The Moving Target: All-inclusives

Sometimes you can't tell the difference between tourists and local business types. An elderly chap wandered into Cheers on Tuesday lunchtime, scanning earnestly the business types, and pulled up a chair at the next table. Wasn't he going to join us? I realised that he wouldn't be when he ordered steak and chips in a broad Brummy accent. Having positioned himself next to the long table of business types, I trust he was well informed as to the latest thinking about all-inclusives. Cheers is a big place. It was not exactly packed on Tuesday lunchtime, but the tourist still chose the next table. I guess had he looked around at the empty tables, he would have got the drift as to what the discussion was about.

There again, Alcúdia's main tourist centre gets fairly quiet in October. You wouldn't expect packed restaurants at lunchtimes. More important, though, is whether you can expect packed lunchtime terraces and dining areas at any time of the season, except in the restaurants of all-inclusive hotels.

The tourist centre, a couple of kilometres away from Alcúdia's port, goes under various names. One of them is "around Bellevue". This massive complex has lent its name to the area because of its imposing importance. Five thousand or so guests when it's full, it now has five thousand or so guests who are all-inclusive, assuming that the figure given by one of the bar owners is accurate. 99%, he said. Which I suppose means 100%. You can never be 100% sure, as Bellevue has long been a breeding ground for rumours, urban myths and outright untruths.

This is hardcore all-inclusive land insofar as there are hotels which are known to be predominantly or exclusively all-inclusive. The all-inclusive tentacles, however, spread out from around Bellevue. They are wrapped around Magic and have crept into the port. In the opposite direction, they have grown into triffids, consumed much of Playa de Muro and swallowed almost whole Can Picafort. 

The resorts of the bay of Alcúdia form a conurbation in which there are similar concerns, the greatest being all-inclusive. I don't know that I had anticipated there being many people at the meeting but I began to appreciate why there weren't very many. From this conurbation (populated with roughly 150 hotels), you might have thought that Cheers would be thronged, but it wasn't, and the reasons why speak volumes as to why opposition to all-inclusives from the complementary sector is so weak.

The principal reason is fragmentation. Even within Alcúdia there is fragmentation. Bars and restaurants represented at Acotur's gathering to discuss all-inclusives were predominantly from around Bellevue. There was only one representative from the port. There were no great delegations from Muro or Can Picafort. One only has to consider how the local hotels are organised to realise just how shambolic the organisation of opposition is; Alcúdia and Can Picafort hoteliers federations joined forces some three years ago, and it is one of the loudest of the island's hotel groupings.

There was discussion about the need for far greater unity and for the creation of a genuine lobbying mechanism to match the all-powerful one of the hotels. It makes eminent sense for there to be one loud voice rather than the many quiet ones that proliferate in Mallorca's business world. Opposition to all-inclusives and indeed other aspects of tourism from within the complementary sector is dogged by fragmentation in terms of different associations, so the sector needs a proper structure before it embarks on a strategy; without a unified lobbying organisation, the detail of opposition is pretty useless.

But if the structure were right, would the strategy be right? One problem is that there is disagreement as to how current moves by the regional government should be responded to. Is the insistence on greater hotel and all-inclusive quality beneficial to the complementary sector? Some say it is, as this will result in a tourist base with greater spending power which doesn't confine itself to the hotel. Others disagree. Raise the quality that much and no one would ever leave a hotel.

If the bars and restaurants are unsure what their position is on facets of tourism policy, it will be difficult to create a coherent strategy of opposition, whatever this might be. And one fears that even with a unified body, nothing would change. There was much talk of the government giving the hotels carte blanche and of the hotels having the government in their pocket, but ultimately does this not miss the point that the real target for opposition is neither the hotels nor the government? It is the tour operators.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.