The Seasonality Code: Muro's cycling

Anyone trying to move around Playa de Muro by motor vehicle yesterday would have been inconvenienced. There was yet another cycling event. The Mallorca Masters. It was the final day of the event. As Playa de Muro is at the epicentre of cycling tourism in the north of Mallorca, it falls to the resort to host the climax of the week.

The groups of cyclists, the Trafico outriders, the cars with bikes on their roofs, the queues of traffic were all the obvious signs of what went into the Masters, but hidden away in a Playa de Muro hotel was a different event. It was in the form of a kind of speed-dating networking exercise for companies engaged in activities with winter tourism in mind; cycling obviously, but not exclusively.

This networking exercise, aka workshop, was indicative of what we are told is the "secret" of cracking the seasonality code in the north of Mallorca; indeed, the impression is given that the code has been cracked. A report of the workshop may well have been written by PR people. Given my intimate knowledge of Playa de Muro, it didn't paint a picture with which I am terribly familiar.

There has undoubtedly been some progress in cutting into the barren winter months, primarily because of cycling, but the report would have us believe that progress has been far greater than it has in fact been. "Some hotels" are now open for ten months of the year. Some? Or should that be one? Ten months? Only if you're stretching things a tad.

The secret of the seasonality code has been no more cracked in Playa de Muro than in other parts of the island where there are concentrations of cycling tourists. In fact, it has probably been cracked to less an extent in Playa de Muro. If it really had been cracked, then there would be more than the handful (and it pretty much is a handful) of businesses outside of the hotels (hotel) that are open in February; and this handful is greater than the number open in, say, December.

The head of the hoteliers association in the resort says that hotel profitability cannot be sustained by summer business alone. Well, no you wouldn't have thought that it could be, but there are plenty of hotels in Playa de Muro (32 of them in all) that have maintained the appearance of having been able to sustain profitability through summer business alone for years. In all these years, not one has actually stayed open right through the winter, and even now there is only the one that comes close to that ten months mark.

But things have caught up with some of the hotels. Those operated by the wealthy chains (and Iberostar is the chain which has the hotel open for the ten months) have the wealthy chains to support them. Not all are operated by wealthy chains, though. Hence the sale of two Eden hotels, one in Playa de Muro and one just by the boundary, to Alltours.

The resort is pinning its hopes on cycling and other winter activities, such as hiking. It's the same old offer. It's nothing new. The workshop apparently attracted 20 businesses from eight countries that were seeking to sell themselves (cycling, hiking tours, it would seem) as well as 20 local businesses, mainly hotels, seeking to sell themselves. Such representation was something but it hardly equates to a great leap forward in cracking the seasonality code.

Even if there were some movement forward, it would surely never be more than a small step as opposed to a leap. 32 hotels, many of them substantial both in terms of the amount of land they occupy and the number of places they offer; but how many would it ever be viable to open out of season? The long hoped-for golf course, about which nothing is being said at present, wouldn't make a huge difference, and it would make even less of a difference it were to now go ahead with a dedicated hotel of its own (as has been hinted that it might).

Cycling does offer some business in winter and Playa de Muro's share of the cycling market has grown. But business for whom exactly? Playa de Muro was built as a summer resort. The beach is its main purpose. The name itself is a giveaway. There will never be more than a handful of businesses, other than the odd hotel, that can justify opening in the winter.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.