Mallorca: The Brazil Of Tourism

Ultra-efficient, superbly organised, highly modern in approach, swift to move, react and take the attack to the opponent: the product of integrated thinking, planning and development. Inefficient, poorly organised, outdated in approach, slow to move, react and attack: the product of disjointed thinking, lack of planning and development. Germany thrashed Brazil. A nation known for many things, not just its football but also engineering and motor cars, applied the science, quality and skills of Mercedes and BMW in order to drive a high-speed autobahn through the dead end of a team that had nowhere to go, except in reverse; a very heavy reverse. The other nation is known for one thing - football. Yes, there is an awful lot of coffee in Brazil as well, but its national being is defined by the limits of the white lines of the pitch and by the clichéd soccering samba of the sons of Pele and Zico. Or was.

Betting your whole national being, your societal raison d'être on one thing is a sure route to ultimate disappointment. But once upon a time that national being was unquestioned and, though there were disappointments, the nation could take solace from the knowledge that spiritually it ruled the world, and the world watched in awe. But then the world began to wake up to the possibilities that it admired so greatly. Simultaneously, the one-time world leader forgot its roots. It exported its talent to distant shores, which watered down the very essence of the pool from which it had sprung. It failed to once again foster, nurture and encourage the flamboyance to be found on wonderful, sandy beaches under a burning sun. The nation's gold and silver were sold off, and there was not even tarnished bronze to cling onto. For all this, there had been hope. There were still jewels among the fool's gold. Until, that is, disaster struck. The nation was deprived of the backbone of its Silva, while a broken bone in the back of its golden boy left it flopping around like a great big floppy thing.

The world had long known about Brazil's football, but it wasn't until after the Second World War that it really started to take notice. There was the disappointment of 1950, but then there was the boom of the late '50s and early '60s. On an island in the Mediterranean, there was no disappointment in 1950 because there wasn't as yet anything to be disappointed with. Instead, there was the incipient manifestation of what was to come, housed in tents by a beach in Alcúdia. The great tourism football club was in the process of being conceived, and Club Med was the seed. Within a few years, at the end of the '50s and into the early '60s, the boom was to blast tourism into a totally new orbit. The world looked on in wonder, and was then further wonderstruck as other booms occurred, such as around 1994, when the island indulged in a binge of new development. Over this period, the island could count on a solidity in the defence of its market, but one combined with adventure. It was the touristic defence of Nilton Santos and Carlos Alberto, racing forward to deliver the coup de grâce. And from this solidity came the real flair and riches from the extravagant supply lines of its Garrincha and Jairzinho for its number tens, its Pele and Zico, to net the seemingly endless bonanza that erupted from its wonderful, sandy beaches under a burning sun.
 
The world, though it looked on in wonder and in admiration, did not do so with deference. It looked on and learned. And one thing it learned was efficiency, organisation, modernity, swiftness to act and integrated planning. In some parts of the world this meant a bottom-up approach from all but scratch combined with top-down guidance from strategically minded governments. One thing in particular that it learned was that the island, rather like Brazil, had extracted its riches as much if not more through improvisation than planning. It had taken the talent of its beaches and built castles on its sand but failed to pay adequate attention to the foundations and to the potential breaches by the tides of competition. And this competition was aided by its foreign coaches, those from the island itself, its grand hotel chains which exported know-how and expertise and left the island in the hands of politicians, in thrall to ProZone tourism statistics but without the soul of that one-time flair.

Betting your whole island being on one thing is a sure route to ultimate disappointment. There are many other things in Mallorca, but its island being is defined by the limits of one industry, which is prone to a disastrous snap in its back that renders it supine in the face of challenges. Re-definition is needed. Real planning is needed. The bounceback starts now. For Brazil, at any rate.