Who Shouts Loudest? Magalluf

A previous article - "Rethinking Architecture" on Tuesday - was prompted by a workshop that was to be launched the next day to consider the architectural future of Magalluf. As I said in that article, such a consideration should apply to many other resorts. Magalluf, on architectural grounds, shouldn't be singled out and nor should it be for other reasons. Unfortunately it is, and by unfortunate I don't mean the negative issues the resort faces, I mean the fact that it is Magalluf and seemingly only ever Magalluf.

At an open debate that was staged, architecture was one of the last things to be discussed. Attention turned, as it so often does, to one of the key issues for Mallorca's tourism - the all-inclusive hotel. While there may be specific reasons for this being a hot topic in the resort at present, e.g. the unlimited alcohol fuelling a young tourist market that mayor Rodríguez would like to at least limit if not get rid of altogether, it is no more a key issue in Magalluf than it is in many other parts of the island. Arguably, it is less of an issue there than elsewhere.

Magalluf, and the same can be said for other Calvia resorts, was for years relatively unaffected by all-inclusive. Going back to the time when this type of board first came to Mallorca - the early 1990s - it was a phenomenon in the north and east. Parts of the island that can be conveniently ignored. Just as they are now. Magalluf shouts loudest and everyone shouts loudest about Magalluf.  

You cannot of course fail to understand why there is such a focus on one resort, but it is a focus which does Mallorca no real favours because of the neglect of other resorts. The workshop itself, and the attention afforded to it, is representative of this. Were it to have been held in and to have been about, for example, Alcudia, Can Picafort, Cala Ratjada, Cala Millor, Calas de Mallorca, no one would have paid it any attention. Yet here are resorts just as badly affected by architectural lack of forethought and by all-inclusive: more so in fact.

It is, some will say, all the fault of the media. True, it is. But only up to a point. The media reflects the twin obsessions of politicians and the tourism industry - Magalluf and Playa de Palma - but it will naturally tend to follow who shouts the loudest. In Magalluf, all sorts of groups do this - hoteliers, business associations and so on. Shouting elsewhere is muted. In Alcudia bay hoteliers there are noises from time to time but not consistently loud ones. As for all points south along the east coast from Cala Ratjada? Barely a murmur. 

As for the debate, one of the more revealing points was when the president of the local hoteliers' association was challenged over an observation that you cannot swim against the tide of all-inclusive. Yes you can was the reply. In a nutshell, this summed up what has been the case for far too many years: a resignation in face of tour operator power that, more often than not, coerces hotels into supplying all-inclusive even if they are not well equipped to do so, or to do so to satisfactory levels of quality and service.

The new tourism minister, Biel Barceló, has promised regulation of all-inclusive. Good. It's about time. But this should not mean a ban. Idiotic talk of bans is just that - idiotic. There has to be a compromise, and the route to this lies with standards of quality and service. Apply them correctly and strictly, and much of the current three-star all-inclusive would disappear. Harmful to Mallorca's tourism? Maybe it would be, but if there is a call for regulation, it cannot discriminate between hotels where the youth market gets plastered and others where families enjoy cost-effective holidays. Nor can it discriminate between resorts. Not that it would be able to. When a mayor like Rodríguez himself speaks of all-inclusive regulation, he knows full well that the town hall has no competence in this regard: it can only be effected island-wide by government. Will it happen? It would be good to hear voices from the north and the east of the island making their views known.