Beaches Becoming No-Go Areas

Manacor isn't promoting its coves. The town hall's latest guide for tourists has removed the coves, they are non-beaches. The belief is that by not mentioning the coves, "massification" can be avoided. The unspoiled nature of the coves will be conserved, their ecologies will be sustained. Manacor is on a mission for "tourism of greater quality". Instead of the coves, this tourism, via the guide, will be directed to the beaches where there is massification - those of the town's resorts, none of which are, compared with others on Mallorca, that big, but they are big enough to qualify for the massification tag.

There is some sensible but at the same time curious and questionable thinking behind all this. The sense comes in not wanting the coves to be swamped. The curious aspect is that the horribly described "quality tourism" consists in part of precisely the type of tourism that would prefer a cove to a resort beach. The questionable part arises because whatever Manacor does by way of not promoting the coves will not make a scrap of difference. Is the town hall unaware that there is a great big world out there? One on the world wide web.

Making a song and dance, which the town hall is, about Cala Varques in particular is going to have precisely the opposite effect to what the council intends. No one had heard of it before. They know it now. Yes, there are new restrictions on parking that are designed to avoid "massification", but the town hall is thus providing promotion for this cove when non-inclusion in the guide is supposed to do otherwise. The fact is that parking has long been an issue. Trip Advisor can tell you that. Just as Trip Advisor, and other web sources, can tell you how "precioso" the cove is.

And will the town hall be passing on its message to its tourist offices and indeed tourist offices elsewhere. If you have ever spent time observing what is asked at tourist offices, you'll be aware that one of the top questions has to do with the "precioso" cove. Out come maps, and the information office personnel only too happily point it out. Or will it be notifying the tourism ministry with its extensive guide to beaches? Go to this and there is a seemingly endless list of Cala here, Cala there, some of which are the large calas that are beach resorts, but mostly they are the small ones: Cala Varques for example.

This guide does actually advise you to access the cove by sea. Not because it wishes to deter you from driving but because it points out that there is a bit of a trek to get to it. Access by boat is as much an issue for Manacor as by car: they want to clamp down on that as well.

For years, Mallorca has made much of the fact that it isn't an island that only has large resort beaches. The ministry's website, in describing Cala Varques, refers to the quiet and paradise nature of the coastline from Porto Cristo. The vastly overused "paradise" has consistently been adopted to promote the coves, the alternatives to the resort beaches: tourism of greater quality, one might suggest.

Now, however, Manacor wants to put an end to all of this. Which other town halls might follow suit? Are certain beaches around Mallorca to become virtual no-go areas because town halls say so, thus flouting a fundamental principle that the coasts of Mallorca (and Spain) are in the public domain and free to the public to enjoy?

Despite this, one can understand the town hall's position. But it is one that has been forced onto it by success, by promotion through means other than those of the town hall and by sheer weight of numbers: tourists adding to the residents who make a beeline for beaches at weekends and will be doing so during the weeks of August when many are on holiday. Simply put, are Mallorca's beaches being overwhelmed? And is the infrastructure, especially parking, incapable of coping? The answer to the latter question is yes. As examples there has been the chaos in Sa Rapita (for access to Es Trenc) because the unofficial car park was closed. There is the mayhem in Playa de Muro with people wanting to get to Es Comú beach. Neither beach is small. Both are vast, yet the infrastructure can't cope with the demand.

Something, you feel, has to give. Either more parking is made available (though goodness knows where in many instances) or there will be more cases of drivers being turned away by police, as can happen in Sa Rapita, or of passes for residents being issued, which is what has happened by Es Comú. The beaches, the coves are products of their own success and, despite what Manacor might wish, of promotion.