They've been fighting again in Arenal. Germans, that is. One was knocked unconscious during a scrap that took place around half two in the afternoon. The incident may well have been missed unless one was looking at the Spanish or German media. Arenal, Playa de Palma don't register like Magalluf does. Had the location been Maga, had the protagonists been Britons, you wouldn't hear the end of it.
Not of course that the local politicians aren't aware of fighting in Arenal. These politicians are very much aware of Arenal (Playa de Palma) and Magalluf. They are the only resorts they are aware of. There is political capital to be had from both.
When politicians wish to be seen to be getting tough with drunken tourism, they show their interest and displeasure in these two resorts. They ignore all others. There is political capital and there is media capital, even if the British have no real interest in Arenal and the Germans feel likewise when it comes to Magalluf.
The Balearic government, bless it, is going to tackle drunken tourism (and its related incidents, such as fighting). The government will do this by introducing measures to curb access to so much free booze in all-inclusives. At a stroke, therefore, it is wishing to make itself popular among the locals, who despair of both drunkenness and all-inclusives (as well as Magalluf and Playa de Palma), by combining the two in a package of apparent toughness.
There was a revealing photo with a report of the brawl in Arenal. It showed a group of young tourists (presumably German) with a container of alcoholic beverages. This container was on the beach. Many were the bottles. There was a second photo. A young tourist (again, one assumes he was German) was seated on a bench. He had just vomited on the ground.
There have been other revealing photos, such as ones for Magalluf when drunkenness and fighting rear their ugly heads, i.e. every day. What was so revealing about these photos? The clue lies with the first photo. Can you figure it out? Remember that the government is drawing the strands of drunkenness and all-inclusives together. Are you getting warmer?
If not, let me explain. The photo with the container of bottles would have been taken some time in the afternoon. At precisely the sort of time when inmates of an all-inclusive would be getting legless. In their all-inclusive. Not on a beach. The other photos (as was the case with the first one) have one absent thing in common: wristbands, i.e. all-inclusive hotel wristbands.
If you are drunkenly availing yourself of an all-inclusive's alcohol, you would not take a sizable container full of bottles purchased from the nearest supermarket to the beach. If you are not availing yourself, then you would. The clues are obvious in these various photos. Tourists get drunk because they get drunk. Not because they stay at all-inclusives. The photographic evidence is clear in this regard.
Yes of course there is drunkenness at all-inclusives (certain ones, the economy-class ones). And if the government wishes to reduce this drunkenness brought about by the all-inclusive booze, then fine. But targeting this in-hotel booze is no remedy when a particular class of tourist just wants to get drunk. The government is missing the point.
And what, in any event, will happen if all-inclusives have restrictions placed on them? The nearest bars will sense an opportunity. Come outside the hotel, and drink as much as you can with us, they'll advertise. Though of course the government (or let's say Calvia town hall where Magalluf is concerned) is attempting to stop bars from doing cheap deals. If the bars can't do this, then the supermarkets will gladly take up the challenge.
The point isn't being missed entirely, however. The government also wants tour operators to stop bringing drunken tourists: Palma's new mayor, Antoni Noguera, call this breed "junk tourists". And will the tour operators grant the government its wish? Will they hell. For all their grand words about responsibility (normally of a sustainable, eco-style), the tour operators (the large ones) don't give a toss who they sell holidays to. When their businesses are as vertically integrated as they are, then of course they don't care. Volume has to be sold: both beds and airline seats.
The government can ask, but it won't get anywhere. The tour operators even openly admit that there is a market for the type of tourist who just wants to come and get drunk. But by saying it will get tough on all-inclusives, it can demonstrate (it will believe) that it is determined to root out the problem. Pilar Carbonell, the tourism director-general, says that the tourism law is to be modified in order to introduce restrictions. Ah yes, Pilar, whose grasp of her role was summed up when she once came to Alcudia and seemed totally ignorant of the existence of the island's largest all-inclusive (Bellevue) and of certain practices that all-inclusives adopt.
But then there's no political capital in Alcudia, a reflection of which was the complete refusal of her ministry to take any notice of communications regarding Spanish students at Bellevue. Among the latest of these was a group which decided to trample on a car and dent its roof (captured on video). An isolated incident, claimed the organisers, studiously ignoring town hall complaints in previous years about students vandalising town hall property.
Incidents, you see, are only ever isolated. Like the fight in Arenal. Which is nonsense put out by the police, as the residents maintain. If these incidents were only ever isolated, then why would anyone wish to legislate against drinking or against a class of tourist?
Showing posts with label Arenal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arenal. Show all posts
Thursday, July 06, 2017
Monday, December 05, 2016
The Short Life Of The Arenal Tram
We all know, or at least I assume we all know, about the Soller tram. But do we all know about the Arenal tram? The chances are that we don't: it ceased to be a long time ago.
The story of trams in Palma dates back to 1891. The first tram wasn't quite as we came to know them. It was driven by mules and it wasn't really a tram at all; it was more like a bus. But they still referred to it as a tram or as a "rippert" after Monsieur Ripert of Marseille, the carriage-maker who came up with the design, which others then borrowed (which is a nice way of saying they ripped it off).
It was a hundred years ago that the first electrified tram started to operate in Palma. It covered the same route to Porto Pi that the mule tram had. By then, trams were starting to become faddish. Soller already had its, and then in 1921 the Arenal tram was inaugurated. It was referred to as Es Carrilet de S’Arenal, the "carrilet" being a popular name for a narrow gauge railway.
The route took it from Coll d'en Rebassa via Can Pastilla to Arenal, where a garage was built by where the yacht club now is. While Coll d'en Rebassa was by then an established urbanisation, Arenal wasn't particularly and Can Pastilla most certainly wasn't. There were very few properties along the route, but Arenal had started to become popular with summer visitors. There were also fishermen and stoneworkers.
The track ran right by the beach. There were a couple of obstacles in its way, i.e. the Sant Jordi canal and the Torrent des Jueus, so they built bridges, and the engineer responsible for the track was someone who was to become famous in Mallorca's engineering and tourism history. If anyone has ever wondered who the Gabriel Roca is who has lent his name to many a road in Mallorca, he was the engineer.
A news report at the time of the inauguration spoke of the new tram service. It was operated by the Sociedad Tranvia del Arenal company. Gabriel Roca was named in that report. At the time he was 25 and had just graduated from the school of engineering in Madrid. He was to become the director of the board of works for the port of Palma and was to initiate the project to create the Paseo Marítimo in Palma. The other name - the official name - for the Paseo is the Avenida de Gabriel Roca.
That report went on to say that the tramline of some eight kilometres was attractive because of the "panorama" - an incomparable beach and a splendid forest. The tram itself was driven by motor tractors and was in perfect condition to be electrified at any time. Palma, it was said, welcomed the fact that it could count on there being a tram network that goes to different "suburbs", all of them important because of their natural charms; ones that the tourist can also admire enthusiastically.
It is interesting to note that there should have been a particular reference to "the tourist". The year before the tram was inaugurated, the Hotel Ciudad Jardín was built in what was the first garden city resort in Mallorca. In Arenal, some years later, there was there was the plan for the Bellavista garden city. The tram had almost mapped out was to eventually become Playa de Palma. Gabriel Roca would have taken note. In 1949, he also became the president of the Mallorca Tourist Board.
The Arenal tram wasn't to last very long. The Sociedad Tranvia del Arenal, burdened with debts, ended up bankrupt. In fact, it is reckoned that the company, very soon after the line had opened, realised that it wasn't especially viable. It couldn't really have been, given that hardly anyone lived along the route and that visitors - such as they were - were only going in the summer. Less than a year into its operation, the company tried to sell it to the Palma tram company. They turned the offer down but a few years on did acquire it in order to prevent any competitor from doing so.
As to when the tram eventually ceased to be, there is some conflicting evidence. 1935 is given as the year that it "disappeared", but a different version suggests 1941, a key reason being the scarcity of petrol for the tractors. Whenever the end actually was, it was some years before Palma's trams went into extinction: that was 1959, by which time Palma had a bus service and Arenal was well and truly part of the project for Playa de Palma.
The story of trams in Palma dates back to 1891. The first tram wasn't quite as we came to know them. It was driven by mules and it wasn't really a tram at all; it was more like a bus. But they still referred to it as a tram or as a "rippert" after Monsieur Ripert of Marseille, the carriage-maker who came up with the design, which others then borrowed (which is a nice way of saying they ripped it off).
It was a hundred years ago that the first electrified tram started to operate in Palma. It covered the same route to Porto Pi that the mule tram had. By then, trams were starting to become faddish. Soller already had its, and then in 1921 the Arenal tram was inaugurated. It was referred to as Es Carrilet de S’Arenal, the "carrilet" being a popular name for a narrow gauge railway.
The route took it from Coll d'en Rebassa via Can Pastilla to Arenal, where a garage was built by where the yacht club now is. While Coll d'en Rebassa was by then an established urbanisation, Arenal wasn't particularly and Can Pastilla most certainly wasn't. There were very few properties along the route, but Arenal had started to become popular with summer visitors. There were also fishermen and stoneworkers.
The track ran right by the beach. There were a couple of obstacles in its way, i.e. the Sant Jordi canal and the Torrent des Jueus, so they built bridges, and the engineer responsible for the track was someone who was to become famous in Mallorca's engineering and tourism history. If anyone has ever wondered who the Gabriel Roca is who has lent his name to many a road in Mallorca, he was the engineer.
A news report at the time of the inauguration spoke of the new tram service. It was operated by the Sociedad Tranvia del Arenal company. Gabriel Roca was named in that report. At the time he was 25 and had just graduated from the school of engineering in Madrid. He was to become the director of the board of works for the port of Palma and was to initiate the project to create the Paseo Marítimo in Palma. The other name - the official name - for the Paseo is the Avenida de Gabriel Roca.
That report went on to say that the tramline of some eight kilometres was attractive because of the "panorama" - an incomparable beach and a splendid forest. The tram itself was driven by motor tractors and was in perfect condition to be electrified at any time. Palma, it was said, welcomed the fact that it could count on there being a tram network that goes to different "suburbs", all of them important because of their natural charms; ones that the tourist can also admire enthusiastically.
It is interesting to note that there should have been a particular reference to "the tourist". The year before the tram was inaugurated, the Hotel Ciudad Jardín was built in what was the first garden city resort in Mallorca. In Arenal, some years later, there was there was the plan for the Bellavista garden city. The tram had almost mapped out was to eventually become Playa de Palma. Gabriel Roca would have taken note. In 1949, he also became the president of the Mallorca Tourist Board.
The Arenal tram wasn't to last very long. The Sociedad Tranvia del Arenal, burdened with debts, ended up bankrupt. In fact, it is reckoned that the company, very soon after the line had opened, realised that it wasn't especially viable. It couldn't really have been, given that hardly anyone lived along the route and that visitors - such as they were - were only going in the summer. Less than a year into its operation, the company tried to sell it to the Palma tram company. They turned the offer down but a few years on did acquire it in order to prevent any competitor from doing so.
As to when the tram eventually ceased to be, there is some conflicting evidence. 1935 is given as the year that it "disappeared", but a different version suggests 1941, a key reason being the scarcity of petrol for the tractors. Whenever the end actually was, it was some years before Palma's trams went into extinction: that was 1959, by which time Palma had a bus service and Arenal was well and truly part of the project for Playa de Palma.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Showing The Black Flag: End-of course holidays
The people of Arenal are fed up. In demonstrating how fed up they are, they have taken to hanging black flags from balconies. It is a black flag against "the tourist who doesn't respect Arenal".
One needs to explain that this is the Arenal which is part of Llucmajor. Arenal falls into two municipalities, Palma being the other, and in Palma they have an ordinance under which "special intervention zones" have been established. The Palma Arenal is one of them. The zones mean that there is to be "zero tolerance" of anti-social behaviour and especially street/beach drinking in groups. It is debatable as to how well the Palma police are capable of keeping on top of this, but at least they have this bylaw. Cross the municipal border and there isn't one.
The legal niceties of all this are frankly lost on many of us. There are all manner of bylaws that all manner of town halls have to deal with behaviour. Why they need to have specific ordinance is anyone's guess, but it appears that they do. But when it comes to getting round to instituting ordinance, they run up against technicalities of legislation. This is what has happened in Llucmajor, and one should bear in mind that Palma had a whole raft of measures to control behaviour and what have you under a wide-ranging civic ordinance. This was deemed unacceptable by the courts. There are the technicalities for you.
Control via local bylaw is thus forever pitted against some grander law. Palma had exceeded the scope of its powers, it was said. Therefore, it dropped this all-embracing ordinance and fell back on what already existed but which seemingly hadn't been implemented. How daft is that?
To come back to Arenal, the Llucmajor bit, the reason for the black flags is the noise, mess and general misbehaviour caused by end-of-course holiday parties. These are for students - school or university - though one wonders how liberally the term student is used. They come from Spain and elsewhere, and in Arenal this year things are apparently worse than ever. The town hall has been unable to stop the "uncontrolled parties", which take place mainly on the beach. Its ordinance won't be in place until August - too late for this year, so the locals will have to see how effective it is on 2017.
Llucmajor cannot prevent there being such vacations. The same applies to other parts of the island: Alcudia, Cala Ratjada and Magalluf. In Alcudia, and specifically in Bellevue, the mayor said last year that he couldn't tell the hotel which clients it should have or not have. Which is absolutely true. Of course he can't.
Despite Alcudia saying that there was to be "maximum control" this year and despite some logistical alterations with what goes under the title Mallorca Island Festival, things are as bad as ever. Worse in some respects, given that one whole part of Bellevue has been devoted to it: all of the blocks to the right-hand side of the entrance road.
The difference between Alcudia and Arenal is that the "party" is for the most part confined to Bellevue. But not at night. The coming and going of coaches to take these "students" to a club means noise not just from the coaches but also the hundreds who make their way to the coaches. And that's just the going-out. Then there's the coming-back.
One could give chapter and verse about what is occurring in Bellevue, but you probably don't need telling. You can well imagine. At times it is total chaos. But again, because this is chiefly within hotel grounds, it is a case - in part - of out of sight, out of mind. This is not like Arenal. But there are residents affected nonetheless: those who live on the same open campus of the one-time Bellavista urbanisation. There are also the residents who live nearby, who are exposed to the noise of those who haven't got a club pass as part of their package. They instead hit the clubs of Alcudia, taking noise, mess, incivility to much of the tourism centre.
Saturation is a popular word with Balearic politicians at present. It's a word to describe, in essence, too many tourists: too many in specific places, be it Palma city centre or certain beaches. This saturation has a highly negative impact on the psyche of the locals. Used though they are to summer tourists in high numbers, when they are high numbers and are out of control, the impact is compounded many times.
The black flags of Arenal should be flown in Alcudia too. But of the apartments principally affected, there would doubtless be some idiot of a community committee member reminding people that things cannot be hung from balconies, normally towels. And herein lies part of the problem: too many stupid people worrying about stupid trivial matters like how long it might take the maintenance guys to fix something and doing absolutely nothing about wider matters. They get the problems they deserve.
Index for June 2016
Accountability and Facebook - 10 June 2016
Alcudia: tourism issues - 29 June 2016
Brexit - 26 June 2016, 27 June 2016
Car parking and overcrowding - 9 June 2016
Colonia Sant Pere - 25 June 2016
Control in Mallorca - 21 June 2016
Corruption route in Palma - 14 June 2016
Cruise ships and overcrowding - 11 June 2016
End-of-course holiday parties - 30 June 2016
Following Magalluf's lead - 17 June 2016
Foreign property purchasing - 16 June 2016
Holiday rentals - 24 June 2016
Mallorca promotion - 22 June 2016
Mallorca rich and poor - 1 June 2016
Muhammad Ali in Mallorca - 19 June 2016
Pablo Iglesias and Marxism - 8 June 2016
Podemos and Ikea - 13 June 2016
Pueblo Español - 12 June 2016
Ryanair and holiday rentals - 18 June 2016
Sa Pobla's old beach - 5 June 2016
Spain's election - 6 June 2016, 20 June 2016, 23 June 2016, 28 June 2016
Tourist saturation and hotel places - 7 June 2016
Tourist tax - 4 June 2016
Town halls and other authorities - 2 June 2016
Tramuntana appreciation in Mallorca - 15 June 2016
War graves in Mallorca - 3 June 2016
One needs to explain that this is the Arenal which is part of Llucmajor. Arenal falls into two municipalities, Palma being the other, and in Palma they have an ordinance under which "special intervention zones" have been established. The Palma Arenal is one of them. The zones mean that there is to be "zero tolerance" of anti-social behaviour and especially street/beach drinking in groups. It is debatable as to how well the Palma police are capable of keeping on top of this, but at least they have this bylaw. Cross the municipal border and there isn't one.
The legal niceties of all this are frankly lost on many of us. There are all manner of bylaws that all manner of town halls have to deal with behaviour. Why they need to have specific ordinance is anyone's guess, but it appears that they do. But when it comes to getting round to instituting ordinance, they run up against technicalities of legislation. This is what has happened in Llucmajor, and one should bear in mind that Palma had a whole raft of measures to control behaviour and what have you under a wide-ranging civic ordinance. This was deemed unacceptable by the courts. There are the technicalities for you.
Control via local bylaw is thus forever pitted against some grander law. Palma had exceeded the scope of its powers, it was said. Therefore, it dropped this all-embracing ordinance and fell back on what already existed but which seemingly hadn't been implemented. How daft is that?
To come back to Arenal, the Llucmajor bit, the reason for the black flags is the noise, mess and general misbehaviour caused by end-of-course holiday parties. These are for students - school or university - though one wonders how liberally the term student is used. They come from Spain and elsewhere, and in Arenal this year things are apparently worse than ever. The town hall has been unable to stop the "uncontrolled parties", which take place mainly on the beach. Its ordinance won't be in place until August - too late for this year, so the locals will have to see how effective it is on 2017.
Llucmajor cannot prevent there being such vacations. The same applies to other parts of the island: Alcudia, Cala Ratjada and Magalluf. In Alcudia, and specifically in Bellevue, the mayor said last year that he couldn't tell the hotel which clients it should have or not have. Which is absolutely true. Of course he can't.
Despite Alcudia saying that there was to be "maximum control" this year and despite some logistical alterations with what goes under the title Mallorca Island Festival, things are as bad as ever. Worse in some respects, given that one whole part of Bellevue has been devoted to it: all of the blocks to the right-hand side of the entrance road.
The difference between Alcudia and Arenal is that the "party" is for the most part confined to Bellevue. But not at night. The coming and going of coaches to take these "students" to a club means noise not just from the coaches but also the hundreds who make their way to the coaches. And that's just the going-out. Then there's the coming-back.
One could give chapter and verse about what is occurring in Bellevue, but you probably don't need telling. You can well imagine. At times it is total chaos. But again, because this is chiefly within hotel grounds, it is a case - in part - of out of sight, out of mind. This is not like Arenal. But there are residents affected nonetheless: those who live on the same open campus of the one-time Bellavista urbanisation. There are also the residents who live nearby, who are exposed to the noise of those who haven't got a club pass as part of their package. They instead hit the clubs of Alcudia, taking noise, mess, incivility to much of the tourism centre.
Saturation is a popular word with Balearic politicians at present. It's a word to describe, in essence, too many tourists: too many in specific places, be it Palma city centre or certain beaches. This saturation has a highly negative impact on the psyche of the locals. Used though they are to summer tourists in high numbers, when they are high numbers and are out of control, the impact is compounded many times.
The black flags of Arenal should be flown in Alcudia too. But of the apartments principally affected, there would doubtless be some idiot of a community committee member reminding people that things cannot be hung from balconies, normally towels. And herein lies part of the problem: too many stupid people worrying about stupid trivial matters like how long it might take the maintenance guys to fix something and doing absolutely nothing about wider matters. They get the problems they deserve.
Index for June 2016
Accountability and Facebook - 10 June 2016
Alcudia: tourism issues - 29 June 2016
Brexit - 26 June 2016, 27 June 2016
Car parking and overcrowding - 9 June 2016
Colonia Sant Pere - 25 June 2016
Control in Mallorca - 21 June 2016
Corruption route in Palma - 14 June 2016
Cruise ships and overcrowding - 11 June 2016
End-of-course holiday parties - 30 June 2016
Following Magalluf's lead - 17 June 2016
Foreign property purchasing - 16 June 2016
Holiday rentals - 24 June 2016
Mallorca promotion - 22 June 2016
Mallorca rich and poor - 1 June 2016
Muhammad Ali in Mallorca - 19 June 2016
Pablo Iglesias and Marxism - 8 June 2016
Podemos and Ikea - 13 June 2016
Pueblo Español - 12 June 2016
Ryanair and holiday rentals - 18 June 2016
Sa Pobla's old beach - 5 June 2016
Spain's election - 6 June 2016, 20 June 2016, 23 June 2016, 28 June 2016
Tourist saturation and hotel places - 7 June 2016
Tourist tax - 4 June 2016
Town halls and other authorities - 2 June 2016
Tramuntana appreciation in Mallorca - 15 June 2016
War graves in Mallorca - 3 June 2016
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Spring Breaks: Where's the quality?
The history of the spring break vacation for university and high-school students can be traced back to a film made in 1960 with the same name as the novel "Where The Boys Are". Prior to this, Fort Lauderdale in Florida had been a destination for college students, but the influx was not huge and nor did it cause any problem. The release of the film changed this. It was a kind of promo for the spring break. The number of students heading for Fort Lauderdale doubled, and so the spring break became an established tradition. By the 1980s, the numbers had reached over a quarter of a million. Residents became distinctly hacked off with noise, damage and drunkenness. Within a short space of time, a change to Florida's drinking law, which raised the age to 21, had all but put an end to the spring break in Fort Lauderdale.
American students moved on to other places where the law was not as restrictive, but the spring break vacation, for all its popularity in the US, took years to cross the Atlantic. It is perhaps surprising that it took so long, but it is now firmly established, and its growth in recent years can probably be attributed to one thing - lower numbers of tourists in the non-peak months of the summer tourism season coinciding with the impact of economic crisis. Resorts and hotels needed different markets, and one that offered itself was the Spanish and European student spring break market.
This Easter in Magalluf, there is an offer for four nights of a "Spring Break Festival Mallorca". It is an offer aimed at Spanish kids and includes entrance to different clubs, drinks and pool parties. Here is just one example of the organised spring break holiday. There are others. Several others.
May is a month when hotel occupancy is not at its highest. In Magalluf and Palmanova it might not even reach 50% of the total hotel places open. 1200 or so Swedish students will thus do nicely for the odd hotel that needs to bump up its occupancy rate and for the odd club owner who wishes to increase low summer season trade. These Swedish students, typically aged 17 and 18, have, so we are told, rather more money to spend than, say, their British counterparts, but it is not solely spend on alcohol. It probably isn't, but who's to say that a good chunk of it isn't. The Swedes as a whole have a reputation for being good tourists, well behaved, well mannered. But there is big attraction other than the sun when it comes to holidaying in Mallorca. Booze is significantly cheaper than back home. It is much more easily obtainable. Assiduous checking of ages is not quite the same as back home.
There is a German tour operator called PartyUrlaub Reisen. It says that Mallorca is more than just binge-drinking and parties. There are crystal-clear waters and picturesque landscapes, but it doesn't dwell on these alternatives. There are gorgeous bodies in skimpy bikinis, bars, clubs and discos to turn night into day. The word "party" in the name should say it all, and this is what is being sold to a German spring break market heading predominantly to Arenal.
Then there is Finalia, the Spanish company which offers later spring breaks. Resort Bellevue Club, Alcudia. 250,000 square metres of paradise beaches, nine pools ... open-air concerts for more than 2000 people etc. etc. This is the "Mallorca sin profes" package, something which, the company's website suggests, has collaborating organisations that include the regional governments of the Balearics and Catalonia. Do these governments know exactly what happens on these vacations? People in Alcudia can tell them. A few weeks of living hell.
To come back to the Swedish students, the organisers of their spring breaks, a company whose address is given as Punta Ballena, offer "four weeks of madness" in May. And where is this madness likely to take place? Well, let's look at the hotels. There is a selection. One of them is the BH Mallorca, the four-star makeover of what was Mallorca Rocks on behalf of the clubowners, Cursach.
No one can blame students wishing to come on holiday and enjoying themselves in a fashion that any of us who were once students ourselves will recognise and appreciate. No one can really blame hotels or tour operators in arranging such holidays. It’s business after all, and if business is quieter at times of the summer season then it has to be sought wherever it exists.
But it is this, the almost desperate need for hotel occupancy and for quieter-month business, which betrays the public relations exercises which would have us convinced that resorts like Magalluf, Arenal, Alcudia and Cala Ratjada are on an upward curve of quality tourist.
Students should not be categorised as “non-quality”, but as a tourist niche they do not fit the profile of the tourist of ever greater quality. And when they are raising merry hell in resorts, elements with the island’s tourism industry might question their own publicity of responsible tourism.
Index for March 2015
Ageism in tourism - 18 March 2015
Alcudia industrial estate - 28 March 2015
Andalusia election - 23 March 2015
Balearics Day - 1 March 2015
Beach exploitation - 11 March 2015
Berlin ITB fair - 6 March 2015
Biosphere and responsible tourism - 13 March 2015
Catalan rumba - 30 March 2015
Daevid Allen - 16 March 2015
Democratic regeneration - 3 March 2015
Eco-tax: Més - 9 March 2015
Goats in Mallorca - 29 March 2015
Irish and Mallorca - 14 March 2015
Love Island, Ses Salines - 17 March 2015
Loyalty and Mallorca branding - 10 March 2015
Palacio de Congresos - 12 March 2015, 21 March 2015
Palma - best place in the world? - 27 March 2015
Performance pay and online reviews - 24 March 2015
Picadors of Mallorca - 15 March 2015
President Bauzá: desperate for a pact with PSOE - 7 March 2015
Representation of the people - 26 March 2015
Saving campaigns: conservation/preservation - 2 March 2015
Sóller prawn fair - 8 March 2015
Son Ferriol - 22 March 2015
Spring breaks - 31 March 2015
Statistics obsession in tourism - 5 March 2015
Sustainable tourism - 19 March 2015
Tourism education - 25 March 2015
Tourism law - 20 March 2015
Working day - 4 March 2015
American students moved on to other places where the law was not as restrictive, but the spring break vacation, for all its popularity in the US, took years to cross the Atlantic. It is perhaps surprising that it took so long, but it is now firmly established, and its growth in recent years can probably be attributed to one thing - lower numbers of tourists in the non-peak months of the summer tourism season coinciding with the impact of economic crisis. Resorts and hotels needed different markets, and one that offered itself was the Spanish and European student spring break market.
This Easter in Magalluf, there is an offer for four nights of a "Spring Break Festival Mallorca". It is an offer aimed at Spanish kids and includes entrance to different clubs, drinks and pool parties. Here is just one example of the organised spring break holiday. There are others. Several others.
May is a month when hotel occupancy is not at its highest. In Magalluf and Palmanova it might not even reach 50% of the total hotel places open. 1200 or so Swedish students will thus do nicely for the odd hotel that needs to bump up its occupancy rate and for the odd club owner who wishes to increase low summer season trade. These Swedish students, typically aged 17 and 18, have, so we are told, rather more money to spend than, say, their British counterparts, but it is not solely spend on alcohol. It probably isn't, but who's to say that a good chunk of it isn't. The Swedes as a whole have a reputation for being good tourists, well behaved, well mannered. But there is big attraction other than the sun when it comes to holidaying in Mallorca. Booze is significantly cheaper than back home. It is much more easily obtainable. Assiduous checking of ages is not quite the same as back home.
There is a German tour operator called PartyUrlaub Reisen. It says that Mallorca is more than just binge-drinking and parties. There are crystal-clear waters and picturesque landscapes, but it doesn't dwell on these alternatives. There are gorgeous bodies in skimpy bikinis, bars, clubs and discos to turn night into day. The word "party" in the name should say it all, and this is what is being sold to a German spring break market heading predominantly to Arenal.
Then there is Finalia, the Spanish company which offers later spring breaks. Resort Bellevue Club, Alcudia. 250,000 square metres of paradise beaches, nine pools ... open-air concerts for more than 2000 people etc. etc. This is the "Mallorca sin profes" package, something which, the company's website suggests, has collaborating organisations that include the regional governments of the Balearics and Catalonia. Do these governments know exactly what happens on these vacations? People in Alcudia can tell them. A few weeks of living hell.
To come back to the Swedish students, the organisers of their spring breaks, a company whose address is given as Punta Ballena, offer "four weeks of madness" in May. And where is this madness likely to take place? Well, let's look at the hotels. There is a selection. One of them is the BH Mallorca, the four-star makeover of what was Mallorca Rocks on behalf of the clubowners, Cursach.
No one can blame students wishing to come on holiday and enjoying themselves in a fashion that any of us who were once students ourselves will recognise and appreciate. No one can really blame hotels or tour operators in arranging such holidays. It’s business after all, and if business is quieter at times of the summer season then it has to be sought wherever it exists.
But it is this, the almost desperate need for hotel occupancy and for quieter-month business, which betrays the public relations exercises which would have us convinced that resorts like Magalluf, Arenal, Alcudia and Cala Ratjada are on an upward curve of quality tourist.
Students should not be categorised as “non-quality”, but as a tourist niche they do not fit the profile of the tourist of ever greater quality. And when they are raising merry hell in resorts, elements with the island’s tourism industry might question their own publicity of responsible tourism.
Index for March 2015
Ageism in tourism - 18 March 2015
Alcudia industrial estate - 28 March 2015
Andalusia election - 23 March 2015
Balearics Day - 1 March 2015
Beach exploitation - 11 March 2015
Berlin ITB fair - 6 March 2015
Biosphere and responsible tourism - 13 March 2015
Catalan rumba - 30 March 2015
Daevid Allen - 16 March 2015
Democratic regeneration - 3 March 2015
Eco-tax: Més - 9 March 2015
Goats in Mallorca - 29 March 2015
Irish and Mallorca - 14 March 2015
Love Island, Ses Salines - 17 March 2015
Loyalty and Mallorca branding - 10 March 2015
Palacio de Congresos - 12 March 2015, 21 March 2015
Palma - best place in the world? - 27 March 2015
Performance pay and online reviews - 24 March 2015
Picadors of Mallorca - 15 March 2015
President Bauzá: desperate for a pact with PSOE - 7 March 2015
Representation of the people - 26 March 2015
Saving campaigns: conservation/preservation - 2 March 2015
Sóller prawn fair - 8 March 2015
Son Ferriol - 22 March 2015
Spring breaks - 31 March 2015
Statistics obsession in tourism - 5 March 2015
Sustainable tourism - 19 March 2015
Tourism education - 25 March 2015
Tourism law - 20 March 2015
Working day - 4 March 2015
Sunday, September 28, 2014
The Imported Tradition Of The Oktoberfest
Today in Can Picafort they'll be downing the last of the Paulaner at the first Oktoberfest to have been held in this resort of kleines Deutschland. It has been, I think I'm right in saying, one of a series of movable beerfest taken to the more remote parts of the island, i.e. those which aren't Playa de Palma or Calvia. Cala Millor had it, and now Can Picafort has had it. But it has been an Oktoberfest which is small beer when set against the über-fest of Arenal's Megapark and indeed Palma and Santa Ponsa's beery love-ins.
The Oktoberfest in its Mallorcan guise is more than simply an event to which the travelling German, missing out on the real thing in Munich, can attend and drown his sorries at not being in Munich. It is a means of prolonging the season and adding dynamism to tourism and promoting a particular resort. This at least is what Joan Monjo, the delegate for Can Picafort at Santa Margalida council, had to say about his beerfest. And it may well be all of these things, assuming it doesn't move somewhere else next year.
This imported cultural tradition does seem to go down quite well with the natives. When the Santa Ponsa fest used to be held in the not so kleines Deutschland of Peguera, it was reckoned that at least 60% of the drinkers were Spanish. But Peguera had represented something of a cultural shock. There was a priceless piece in the local press which explained with something approximating alarm that beer is not served in quantities less than half a litre. The Spaniard, reared on the thimble of the caña, was exposed to the massive attack of the German "mass", and he drank deep and repeatedly, liberated from the junior measure.
This autumnal beer bombardment does have to be seen in a wider context of the Mallorcan beer tradition, such as it is, and, to be honest, it isn't much of a tradition, save for the fact that a great deal of beer is consumed. There hasn't been a brewery of any great size on the island for over fifteen years. The old Damm brewery, which had originally been the Rosa Blanca many, many years before, closed in 1998. But in more recent times, there has been the rise of the microbrewery and the artisan beer. So celebrated has the artisan beer become that, starting on Friday next week, the Alcudia fair will be giving such beer a great deal of prominence. The fair will open at 6.30pm on Friday evening, and there will be a dedicated sub-fair for artisan beers. Moreover, as the fair progresses, there will be a sort of workshop to demonstrate how to make artisan beers, which all sounds a bit like the long-held British obsession with homebrewing and the potential for terribly messy accidents when there is a minor explosion. And as if this wasn't enough, there will also be visits to the Beer Lovers microbrewery, conveniently located next to the town hall.
The microbrewery has encroached into territory dominated by European corporates like Heineken. It certainly did so during Beer Palma, a Maifest of beer devotion back in May with nary a dirndl in sight. This was more of an indigenous beer occasion to which the corporates were invited guests. But the local beers are unlikely to be making their presence felt in the Oktoberfests. Uprooted from Munich the fest has been but woe betide, for the German stickler, that the beer fails to pass the Reinheitsgebot purity test. Weizen, helles and dunkel. The lederhosen will be there in spirit if not the actual wearing. "Ein Prosit, ein Prosit, der Gemütlichkeit." And try translating that it into Mallorquín or Catalan or Castellano.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
I Predict A Race Riot
The England and Wales Public Order Act of 1986 defines a riot as being "where twelve or more persons who are present together use or threaten unlawful violence for common purpose and the conduct of them (taken together) is such as would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his personal safety".
Definitions of riot differ as do the numbers required to constitute a riot, but the generally accepted principles of riot are that there has to be common purpose and that there is violence, implied or actual. The numbers are, nevertheless, important in creating an impression as to whether there is or there isn't a riot. Do fifty people on the streets of Arenal really constitute a riot? In legal terms, they do; in perceptual terms, perhaps not. Riot implies masses. Hundreds rather than two score and ten.
Riots vary in their type, their definitions requiring an adjective to establish the type. Put "race" in front of "riot" and an emotional mix is formed, one that is as explosive as the race riot has always been. In Britain, the first race riots took place in 1958. Twenty years later, the location of those original riots - Notting Hill - saw more "race riots", but there was a difference between the 1958 riot and what happened over successive years in the late 1970s. The first one was the product of the classic and potent elements that foment riots - simmering and brewing tensions between opposing groups that finally break out into violence with the unpredictability of spontaneous combustion. The riots at the end of the Notting Hill Carnival were, on the other hand, more predictable.
The "sus" law was unquestionably a factor and the black community had legitimate grievances, but these grievances tended to be obscured. The riots came to be predictable because they masked a criminal intent, that of "steaming" (organised and mass muggings). They shielded acts of robbery with violence, and they involved considerable numbers of people. Around 6pm on August Bank Holiday, if you had an instinct for sensing trouble or intelligence from within the community itself (and I had both), you got the hell out of the areas around Ladbroke Grove and near the sound systems under the Westway. You knew it was all about to kick off, and it did.
Two years ago in Arenal, nine skinheads, eight Germans and one Austrian, were arrested following incidents in the resort. The skinheads, described as neo-Nazis, had been engaging in some racially motivated aggro. The incidents were described as having been a "race riot", even if the number of people was comparatively small. Nevertheless, it was a riot in that there was common purpose and there was violence. The common purpose was race hate.
Arenal has witnessed other such incidents, and at the weekend came the incident which involved, so it was said, some thirty German neo-Nazi skins and twenty black street sellers. Reports differ as to what actually happened. One suggested that the heat was taken out of the episode by the police and that there were no arrests. Another said that there were both injuries and arrests. Whatever the accuracy of the reports, the intent was the same. Here was a bunch of so-called German tourists who came, as they have in previous years, to start trouble of a racially motivated variety. Race riot perhaps, but utterly predictable certainly. Stage-managed. What occurs in Arenal has nothing to do with simmering tensions and grievances, it has everything to do with loutishness. One can call it a race riot, but it was really thuggery with a racial motive. And planned thuggery at that.
In a sense, it can be said that there are regular "riots" in Mallorca's trouble resorts. The incident along Magalluf's strip, captured on camera and circulated on YouTube, when a car was trapped by a horde of youthful tourists screaming "who are you?" and simulating urinating through the driver's window became a riot. There may not initially have been common purpose but ultimately there was. Personal safety was threatened. Violence was implicit.
Defining an incident as a riot might be considered an over-dramatisation and embellishing a riot with racial overtones adds further drama, but it isn't wrong to suggest that riots are not uncommon. These, though, are riots without any hint of justification that erupts from legitimate grievance. These small-scale Mallorcan resort riots are the product of drunkenness, thuggery or both. And the worst ones are those which are racially motivated and planned. This is not what tourism was supposed to be about. It was supposed to be about broadening cultural understanding.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Definitions of riot differ as do the numbers required to constitute a riot, but the generally accepted principles of riot are that there has to be common purpose and that there is violence, implied or actual. The numbers are, nevertheless, important in creating an impression as to whether there is or there isn't a riot. Do fifty people on the streets of Arenal really constitute a riot? In legal terms, they do; in perceptual terms, perhaps not. Riot implies masses. Hundreds rather than two score and ten.
Riots vary in their type, their definitions requiring an adjective to establish the type. Put "race" in front of "riot" and an emotional mix is formed, one that is as explosive as the race riot has always been. In Britain, the first race riots took place in 1958. Twenty years later, the location of those original riots - Notting Hill - saw more "race riots", but there was a difference between the 1958 riot and what happened over successive years in the late 1970s. The first one was the product of the classic and potent elements that foment riots - simmering and brewing tensions between opposing groups that finally break out into violence with the unpredictability of spontaneous combustion. The riots at the end of the Notting Hill Carnival were, on the other hand, more predictable.
The "sus" law was unquestionably a factor and the black community had legitimate grievances, but these grievances tended to be obscured. The riots came to be predictable because they masked a criminal intent, that of "steaming" (organised and mass muggings). They shielded acts of robbery with violence, and they involved considerable numbers of people. Around 6pm on August Bank Holiday, if you had an instinct for sensing trouble or intelligence from within the community itself (and I had both), you got the hell out of the areas around Ladbroke Grove and near the sound systems under the Westway. You knew it was all about to kick off, and it did.
Two years ago in Arenal, nine skinheads, eight Germans and one Austrian, were arrested following incidents in the resort. The skinheads, described as neo-Nazis, had been engaging in some racially motivated aggro. The incidents were described as having been a "race riot", even if the number of people was comparatively small. Nevertheless, it was a riot in that there was common purpose and there was violence. The common purpose was race hate.
Arenal has witnessed other such incidents, and at the weekend came the incident which involved, so it was said, some thirty German neo-Nazi skins and twenty black street sellers. Reports differ as to what actually happened. One suggested that the heat was taken out of the episode by the police and that there were no arrests. Another said that there were both injuries and arrests. Whatever the accuracy of the reports, the intent was the same. Here was a bunch of so-called German tourists who came, as they have in previous years, to start trouble of a racially motivated variety. Race riot perhaps, but utterly predictable certainly. Stage-managed. What occurs in Arenal has nothing to do with simmering tensions and grievances, it has everything to do with loutishness. One can call it a race riot, but it was really thuggery with a racial motive. And planned thuggery at that.
In a sense, it can be said that there are regular "riots" in Mallorca's trouble resorts. The incident along Magalluf's strip, captured on camera and circulated on YouTube, when a car was trapped by a horde of youthful tourists screaming "who are you?" and simulating urinating through the driver's window became a riot. There may not initially have been common purpose but ultimately there was. Personal safety was threatened. Violence was implicit.
Defining an incident as a riot might be considered an over-dramatisation and embellishing a riot with racial overtones adds further drama, but it isn't wrong to suggest that riots are not uncommon. These, though, are riots without any hint of justification that erupts from legitimate grievance. These small-scale Mallorcan resort riots are the product of drunkenness, thuggery or both. And the worst ones are those which are racially motivated and planned. This is not what tourism was supposed to be about. It was supposed to be about broadening cultural understanding.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, March 03, 2012
Promoting Shanty Towns
Arenal, despite its current-day association with German tourism, wasn't always German-dominated. It was the first resort in Mallorca that I had any experience of. This was at the end of the 1960s. I can't say I remember much about the place, other than the sight of what was like a shanty town next to the hotel.
Today's Arenal is one of those resorts that doesn't, you might believe, need much promoting. It is synonymous among many a German visitor with Mallorca, those for whom Peguera and Cala Ratjada aren't synonyms. It's as well if it doesn't need much promoting because the municipality in which Arenal is located - Llucmajor - is scrapping its tourism trust, i.e. tourism board.
The trust was spending around 170,000 euros a year. This went on a few tourism fairs to publicise the different attractions of Llucmajor as a whole and not just Arenal and for a director who took a salary of 34,000 euros. Neither the spend nor the salary was in any way excessive.
The thinking where Llucmajor town hall, boracic like all other town halls, is concerned is that, as it now no longer receives any grants for promotion from the government, there is no point in having a tourism promotion operation. Couldn't the town hall manage without these grants? No. Because, or at least this is what the town hall is saying, the tourism minister Carlos Delgado has told them to stop the local tourism trust and to concentrate efforts on Mallorca and the Balearics that are operated by the ATB (Balearics Tourism Agency).
This is a strange explanation. Strange because other town halls are continuing to arrange their own promotion. Pollensa, for instance, has reserved 300,000 euros for this purpose. It is even stranger as Delgado had appeared to "get it" about promotion. He has said that promotion of a generic Balearics brand wasn't a particularly good idea, and he was absolutely right. In fact, it has always been a lousy idea because there is no recognisable Balearics brand as such. Indeed, Delgado had gone so far as to suggest that rather than just promotion of the individual islands, which do carry brand recognition, it was sensible for there to be promotion of specific parts of the islands, as in resorts for instance.
So has Delgado performed a U-turn or is Llucmajor inventing Delgado's instruction? Hard to say. Whatever the situation, there is no questioning the fact that money for tourism promotion is in desperately short supply whether it be for the islands or for the resorts, but there is also little doubt that Delgado's apparent enlightenment was correct; individual towns and resorts should benefit from their own promotion because there is no such thing as a "Mallorca" which embraces the whole island. Arenal, for example, is most certainly not Puerto Pollensa.
To make matters worse, Llucmajor's internet activities appear to have ground to a complete halt; even a Facebook page is not being updated. But Facebook, apart from being a powerful tool, is also extremely cheap. Indeed, it doesn't cost anything, apart from, in the case of a commercial operation, which Llucmajor is in a tourist sense, the cost of paying someone to maintain the page. Surely to goodness they can find a couple of grand a year for this if nothing else.
Abandoning even a basic internet presence such as Facebook is incredibly short-sighted, but so is abandoning promotion full stop. Let's be clear once again. Tourism is what Mallorca does. It is what many of its towns do. The expectation that Germans will just turn up in Arenal is similar to what I spoke about the other day with regard to British tourists being taken for granted. Yes, they probably will just turn up, but acting as though these tourists don't really exist in curbing communications so much that they are curbed out of existence is a sure way in the long term, or even the short to medium term, of making tourists wonder if they are wanted.
Llucmajor is Mallorcan tourism promotion in microcosm. It has all but given up, especially where the major markets are concerned. But as there aren't the funds for grand advertising campaigns, then at least some should be found for the social networks. Delgado has, after all, alluded to finding more flexible and creative ways of stretching limited budgets. So have I. Repeatedly. Returns on Facebook and other social media are likely to be good. But they won't be if no one can be bothered.
At the end of the sixties, Arenal could have been anywhere. It meant nothing. We were going to Madge-orca. That was all that mattered. We are no longer in the sixties. But you wonder sometimes. Are things so bad? Maybe there are shanties again.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Today's Arenal is one of those resorts that doesn't, you might believe, need much promoting. It is synonymous among many a German visitor with Mallorca, those for whom Peguera and Cala Ratjada aren't synonyms. It's as well if it doesn't need much promoting because the municipality in which Arenal is located - Llucmajor - is scrapping its tourism trust, i.e. tourism board.
The trust was spending around 170,000 euros a year. This went on a few tourism fairs to publicise the different attractions of Llucmajor as a whole and not just Arenal and for a director who took a salary of 34,000 euros. Neither the spend nor the salary was in any way excessive.
The thinking where Llucmajor town hall, boracic like all other town halls, is concerned is that, as it now no longer receives any grants for promotion from the government, there is no point in having a tourism promotion operation. Couldn't the town hall manage without these grants? No. Because, or at least this is what the town hall is saying, the tourism minister Carlos Delgado has told them to stop the local tourism trust and to concentrate efforts on Mallorca and the Balearics that are operated by the ATB (Balearics Tourism Agency).
This is a strange explanation. Strange because other town halls are continuing to arrange their own promotion. Pollensa, for instance, has reserved 300,000 euros for this purpose. It is even stranger as Delgado had appeared to "get it" about promotion. He has said that promotion of a generic Balearics brand wasn't a particularly good idea, and he was absolutely right. In fact, it has always been a lousy idea because there is no recognisable Balearics brand as such. Indeed, Delgado had gone so far as to suggest that rather than just promotion of the individual islands, which do carry brand recognition, it was sensible for there to be promotion of specific parts of the islands, as in resorts for instance.
So has Delgado performed a U-turn or is Llucmajor inventing Delgado's instruction? Hard to say. Whatever the situation, there is no questioning the fact that money for tourism promotion is in desperately short supply whether it be for the islands or for the resorts, but there is also little doubt that Delgado's apparent enlightenment was correct; individual towns and resorts should benefit from their own promotion because there is no such thing as a "Mallorca" which embraces the whole island. Arenal, for example, is most certainly not Puerto Pollensa.
To make matters worse, Llucmajor's internet activities appear to have ground to a complete halt; even a Facebook page is not being updated. But Facebook, apart from being a powerful tool, is also extremely cheap. Indeed, it doesn't cost anything, apart from, in the case of a commercial operation, which Llucmajor is in a tourist sense, the cost of paying someone to maintain the page. Surely to goodness they can find a couple of grand a year for this if nothing else.
Abandoning even a basic internet presence such as Facebook is incredibly short-sighted, but so is abandoning promotion full stop. Let's be clear once again. Tourism is what Mallorca does. It is what many of its towns do. The expectation that Germans will just turn up in Arenal is similar to what I spoke about the other day with regard to British tourists being taken for granted. Yes, they probably will just turn up, but acting as though these tourists don't really exist in curbing communications so much that they are curbed out of existence is a sure way in the long term, or even the short to medium term, of making tourists wonder if they are wanted.
Llucmajor is Mallorcan tourism promotion in microcosm. It has all but given up, especially where the major markets are concerned. But as there aren't the funds for grand advertising campaigns, then at least some should be found for the social networks. Delgado has, after all, alluded to finding more flexible and creative ways of stretching limited budgets. So have I. Repeatedly. Returns on Facebook and other social media are likely to be good. But they won't be if no one can be bothered.
At the end of the sixties, Arenal could have been anywhere. It meant nothing. We were going to Madge-orca. That was all that mattered. We are no longer in the sixties. But you wonder sometimes. Are things so bad? Maybe there are shanties again.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Roll Out The Barrel: Mallorca's Oktoberfests
Drunken tourism. Scandalised though the tourism industry in parts of Mallorca is by buckets of booze and bingeing, it is still more than happy to sanction the intake of industrial quantities of beer in the form of "bierfests".
October is nearly upon us and so the Oktoberfests have already begun. And there will be not one, not two, but three: Peguera, Arenal and Palma. Drunken tourism is fine, so long as it has lager slopping over the veneer of tradition, albeit a German one.
Palma has joined the beer festival fray for the first time. It will be a gastronomic and cultural event, the town hall maintains, one that contributes to an ayuntamiento policy of leisure activities, 365 days a year, and so to a reduction of the impact of seasonality. Who are they kidding?
Shove the words "gastronomic" and "cultural" into a sentence and, bingo, you afford an event legitimacy in a peculiarly Mallorcan way, one which demands that events fall into on-message line with tourism of a gastronomic or cultural nature. Substitute the two words with drunken, and legitimacy is the last thing you get. But they amount to the same thing. The bierfest exists for one purpose and one purpose alone - to get absolutely slaughtered.
And what's with this reduction of the impact of seasonality business? The season is still with us, isn't it? Yes, but this outbreak of the rolling out of the Germanic beer barrel will mean more German tourists rolling in, thus ensuring the season does indeed extend beyond a September sell-by date.
Such optimism is based on a gargantuan German thirst for beer and hunger for schnitzel and wurst (which is what the gastronomy presumably refers to) and also on the fact that Mallorca, rather than either Bavaria or Baden-Württemberg, is the southerly most state of Germany. The Germans are as likely to gravitate to specific gravities in Mallorca as they are in Munich.
Well possibly. One great advantage of the Mallorca bierfests is that they go on beyond the Munich Oktoberfest. The Peguera fest, for example, doesn't start until a few days after Munich finishes, so it is definitely an Oktoberfest, whereas Munich's is a September-und-Oktoberfest. Palma's will last for a good week longer than Munich and Arenal's appears to go on forever. It's pretty much a case of being able to drink up in Munich, hop on an Air Berlin beer airbus and shuttle down to Palma in time to get the next round in; the timing of Mallorca's events allow for an entire month's worth of unbroken bierfesting.
But are tourists specifically attracted by the bierfests? In Peguera last year, 60% or so of the reservations in its 1,800 square metre tent (and they love to announce how big these tents are; Palma's is 1,125 square metres in case you're interested, which you almost certainly aren't) were from Spanish drinkers. And for the Spaniard, a bierfest is something of a drinking culture shock, presented as he or she would be by a vessel of a size more appropriate for putting flowers in rather than drinking from. Reporting of the Peguera event last year made a point of stressing that it wasn't possible to drink in a measure less than half a litre; the reporting had the hint of a warning for the average Spaniard schooled on the junior measures of the caña.
But then culture shock for the Spanish there should be, as the Oktoberfest is a cultural experience; Palma town hall says so. It is unlikely, though, that typical Bavarian culture will take hold among the locals. Don't expect the sale of dirndls to suddenly shoot up or for the local fiestas to dispense with pipers and whistlers and replace them with accordion and tuba players.
The Mallorca Oktoberfests aren't really to do with culture. They owe far more to an acknowledgement of the importance of the German market and, in the case of both Peguera and Arenal, that there are parts of Mallorca which will be forever and über alles Deutschland. In Palma, there is a further aspect. It's German culture that is costing the town hall barely a centimo.
One might be inclined to ask why it is that German culture can be exported and that of other countries, Britain for example, isn't. One might ask, but then one might also ask - "what culture"? The Germans have at least retained some. Moreover, there may be a lot of drinking involved in a bierfest, but when it comes to the real thing of drunken tourism, there is only one nation that does it properly. No prizes for guessing.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
October is nearly upon us and so the Oktoberfests have already begun. And there will be not one, not two, but three: Peguera, Arenal and Palma. Drunken tourism is fine, so long as it has lager slopping over the veneer of tradition, albeit a German one.
Palma has joined the beer festival fray for the first time. It will be a gastronomic and cultural event, the town hall maintains, one that contributes to an ayuntamiento policy of leisure activities, 365 days a year, and so to a reduction of the impact of seasonality. Who are they kidding?
Shove the words "gastronomic" and "cultural" into a sentence and, bingo, you afford an event legitimacy in a peculiarly Mallorcan way, one which demands that events fall into on-message line with tourism of a gastronomic or cultural nature. Substitute the two words with drunken, and legitimacy is the last thing you get. But they amount to the same thing. The bierfest exists for one purpose and one purpose alone - to get absolutely slaughtered.
And what's with this reduction of the impact of seasonality business? The season is still with us, isn't it? Yes, but this outbreak of the rolling out of the Germanic beer barrel will mean more German tourists rolling in, thus ensuring the season does indeed extend beyond a September sell-by date.
Such optimism is based on a gargantuan German thirst for beer and hunger for schnitzel and wurst (which is what the gastronomy presumably refers to) and also on the fact that Mallorca, rather than either Bavaria or Baden-Württemberg, is the southerly most state of Germany. The Germans are as likely to gravitate to specific gravities in Mallorca as they are in Munich.
Well possibly. One great advantage of the Mallorca bierfests is that they go on beyond the Munich Oktoberfest. The Peguera fest, for example, doesn't start until a few days after Munich finishes, so it is definitely an Oktoberfest, whereas Munich's is a September-und-Oktoberfest. Palma's will last for a good week longer than Munich and Arenal's appears to go on forever. It's pretty much a case of being able to drink up in Munich, hop on an Air Berlin beer airbus and shuttle down to Palma in time to get the next round in; the timing of Mallorca's events allow for an entire month's worth of unbroken bierfesting.
But are tourists specifically attracted by the bierfests? In Peguera last year, 60% or so of the reservations in its 1,800 square metre tent (and they love to announce how big these tents are; Palma's is 1,125 square metres in case you're interested, which you almost certainly aren't) were from Spanish drinkers. And for the Spaniard, a bierfest is something of a drinking culture shock, presented as he or she would be by a vessel of a size more appropriate for putting flowers in rather than drinking from. Reporting of the Peguera event last year made a point of stressing that it wasn't possible to drink in a measure less than half a litre; the reporting had the hint of a warning for the average Spaniard schooled on the junior measures of the caña.
But then culture shock for the Spanish there should be, as the Oktoberfest is a cultural experience; Palma town hall says so. It is unlikely, though, that typical Bavarian culture will take hold among the locals. Don't expect the sale of dirndls to suddenly shoot up or for the local fiestas to dispense with pipers and whistlers and replace them with accordion and tuba players.
The Mallorca Oktoberfests aren't really to do with culture. They owe far more to an acknowledgement of the importance of the German market and, in the case of both Peguera and Arenal, that there are parts of Mallorca which will be forever and über alles Deutschland. In Palma, there is a further aspect. It's German culture that is costing the town hall barely a centimo.
One might be inclined to ask why it is that German culture can be exported and that of other countries, Britain for example, isn't. One might ask, but then one might also ask - "what culture"? The Germans have at least retained some. Moreover, there may be a lot of drinking involved in a bierfest, but when it comes to the real thing of drunken tourism, there is only one nation that does it properly. No prizes for guessing.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Hotel in Arenal evacuated because of gas leak
Some 500 guests have been evacuated today because of a leak of carbon monoxide at the hotel Tropical Park in Arenal. One 15-year-old girl has been taken to hospital. This is the third gas leak incident at the same hotel. Two weeks ago, a Russian tourist died and a French tourist was taken to hospital in a critical condition. The hotel was not identified in reports when these previous incidents occurred. Now it has been identified.
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