Alcudia's Three Weeks Of Mayhem

The so-called Mallorca Island Festival is over for another year. As each year, it has left a trail of complaints about noise, behaviour and vandalism. Also as each year, it has been studiously ignored by the media. Might this have to do with the fact that it is Spanish students causing the complaints? If British or German counterparts were the protagonists, you can bet that everyone would be told about it.

Some people say, well it is only three weeks, let's have some perspective. True, it is only three weeks, but it is three weeks too many for residents who are denied sleep, for those whose cars are trampled on, for businesses which are robbed, for other businesses which suffer because a regular type of tourist isn't present.

Now it's finished, there is talk that there is just one year left to run on a contract (not that anyone seems to know this for certain), that Bellevue doesn't want to renew it because of all the hassle it causes. And hassle there most certainly is. It is hardly unknown for fire alarms to be deliberately set off in Bellevue blocks, but not with the regularity which occurs when the "festival" is occurring. But hassle isn't the right word for the destruction inside the blocks. Hassle isn't the right word to describe what one understands to be the very low prices paid for the students' all-inclusive accommodation. Hassle isn't the right word to explain the reputation of Bellevue being further sullied on social networks, especially TripAdvisor; and by extension, the reputation of Alcudia.

For BlueBay, which manages the complex, the series of holidays for students does nothing for its reputation. It should be being praised for the long-overdue efforts to try and improve Bellevue. Instead, there are the brickbats that are the consequence of a form of tourism vastly more extreme than anything else which is experienced at Bellevue.

Inevitably, assuming that it is correct that there is just one year left to run, reaction will be to do nothing, an attitude that has prevailed ever since the student holidays started (which was at least in 2013): Mallorca Island Festival has been the name for the past three years; prior to this, it was known as Mallorca without teachers. Timidity is how one might best describe the approach of residents and indeed of businesses. It is a timidity which has been exacerbated by a lack of coordination and mutual support among different groups affected. In a sense, the residents and businesses in and around Bellevue have got what they deserved.

Alcudia town hall is all too aware of what goes on. Numerous have been the individual representations made to the mayor and the town hall. But individuals don't get very far. As with all administrations, they want what they consider to be valid interlocutors, associations with whom they can discuss issues. The failure to create such an association is a reflection of this timidity and of a neglect of community.

The fundamental issue with this festival is the location. Bellevue is probably the only place that could accommodate it. But what has been overlooked is the nature of Bellevue. This became a hotel by accident. It was not originally conceived as a hotel. The campus style of the complex is evidence of what was developed - a single urbanisation named Bellavista. On this urbanisation, as things were to turn out, are hotel apartment blocks and residential apartment blocks. They share the same space.

The principle of coexistence, enshrined in law and for which, at local levels, town halls have responsibilities to guarantee, is an expression of mutual respect. People need to live together. There is give and there is take, but coexistence frowns upon excesses. The principle applies everywhere, but it is especially acute on a single urbanisation and a single space. On the Bellevue complex, the give and take is understood. Of course there is noise. By its very nature there will be. Among the thousands of guests at any one time there will clearly be some who don't behave themselves. But this is, in a way, incidental. It is not organised.

With the festival, there is organisation. And this organisation, because of the offers of ferrying the students to off-site clubs from just before midnight and of ferrying them back again, can only lead to one thing. Noise. Coexistence is one thing. Breaches of bylaws regarding noise are another.

Such was the level of complaints to the 112 service that the call centre, which can geolocate the source of calls, was responding by saying that the local police need to be called. There wouldn't normally be such a response. But what, in all honesty, can the police do? They are stretched enough as it is. Should there be a permanent presence (plus the Guardia)? Both forces have other matters to attend to. They are not to blame, nor is the town hall. The blame lies elsewhere.

* A photo just after dawn on one morning of the so-called festival.

The Disgrace Of Alcudia

It's half past midnight. The fire alarm has been let off in one of the three Fedra buildings on the Bellevue complex. Two security guards are some metres away from the building. They don't react. They continue to chat before eventually wandering towards Fedra. Passing them are a few regular tourists. These are arrivals, trudging the distance from reception, the rumble of the suitcase wheels lost within the ring of the alarm and the roars and screams. These are not cries of fear. These are the sounds of the nightly disgrace of Alcudia.

One guard wears the brown shirt of the security firm that has been hired for the so-called festival. The firm is Tasp Seguridad. According to the festival organisers, Finalia Viajes S.L. (C. Girona 34, Igualada, Catalonia), this firm was established in Mallorca in 1968. It is providing twelve "professionals" who offer cover 24/7. The guard with the brown shirt is with another who wears blue: he is Bellevue. The two explain that there are four security guards for the eight blocks that are to the eastern side of the Bellevue entrance road - the Apollo, Ceres, Diana and Fedra blocks. They all house students from the mainland who are there for the "festival", a marketing term (with registered trademark) for a holiday that has become an excuse for total disruption of normal coexistence in this part of Alcudia, an excuse for vandalism, for excessive drinking, for unacceptable behaviour which matches anything that Arenal or Magalluf can offer.

Finalia, in a letter of 15 February this year, said that the festival is in collaboration with teams of teachers and parents associations as part of a celebration of the end of the school course (baccalaureate). There are no teachers on the site and nor are there any parents. Do these parents know what occurs during the "festival"? Would they be so collaborative if they knew, for instance, about cars being damaged, about shops being robbed, about groups of students doing runners from local restaurants, about regular tourists being jostled and pushed aside in the restaurant, about the nightly screaming, mayhem and chaos that lasts from the middle of June until at least the end of the first week of July?

One of the guards says things are not normal. The behaviour is not normal. Nor is the fact that regular tourists, towards the end of the festival, are being allocated to the blocks most adversely affected, namely Fedra and Diana. What perverse form of hotel administration decrees that these tourists, some with families, should be placed amidst this carnage? They have arrived with the fire alarm going off, with students bawling and roaring, with a scene of bedlam. The guards have as good as given up. What were they ever going to have done? Hundreds of students who come on a rotational basis over the duration of the "festival": the four on the shift are no match for these hundreds. They are helpless, useless, and they know it. They are also regretful. They understand that residents and other tourists are being harmed. Things are not normal. They can do nothing. There are no police, no Guardia. They are alone, as are the residents and tourists.

Someone says that the students are paying fifteen euros a night all-inclusive. If so, is Bellevue really that desperate for clients? Perhaps it is. The hotel's acceptance of this festival (the existence of which was denied by a person on reception when tackled by a resident) merely reinforces Bellevue's chronic reputation for lack of care. The festival drags Alcudia's image further through the mud, a negative image which is largely the fault of Bellevue and Bellevue alone. Why, one wonders, does a company like BlueBay, which manages the complex, have anything to do with this "festival"? It is a hotel chain which, otherwise, has a more upmarket profile, especially elsewhere.

With the regional government trying to convince tour operators not to bring drunken (junk) tourism to the island, it should include Finalia on this list. It probably won't, because what happens in Alcudia is of marginal interest, when compared with Magalluf and Arenal. If this were a tour operator bringing British or German youngsters, the world would know about it. Spanish, and there is general silence. Who, among the media, draws any attention to it? 

The Finalia marketing, as revealed by its February letter, is laughable. It talks about presentations made to parents in which explanations are given about Alcudia's "magnificent beaches" and "the precious church of San Jaime (Sant Jaume)". Thousands of parents, it continues, subsequently opt to visit Alcudia as a result of their children's experiences. Of course they do.

This marketing, as shown on the festival website, includes the "collaborative businesses", some of which aren't businesses, such as the Spanish government, the Balearic tourism ministry, the government in Catalonia. Are these administrations willing collaborators in drunken, excessive, junk tourism? Are they giving their blessings to chaos and the breakdown of order? Are they collaborating in the annual disgrace of Alcudia?

* The photo is from the Jolly Roger Facebook page. It shows a whole load of students trooping past the Lago Menor en route to Hidropark. Tourists at the waterpark, it has been reported, have opted to leave because of the "invasion" which regularly occurs.

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

Alcudia: Some tourism and other issues

Some selections from a detailed discussion with Alcudia's councillor for tourism, institutional relations and public works, Joan Gaspar Vallori.

Investment
The town hall has a great deal on its plate in terms of infrastructure projects. These include work on the sewage-treatment plant that is due to start in September and will take fifteen months to complete. Meanwhile, there are some other major works in the pipeline, such as the renewal of the street lighting all the way along the Carretera Arta from Magic to Playa de Muro. This is to be replaced with LED lighting, which is more economical and efficient to run.

There is also, starting in August, a project for the wall and general area from the Porta Sebastià to the Porta Roja in the old town, something important for the town's patrimonial heritage. A further project, to start later this year and concluding next year, is for a new tourist information office in Ciudad Blanca. This has been on the cards for a few years, but is now budgeted for. The new office will be in the Avenida Palmeras, i.e. the road that leads to the beach from the small roundabout at the top of the Bellevue Mile. It has been felt necessary as the existing office is not in the best location.

Cruise ships
This new office leads on to Joan's tourism portfolio, and a key theme for the town hall is the continuing development of cruise-ship tourism. Joan says that any controversy about cruise ships is an issue for Palma, the situation is obviously very different in Alcudia. In his words, it is a "boutique" port that will bring in luxury liners with limited passenger capacity but tourists with high spending power.

But do the tourists stay in Alcudia? This is a question that the town hall is well aware of. Joan notes that other parts of Majorca, such as Valldemossa, are very attractive, but the aim is to have cruise tourists visit parts of Alcudia. To this end, there is work being done to develop an "excursion Alcudia" product that would include, for instance, the Roman town.

In Palma, one of the arguments about cruises is the level of spending by passengers. Critics say it is comparatively low. In Alcudia it isn't yet possible to provide any clear indication what this is because the number of ships that have visited since the commercial port terminal was opened has been low. But data on spend is something that is being worked on.

Holiday rentals
One of the great debates at present in Majorca is the regulation of holiday rentals. Joan says that there have as yet been no discussions with the tourism ministry as to how this regulation might be implemented, but in his opinion it will be difficult to put something into place in the municipality within six months after regulation comes in. (There is talk of zones being created in municipalities where holiday rentals will be permitted and where they will not be allowed.)

He accepts that it is a complex subject and also a contentious one, not least because the town hall is very aware of the pressures on accommodation for young people and seasonal workers. These have increased because so many apartments are being made available to tourists, and they represent, as he stresses, a very different situation to a chalet or a finca. There is also, he appreciates, the issue of "co-existence" in blocks between apartments used residentially and touristically. It isn't straightforward.

Bellevue
Joan confirmed that BlueBay's project for a total redevelopment of the Bellevue complex remains very much on the cards. The town hall looks upon this very favourably, he observes, and will do all it can in order to facilitate it, which means licences and permissions. There is as yet no time frame as to when work might start, but there is regular contact with the BlueBay management; the most recent meeting was some three weeks ago.

Something else that came up regarding Bellevue was the confusion that surrounds responsibilities for the roads and other services on the complex. The roads in particular are in a poor condition. Joan, wearing both tourism and public works hats, says that roads, street lighting and maintenance are not the town hall's responsibilities.

The photo here shows the state of part of the road passing by the Siesta apartments: all of it is like this. There is added danger because drivers look to avoid the holes. When there are cars parked on one side, there is even more risk as a result.

The Understandable Exaggerations Of Alcúdia

It did of course make an eye-grabbing headline. "Businesspeople on Dollar Street fear that the area is the new Punta Ballena." This is the headline in translation, as the article was in "Ultima Hora". You could tell that the origin was Spanish, as very few Brits, save for some veterans, now ever refer to Alcúdia's Mile as Dollar Street. Apart from anything else, such as the alternative names that have been acquired over the years, the street ceased to be lined with dollars many years ago.

The headline was an exaggeration. Some of the views expressed by the "businesspeople" were exaggerations. Because Magalluf now has a stronger police presence, the excesses of tourism may be replanted along the Mile. It might make for good copy, but this is not how tourism works, while an allusion to Punta Ballena has become a form of shorthand for any example of bad-behaviour tourism.

Nevertheless, the reference was understandable. Far less understandable was the fact that a very similar article - in English and not in "The Bulletin" - appeared elsewhere without explaining what the businesspeople were referring to. Or perhaps it is understandable when there is a lack of appreciation of the issue and when the only source of information seemed to be an article which, in its body text, didn't explicitly refer to it either.

It was the sub-heading of the "Ultima Hora" piece which offered the explanation. All-inclusives were one, but then we've known about these for years. The other was "estudiantes": students. When the English article spoke, as the original had, of noise, drinking, disturbances from 4pm to 8pm and then again from half eleven until two in the morning (themselves not completely accurate because the disturbances, in effect, last all night and up to seven in the morning), it failed to mention the students. Consequently, it is quite possible - probable in fact - that an uninformed reader would see Punta Ballena and disturbances, put two and two together and come up with the five of British youth out on the lash and on the rampage. The conclusion would be totally wrong. The correct one is Spanish students, those who have taken over a great part of Bellevue for the past two weeks and who have turned the area into a living hell.

Misreporting is one thing, another is the apparent shortsightedness and resignation of others. To give an example. According to one source, the hell of the students is "not a community issue", as in the community of one of the residential apartment buildings most affected. How can it not be a community issue, and not just the community in its administrative sense as applied to a building? It is a community issue for the whole area: the businesspeople might have been exaggerating with their Punta Ballena references but these were, as I say, understandable.

There again, what is community? I'm damned if I know, because I witness precious little of it, just as I witness, hear and read other expressions of shortsightedness and resignation. "Oh well, that's how it is." "It's business." "There'll be backhanders." All the usual shrug-of-the-shoulder nonsense that comes from people of different nationalities - Spanish and others. Yes, it is business, but there are limits, and when blatant disregard to a fundamental of Spanish life, enshrined in the Constitution and laws, that of "co-existence", is practised through the organisation and marketing of holidays to a specific sector which itself shows total disregard to this principle, then limits need to be imposed.

This resignation is, I accept, also understandable, but perhaps there needs to be greater awareness of what - in political terms - is happening at present. Podemos, rather than be berated, should be applauded if only because they have shaken administrations into realising who it is they act on behalf of. Communities. Proper ones. Town halls, regional government, even businesses know that the goalposts have been moved. They are under scrutiny like never before. Transparency, participation, dialogue: these are not mere slogans any longer. But they will be if people fail to act on the opportunity that has been presented. 

It has been quite encouraging to see how Alcúdia town hall - the mayor, Toni Mir, and the local police - have reacted to the students' affair. Mir had already acted swiftly in putting a stop to Red Electrica digging during the summer on account of the God awful racket. He was on to things the day after a meeting I had with him. Subsequently, the police responded rapidly to what was akin to a riot at two o'clock one morning, one that was partly caused because the organisers had failed to adhere to a measure that the town hall and police had insisted upon. But the police can only do so much. To help them, sources of their need to intervene have to be eradicated, which is where the "community" comes in. I'm not holding my breath, though, because the shortsightedness and resignation will doubtless prevail, leading to constant muttered complaints and the perpetuation of inaction that is the consequence of an inability and unwillingness to act and to be seen to act for the greater good of more than just selfishness. Punta Ballena? Maybe.

Nightmare On Bellevue

It starts at four in the afternoon. The set is much the same each day. Its intrusiveness, its loudness may have something to do with wind direction. There are days when the thumping bass is incessant. Four hours of pool party each afternoon. Then, from eight until around half eleven, just before midnight, things are relatively peaceful. Before the crowds gather, that is. The coaches begin to arrive. Football chants, other singing, clapping, shouting, general hubbub. It ends around half two in the morning. The first coaches, returning from the club, come back around two hours later. It takes a further two hours for them to all return. Drunk, drunker than they were when they left - or stupefied - the shouting, the singing is ever louder. Bottles are smashed, pools are jumped into, fireworks are let off. The security, such as they are, mill around. Useless or helpless. Then, from eight in the morning, the crowds start to gather again. Many of them haven't slept, rather like everyone else. The coaches - as many as eight of them - stand with their engines running for up to an hour, no more than twenty metres away from residences, their fumes choking the morning air before they depart with their loads to take them to Palma so that they can return to Barcelona, whence they came. These are the ones who are leaving after their four or five nights. Others take their place.

This is the pattern for three weeks. Residents, other tourists (until they get moved) can sleep little, if at all. The noise can seem dangerously loud. Loud enough to be a health risk. Loud enough and, for several hours, constant. The bars may as well close. There is all-inclusive around as it is, but this is not a tourism from which they will derive any business other than from the handful of cents  commission from cigarettes bought from a machine. It is a tourism that hasn't gone unnoticed on Trip Advisor. "Rude" is putting it mildly. The behaviour is generally appalling and it is not just one or two. There are hundreds, well over a thousand at any one time. And they attract the dross: drug dealers (not the lookies; white boys) parked up by the road as they pass back from the beach.

This is the Mallorca Sin Profes (also dubbed Mallorca Island Festival) spring break vacation at Bellevue organised by Viajes Finalia, based in Barcelona. Sin Profes - without teachers. The students who come before, younger ones, are well-behaved: the teachers come with them. Yes they make some noise, but it's only to be expected and it isn't an issue. It also isn't health-threatening.

Among the "collaborators" for this vacation are the Generalitat de Catalunya, i.e. the government in Catalonia, the Balearic Government's ministry for tourism and, though it's hard to be certain from the logo, probably the Spanish Government's ministry for industry, energy and tourism. Does one suppose that these collaborators are aware of what they are collaborating with? The question needs asking of them.

At least Alcúdia town hall isn't mentioned as another collaborator (it looks as though the Council of Mallorca is though). The previous administration was aware of the situation, exactly the same, last summer. No response was ever received. The new mayor, Toni Mir, an impressive, businesslike guy, wasn't aware of the situation. He is now.

It is for he, for the town hall and for other agencies to draw their conclusions. I'm not making them for them. I'm simply informing them.

Rebuilding Bridges In Alcúdia

Are there really 28 bridges over Alcúdia's waterways? Perhaps there are. I confess I have never bothered counting them, but I'll accept that the number is accurate just as I'll accept that it will cost 1.2 million euros to return them to a condition that might warrant their being called bridges. How long have we had to wait for movement on this? Far too long.

The bridges, as with the canals and the lakes, are not ultimately the responsibility of the town hall. The Costas Authority is responsible. This division of the national environment ministry, far away in Madrid, has appeared to wish to take absolutely no responsibility for the bridges. Until now. Why, though, it is really necessary to get Madrid actively involved is a good question. There is, after all, an entire delegation of the Costas knocking around the Balearics. What do they do with themselves?

Madrid it is, though, and so it was to Madrid that Coloma Terrasa went, accompanied by one of her mayoral predecessors, Miquel Ramis, in order to meet the sub-director for the Costas, Angel Muñoz. (It can't have been deemed that important if it was only the sub-director.)

But Sr. Muñoz will be getting the authority to cough up the 1.2 million euros for the 28 bridges, and work on them is scheduled to start after the coming tourism season. The work cannot be done during the season, said Coloma, as it would "cause inconvenience to tourists and residents". And she was right to say this of course, though why she said nothing to similar effect when work was going on at the new Viva hotel last summer one doesn't quite know.

The work to be done on the bridges will represent a "partial" renovation of the area: 30% of a total budget that is due to be spent on the whole pedestrian area around the lakes and canals. When the remaining 70% of the budget will be made available is not known. Nor is it known what it will actually be spent on. However, one can always refer to the town's touristic development plan 2014-2015 to get some clues. Under this plan, a recreational zone is supposedly going to be created by the big lake (Lago Esperanza) and new "touristic attractions" will be created "with the Lago Menor and canal spaces", whatever this means. There is also scope for the "revitalisation of the Avenida Pedro Mas y Reus zone".

It's an interesting document, this plan. The ideas for the Mile (Pedro Mas y Reus) include a plan for its modernisation: not of the infrastructure but of the businesses. Really: that is what it says. Which businesses do you suppose they have in mind? And how do you think they are proposing that this modernisation might be effected? Answer: there are no proposals. Just an idea.

Anyway, a revitalisation "action" for the Mile is the control of the "venta ambulante ilegal": that's looky-looky men and lady hair braiders to you and me. The control is such that it seems that many of the lookies have decided to get off the streets and make a damn nuisance of themselves around the pools in Bellevue. And, because there are few if any physical obstacles to prevent them from doing so, they can get access to holidaymakers with ease. Trip Advisor reviews note this activity: yet another black mark against Bellevue. Where are the security personnel to kick them off?

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

What A Tangled Web: Orizonia and Marsans

Next month, a judge in Palma will make a decision as to the nature of the bankruptcy that brought down the Orizonia travel group in February last year. It may be that the judge considers administrators and certain shareholders in the company responsible for its collapse and orders the forfeiture of their assets. Two major creditors plus a group of more than one hundred former employees have been pressing for such an outcome.

Orizonia is just one part of a jigsaw in what has been a story, which is still very much ongoing, of corporate wrong-doing and concealment that ranks alongside cases such as the collapse of Rumasa in the 1980s (and Nueva Rumasa very much more recently) in terms of the scale of fraud, either alleged or proven. Orizonia, which had only been formed through a buy-out from Iberostar businesses in 2006, went under with over 600 million euros of debt. Its collapse is a story in its own right, and one that I have previously written about, but it was a collapse that was a sort of corollary to the much bigger story, the failure of Grupo Marsans.

Less than three months before Orizonia filed for bankruptcy, it had been one of the companies which had been instrumental in the investigation of and arrest of Gerardo Díaz Ferrán, the former boss of Marsans. Orizonia had an interest in one particular part of the Marsans empire, the Hotetur hotel division, which was controlled by a separate holding company, Teinver. Through Hotetur, Marsans owned the Bellevue hotel complex in Alcúdia.

In late 2010, it became known that mortgages had been taken out on Bellevue. Two were for banks. The third, and the largest, at more than 30 million euros, was for Orizonia. By this time, Marsans had collapsed. Teinver and other parts of the Marsans empire had been bought in June of 2010 by an investment company, Posibilitum. The intention had been that Bellevue was to have been auctioned off in February 2011. It wasn't. But then a further option arose. This was that the management of Bellevue might be shared. Orizonia would be one partner. The other would be Al Andalus Management, which had been appointed by Posibilitum as the management company for the complex.

This option, even if it had ever been realistic, ceased to be one when Orizonia collapsed. Its hotel wing, Luabay, which would have been part of the joint-management scheme, was sold to Be Live Hotels, part of the Globalia group. But then there came the formal denuncia that Orizonia, along with Meliá Hotels, AC Hotels and Pullmantur, lodged against Marsans' owners, one of whom has since died. There was a third name on this denuncia, Angel de Cabo of Posibilitum. In the denuncia, it is stated that there were fictitious sales of companies belonging to the Marsans owners. One of them was Teinver.

What emerged was that this had all been a scheme to hide assets from creditors. They were transferred to Posibilitum. It was said that a sum of up to 600 million euros had been paid. The denuncia states that Posibilitum had capital of only one tenth of this amount in 2009.

Díaz Ferrán and de Cabo were both arrested and both sent to prison, awaiting trial. Bail was placed on both of them. In de Cabo's case, it was set at 50 million euros, an amount that was progressively reduced, so much so that in July, de Cabo was released on bail of 300,000 euros supported by assets worth double that amount. He is still to stand trial, as is Díaz Ferrán, but in the meantime, what has happened with the businesses that were caught up in this affair? Bellevue, for example.

In August 2010, Al Andalus, the company put in management charge of Bellevue, bought the BlueBay brand from Posibilitum, a brand which itself was under the Hotetur umbrella. Bellevue has since become a brand of its own, operated by BlueBay which took out contracts to lease Hotetur hotels for a period of ten years.

So, insofar as anything can be said to be clear about this whole affair as it has impacted on Bellevue (and the Lagomonte in Alcúdia), it is that BlueBay are the rightful managers of the hotel. But then who ultimately owns it? Presumably Posibilitum, despite the allegedly fictitious sale from Marsans or a sale that was not of the size which had been claimed. There again, what of that old mortgage that Orizonia had on Bellevue? Did it pass to Globalia when it bought the Luabay hotels?

Tangled web doesn't do the affair justice. It's why it has taken and is taking so long to go through various courts, not only one in Palma. For BlueBay, what does it do with Bellevue, a hotel complex which, for most of its existence, has been its own tangled web?

Photo: The Lago Esperanza from Bellevue.

Nights Of Noise

Yesterday, I sent Alcúdia's tourism councillor an email in which I suggested that she might like to go to the Bellevue complex and in particular the area by the Fedra blocks and witness for herself the nightly gathering of Spanish students waiting to be ferried off to their club (Menta). It's safe to presume that she did not take up the suggestion.

For the record, this is how things go. Last night was not as rowdy as previous nights had been, but it was still rowdy - eventually. It had seemed as though perhaps the message about the noise had been taken on-board. The coaches appeared to have started arriving earlier and to have started therefore leaving earlier (from around 11.30pm). There looked as though there were more people engaged in some form of control and organisation. Indeed, up until roughly one o'clock, there was nothing that could have been deemed unacceptable. There was noise, but only for the most part the low noise of chatter. The behaviour was generally that good that bottles were even being deposited in litter-bins.

But at around one o'clock, things changed. And it probably isn't too difficult to figure out why. The longer some of the students have to wait, are still in the accommodation, the longer the window of drinking opportunity. The pattern of Spanish youth going out for the night is well set. They drink cheap booze, sometimes in the form of the street botellón, prior to getting to the clubs, where they drink virtually nothing. Drink meets large groups means rowdiness.

I spoke to three people who were supervising. One of them was a security guard. I had assumed he was a member of Bellevue security. He wasn't. His job was to look after the "chicos", presumably to ensure that there were no "incidents". When asked about hotel security, he said there wasn't any, which was something of a surprise. He might not have been right. There had been other what looked as though they might have been security earlier. They were no longer in evidence. Whether they were hotel staff or not, I couldn't say. The two others were "co-ordinators" of the groups. One of them said that any complaint would have to be taken up with head office, i.e. the tour company, Finalia in Barcelona.

All three of them seemed somewhat taken aback that anyone would come and ask them to explain whether they felt it was acceptable for there to be levels of noise which, in other circumstances in Alcúdia, would not be tolerated. Taken aback, but then none of them were in a position to make any real observation. They were just doing their jobs. A classic example of there being no one with any real authority being in charge.

The final coach left around 2am. Despite the coaches seeming to have started to arrive earlier, the process of moving the students off site went on to the same sort of early-morning time as it had previously. Now morning, there is a gathering of students waiting to depart. No noise, but have they been up all night? Quite probably. Oh well, youth can handle such privation.

The issue is not the fact that Spanish students are in Alcúdia having a holiday. It is an issue primarily of the nature of Bellevue. Ideally, if there are large groups of youngsters all with the same needs to go out at midnight to enjoy themselves, they should be in a hotel for they and they alone. One which can contain and organise the groups more effectively and not allow them to disrupt the "convivencia" of a wider community. But as Bellevue is as it is, the sprawling campus that it is, with different blocks all open and with some in proximity to residential accommodation, such effective organisation is nigh on impossible.

Let's be clear, Bellevue does have its fair share of rowdy regular tourists. But not on this scale. The hotel would typically classify itself as a family hotel, but it has introduced a tourist niche that does not conform with this classification. The complex may be suited to having different types of tourist in different parts, but only if those different parts are somehow fenced off, made separate in order to lessen the impact of so many young people being on site at one time.

The number is high. When I saw the July occupancy figures for the hotel (dated 22 June), I was surprised to see that, on 1 July for example, the number of guests on full board exceeded by almost 400 the number on an all-inclusive package. I think I begin to understand why this is and why full board guests all but disappear from the mix after 4 July. The security guard told me that he was going to be around until 5 July. It all figures now. The number of full board guests declines after 1 July, but on that date it is listed as amounting to 1,298, more than a third of the entire occupancy of the Bellevue complex.

Organised Irresponsibility: Students on holiday

It is quarter past one on a midweek morning. A security guard gets into his car and drives off. He had been hanging around for an hour or more. Long enough to have seen the police car drive past, turn round and go. Now he has also gone. Meanwhile, the noise continues.

On Facebook, Shaggie, he of Shagalluf, posts something under the title of "Calvia council stop fooling yourselves". He is referring to "havoc" being caused by some 2,000 Spanish kids along Magalluf's strip. His post would be something which I would normally notice with only passing interest. But I take much closer interest than normal. He talks about the absence of police and about underaged kids out on the streets at night.

Spanish kids are like kids anywhere. There is a misguided notion, one typically held by a category of expatriate who is not in touch with the realities of the streets or the resorts, that Spanish kids, unlike their British counterparts, are incapable of misbehaving, getting drunk or creating noise or havoc. There are degrees of noise and havoc, granted, but let's nail the canard once and for all. Spanish kids can asbo along with the kids of other nations. And why not? They're kids.

Perhaps mercifully I was never part of a small invasion force of hundreds or thousands of my peers. There weren't organised student holiday tours back in the day. Not of the type there are now. They come from the mainland. They are packaged according to educational type. There is the holiday for kids at secondary schools celebrating the end of the summer term; the holiday for kids at the end of their Baccalaureate; the holiday for university kids (aka adults). There are those who are under age in that they are not eighteen; those who are eighteen or older. Thousands of them. In different resorts. Magalluf, Arenal, Alcúdia.

Quarter past one in the morning. The noise has been going on, as it has over successive nights, from around midnight. It is noise of shouts, screams, chants, claps, firecrackers. The noise of the botellón, the mass drinking party. The noise that could be expected from hundreds of kids. They come in waves, just as the noise comes in waves. It rises, it falls.

This is Bellevue in Alcúdia. Where else. On its outer limits the majority of the students - Baccalaureate ones, the elite ones - are housed in specific blocks of this vast holidaymaking campus. They are not alone. There are other tourists. Nearby there are the residences of the Siestas. 

Alcúdia has local ordinances, just as other towns have ordinances. Since the time that it became an "eco-tourist" resort in the 1990s (a pioneering concept), it has adopted measures for environmental protection, of which noise pollution is one. Alcúdia abhors noise, especially noise after the midnight curfew. In theory.

Yet, there is no curfew in Bellevue. Not a curfew of movement, of association, of gathering. Not a curfew of size of gathering. Not a curfew of noise. Quite the opposite. This is noise organisation. From midnight, there is the sound of the multitudes. It growls like thunder, crashes like thunderclaps, bombarding the steamy night air. The sound of the students gathering for the coaches which come and go in convoy until two in the morning. The sound of the Baccalaureate asbos.

"Convivencia" is a word in Spanish which means co-existence. It is one which is used widely. It is used in legal terms, in moral terms and in terms of responsibility. Convivencia is all but a part of the nation's Constitution. It is a theoretical concept, one often breached in practice. Its application is devolved to institutions of government and to representatives of commerce. Its intention is social harmony. Mutual respect. Living together. Co-existence.

What destroys convivencia is not students enjoying their holidays. The destruction comes from a lack of institutional responsibility, a failure in duty of care, an absence of accountability and of admission. It is not just institutions of local government - Calvia, Alcúdia town halls, for example - it is also commercial organisations, such as one driven to create occupancy of a vast complex that would, in late June, otherwise have to face occupancy of well under 50%, just as it currently has to for mid-July. The commercial need dominates. Business comes from wherever business can come from. Even if the late-night organisation of this business shatters the desired calm of convivencia. The truth is that no one gives a damn, no one could care less at town halls or in business. They, those who decide, who grant permission, who book, who organise, never see or hear. They never hear the noise. They are blind to the consequences. They are the ones who are responsible, but ultimately irresponsible.

The Dawn Chorus Of Bellevue

Dawn. There is a riotous chatter of birdsong, one that seems peculiarly alien to the tourism mini-megalopolis of Bellevue, where the chatter is typically of a different style - human and loud. The abundance of alert avifauna is a reminder of Bellevue's roots - those that it stands on. Albufera. To the side of the nature park, some way in the distance, is the tower of Es Murterar, the Kraftwerk craftily located so that the top of the turret invades most views. Its red markings are uncannily reminiscent of the post-Civil War towers along the bay of Alcúdia, its grey smoke merging into morning cloud that is broken by the vivid fire appearing well out to sea and setting ablaze with orangey-red the perfectly shaped forty-five degree incline of the rugged habitat of mountain goats, the Sant Martí mount, the guardian of Alcúdia, an ancient anachronism that abuts the outer limits of modern Bellevue.

At dawn, the evenly dispersed lights along the outdoor corridors at the back of the Fedra block glint as though on a giant electronic scoreboard. The street lights reveal the source of the watery whishing noise, the whirling sprinklers, Joni Mitchell's hissing of summer lawns, giving vehicles fortunately parked right by a partial car wash. At six, they go off. All is not dark, as dawn has brought its early light, but their disappearance is abrupt, taking aback and disorientating the makers of the other dawn chorus: the sound of luggage wheels on tarmac. Departing tourists are wending their way to reception.  

Avoiding a sprinkling from sprinklers, they wheel their suitcase barrows through a road broad and a bougainvillea-topped alleyway narrow, bumping over broken surfaces and humps that have risen from something unseen. Their journey is not long but it is long enough. At six in the morning, they trek like refugees to where they will be de-processed, deposited on a coach and driven to their place of deportation.

This happens in reverse. The coaches disgorge their human loads, who line up for their processing, sometimes in queues that tumble backwards out of reception. All their worldly touristic possessions packed inside their cases, they create the clatter and rumble of plastic rolling stock with a metallic syncopation as they go in search of the promised land. Which way? This way? That way? Is this the block? Is that the block? Excuse me, can you help me? Somehow, the maps don't always seem to be readily interpreted.

There are other Bellevues, tourist towns within towns, resorts within resorts. They don't just exist in Spain. France has them, too. They were products of the need to accommodate mass which, on the one hand, begat hotels built to order with standardised designs and standardised room sizes - the prefab sprouting of accommodation - and which, on the other hand, produced the holiday complex, an urban development that owed much to the philosophy of the campsite. From immediate post-war roots in Corsica's Club Olympique site and Gerard Blitz's original Club Med in Alcúdia and through the expansion of the Oltras' camping zone into the bizarre saucer spaceship architecture of Heliopolis amidst the naturist resort of Cap d'Agde, the early complex was one founded on notions of mucking-in and of no-frills before the term had even been invented. And also of the notion of sheer scale.

What happened in the process of constructing the standardised hotel and the complex was that intimacy was lost. Tourism went from being personal to impersonal. Mallorca, prior to the onset of mass tourism, had specialised in small, family, often quite up-market hotels. They remained but were mostly superseded in the dash for mass by the de-personalised edifice. This was holidaying with a feel of the comprehensive school movement. One day I was at a grammar school of 500 where I and teachers knew many people. The next day I was at a comprehensive of over 2,000, the largest anywhere in Britain. The personal disappeared overnight.

Scale combined with egalitarianism created monsters. Forty years or so ago, no one could have foreseen the levels of sophistication that tourism and tourists were to acquire. Marketing attempts to portray the personal and the customer focus, but it is mostly puffery, a disconnection from - in the case of a vast complex like Bellevue - the reality of the logistical impossibility of internally transporting guests in a dignified fashion.  

Mallorca, we are told, has embarked on a journey of modernisation, one that will transform resorts and accommodation. It is a journey towards a new standardised model, one of higher stars and spas. Yet, how can this journey be completed when there is such contrast between old and new, between resort mature and resort contemporary youth? When vast scale persists to the detriment of service? When the dawn chorus remains the rumble of little plastic wheels on tarmac?

De-Greasing The Greasy Mile

I was recently earholed by a certain lady bar owner from Puerto Pollensa who had been enjoying the hospitality at an inauguration and who demanded to know of me why - in essence - Pollensa town hall was rubbish and Alcúdia town hall wasn't. Far be it for me to rush to the defence of Pollensa's mayor, Tomeu Cifre, but I felt the necessity to defend him. The dysfunctionality of the town hall isn't really his fault. It is in part the consequence of the fragmented nature of the political organisation on the council. This said, though, I also felt it necessary to point out that Alcúdia (which has a generally harmonious political organisation) is typically proactive and progressive in ways that Pollensa tends not to be.

No one is suggesting, least of all me, that everything is perfect in Alcúdia, because it isn't, but the town hall, under Coloma Terrasa and also (because one fancies he has been highly influential) the deputy mayor Juan González, has been impressive in certain ways, and one of these is the way that the town hall communicates. Its information is really quite good, and an example of this is the posting of the town's tourism development plan on the municipal website. Stretching to fifty pages, this is a mightily detailed document.

A chief concern for those who have businesses in or who work in the complementary sector of the town's tourism industry is, of course, the proliferation of the all-inclusive offer. The plan will disappoint anyone looking for proposals to tackle AI. There aren't any, but why would there be? The town hall has no control over the type of board which hotels provide. But among the various projects that the town hall wishes to effect as part of its plan is one for Alcúdia's main tourism centre and specifically a "revitalisation" of the area around the Avenida Pedro Mas y Reus, otherwise and variously known as Dollar Street, the Greasy Mile or simply The Mile.

Though any plan for The Mile would not necessarily take account of what hotels do, it would be difficult to divorce hotel operations from general improvements (whatever these might be and which might be more than the underwhelming improvements that were undertaken last year). And these hotel operations mean overwhelmingly all-inclusive and all-inclusive at one specific hotel complex - Bellevue.

The fortunes of bar, restaurant and shop owners along The Mile have always been inextricably linked to Bellevue. At peak capacity the complex can accommodate at least 5,000 people. It has always catered for an essentially economy-class tourist, but now this is an economy-class tourist who - in 80% or more of cases - is staying all-inclusive.

There are plenty of other hotels around The Mile, but Bellevue - physically, visually and economically - dominates. A revitalisation of The Mile, I would suggest, cannot hope to be effective unless something were to happen to Bellevue, the question being - what?

The construction of Bellevue started in the early years of the '70s. It took several years for it to become a hotel complex, as the original plan (sale of time share apartments) was a flop, one not helped by legal and financial wrangles. And such wrangles have dogged the complex for much of its existence. They still do. At present, the former boss of the bankrupted Grupo Marsans and the head of Possibilitum, both companies linked to the ownership of Bellevue, are facing hefty prison sentences. Both have been detained, unable to pay bail amounts in the region of 50 million euros.

The management company does its best, but a prevailing atmosphere of uncertainty offers little hope that a genuine plan might be put in place to revamp a complex that is in bad need of a total overhaul. Until such a time as the private sector can work its way through the complexities that surround Bellevue (even if it was inclined to do so), little, one imagines, will happen. Meantime, the town hall wants to revitalise the area which Bellevue dominates. I wish them luck.

Anyway, if you are interested in finding out more about the tourism development plan, it can be downloaded from the town hall website. It is in Castellano, which might be considered another plus mark for the town hall.

Lost Expectations: Alcúdia's Mile

Magalluf, so we have been reminded many, many times over the past few weeks, is not just one street. The resort's notoriety may be confined mostly to Punta Ballena, but notoriety rubs off. There is sympathy for the offence that those in other parts of the resort take because of this damned-by-association, and some of it exists in Alcúdia. Magalluf and Alcúdia are both examples of resorts with different faces but which get branded because of one face. Alcúdia's "Mile" does not have the notoriety of Punta Ballena, but it is the Mile and its environs that dominate the way in which a dog can be given a name: sometimes bad, but not exclusively. Alcúdia is its port with the brand new ship terminal, its wide promenade and award-winning marina. Alcúdia is also the old town of mediaeval walls and Roman ruins. It is the sleepy hamlet resorts on the bay of Pollensa and the mountainous area of La Victoria to Coll Baix and Cap Pinar. But for most, Alcúdia is the Mile, what the Spanish have long dubbed "dollar street", one where the pavements are lined with the gold of tourist loose change.

Dollar street lost its dollar some time ago. Not completely, but gone are the days of high tales of how the street - Avenida Pedro Mas y Reus, to give it its official name - used to be so full of people in high summer that neither you nor vehicles could move during the evenings. The Mile is still the centre of tourist activity, but market changes, notably all-inclusives, have altered it. Personally, I haven't lost my affection for the Mile, for its fun, its bustle, its vague air of British seaside campness. But it has grown tired. The days of cheap and cheerful have passed. We are in the era of the nouveau tourist, one in which the "mature" resorts of Mallorca must give themselves a makeover. Hence, the brilliance of some of what is happening in Magalluf.

Alcúdia doesn't have a sugar-daddy hotel chain like Meliá to transform its Mile. Meliá has one hotel, just off the Mile, but that is all, and it, like much of the area, looks fatigued. There are other hotel chains, but the Mile, its rows of servile restaurants and bars, is brooded over by the manor houses of Miss Haversham. Bellevue. Poor, poor Bellevue, the symbol of lesser or lost expectations, a complicated complex of years of changing management, financial and ownership confusion and now all-inclusivity. Upwards of 5,000 places, and few of the inhabitants spending dollars on old dollar street. Its lost expectations are made more heart-breaking by its location by the great lake of Alcúdia. The Lago Esperanza. Lake of hope. Lake of expectation.

The town hall is spending a quarter of a million euros on improving pavements, lighting and other infrastructure along the Mile, including the bridge, created over 20 years ago and forgotten ever since. The bridge, too steep, too dangerous because of cars that can travel too quickly and too blindly because of the steepness and because of the lumbering lard-loaded trikes and other touristic transport paraphernalia that zigzags across the Mile, came into being as a response to the great inundation at the start of the 1990s. It is hard to see if it has even had a lick of paint ever since, so the investment is welcome, but what of the rest?

Too many formulaic, uninspiring units of aluminium struts and too little real investment reveal the developmental apartheid that has occurred in Alcúdia. The port has had this, as has the old town, but the money-spinning, dollar Mile has been deprived of it for too long. Time has caught up with the Mile and caught up, therefore, with Alcúdia's principal centre for extracting dollars from tourists who have been treated with less than total respect by unthinking and complacent indifference. A whole architectural re-assessment needs to be made; facades of some uniformity and attractiveness applied to the faceless units. The lookies need to be hounded out (but won't be), but might lose a good chunk of their market were consideration given to perhaps making the Mile pedestrianised in the evenings and throwing it open to its own street market, replete with street entertainers, folk dance (which ne'er ventures away from the port and the old town), competitions.

But whatever might be done and whatever is being done with new flagstones, new street lights, these can't disguise the cobwebs that shroud the Haversham manors, so long - for forty years - exposed to the sun but for too long out of the sunlight of development.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Hidden Assets: The Marsans scandal

The surviving business partner who ran what was once Spain's largest company employer has been arrested. Gerardo Díaz Ferrán formerly headed up Grupo Marsans along with Gonzalo Pascual, who died six months ago, and was also formerly the president of the CEOE, the Spanish equivalent of the CBI. He was detained on Monday, accused of money laundering and non-declaration of assets.

Díaz Ferrán's arrest is the latest twist in the ongoing investigation of the bankrupted Marsans, and Díaz Ferrán is the latest Spanish über-businessman with a strong Mallorcan connection to be collared by the police. Of others, José María Ruiz-Mateos, owner of another failed company, Nueva Rumasa, is accused of diverting money raised by mortgaging hotels in the Hotasa chain, of which there are several in Mallorca. Nueva Rumasa, in its original incarnation before it was expropriated by the Spanish government in 1983 because of its massive debts, was Spain's biggest company, so in that previous incarnation it was as important a business as Marsans was prior to its collapse in 2010.

Díaz Ferrán and Ruiz-Mateos are both high-profile businesspeople, though arguably neither is as high profile as Iñaki Urdangarin, the King's son-in-law, if only because neither of them has royal connections. Urdangarin is the third party in what is a pretty unholy businessperson trinity, even if the money involved in the case against Urdangarin is small beer when compared with that which is involved with both Marsans and Nueva Rumasa.

One aspect of the case against Urdangarin that has been investigated is the alleged channelling of money offshore. Díaz Ferrán faces a similar investigation, and the timing of his arrest is probably no coincidence as it has followed swiftly on the period of the amnesty for declaring previously undeclared assets having ended.

The investigation of Díaz Ferrán has been prompted in part because of complaints lodged by the likes of the Meliá hotel group and the Orizonia travel company. These complaints extend beyond Díaz Ferrán and include Ángel de Cabo, who has also been arrested. De Cabo is significant in all this, and especially so for Mallorca. Not only has he acquired some Nueva Rumasa businesses, his investment vehicle, Posibilitum, acquired Marsans businesses, one of them being Hotetur, of which Alcúdia's huge Bellevue hotel complex is a part. The complainants refer to the "alleged sale" for 600 million euros of Marsans to Posibilitum just prior to Marsans being declared bankrupt; this purchase has alternatively been described as having been made with a "nominal sum".

De Cabo, according to the police, acted as a sort of front man for Díaz Ferrán, and received a significant sum for doing so. The thrust of charges is that assets were syphoned off and hidden to avoid demands against Marsans that exceeded 400 million euros.

To say that the whole affair is complicated would be an understatement, and it is one that highlights links and relationships at the grandest corporate level which impact on Mallorca and Spain's tourism industry. One such link is that between Marsans and Orizonia. The latter is owed money by Marsans. The guarantee against this money was Bellevue, and the future management of Bellevue has been (and still is, as far as I am aware) the subject of a separate judicial examination to decide the fate of Hotetur. A proposal to split the operation of Bellevue between Posibilitum's management company and Orizonia's Luabay hotel division appears to still be up in the air. It is likely to be even further up in the air now that De Cabo has been arrested, now that questions about Posibilitum's acquisition of Marsans are being asked and now that, to make matters even more complicated, the Barceló hotel group has offered to buy Orizonia, subject to agreement by the Spanish competition commission. The uncertainty that has surrounded Bellevue throughout its 40 years of existence just refuses to go away.

Coming on top of political corruption cases and of the dire economic situation, the cases against the unholy businessperson trinity are all damaging: Ruiz-Mateos, because he has long sailed close to the wind; Urdangarin, because of his connections; and now Díaz Ferrán. Of the three, his case may prove to be the most damaging for what remains of Spain's reputation. Former president of the Spanish business confederation, former owner of a massive company at the heart of the tourism industry; it doesn't get much worse.

Though the Díaz Ferrán case is not exclusively a Mallorcan issue, the affair does have strong Mallorcan links. Political corruption had come to be pretty much expected in Mallorca. Now there is business scandal as well, and you wonder how much more there might be to come.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Two detained in Bellevue robbery

A security guard managed to detain two members of a gang of five who were in the act of attempting to rob a bar on the Bellevue hotel site in Puerto Alcúdia.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Bellevue creditors' agreement

The immediate future of the Bellevue hotel complex in Puerto Alcúdia and of staff employed at the hotel has been secured. An agreement with creditors regarding some 100 million euros owed by Bellevue's former management company, White Horse, which went into administration following the bankruptcy of its parent company, Marsans, in 2010, has been obtained by the new owners of White Horse and Bellevue, Posibilitum, as part of court proceedings into the affairs of White Horse. What remains to be seen is whether a joint management of the Bellevue site, one that would involve a creditor, Orizonia (Luabay), will be pursued, as has previously been suggested.

MALLORCA TODAY - Bellevue Mile in Alcúdia to be remodelled

Alcúdia town hall has approved three projects for the town. One of these will involve 387,000 euros being spent on what is called a preliminary remodelling of the Avenida Pedro Mas y Reus (aka the Mile). The bridge along the road had already been earmarked for some improvement. The other projects involve a remodelling of the Jaume II square and an extension of the Calle Arc de Sant Martí (this is the street which is two back from the Calle Pollentia that runs into the old town) and improvements to sanitation in the northern area of la Marina.

MALLORCA TODAY - Bellevue hotel group bankrupt

The Hotetur chain of hotels, formerly part of the Grupo Marsans and now under Posibilitum, is expected to shortly be declared by a judge in Madrid to have entered voluntary bankruptcy. The chain includes the Alcúdia hotels Bellevue and Lagomonte.

For Sale: Hotel, Needs Work

The possibility that the Posibilitum investment group, the owners of Alcúdia's Bellevue complex, might acquire the Hotasa hotels of the troubled Nueva Rumasa conglomerate should be viewed as welcome news by those running the hotels. I am told that the hotels are experiencing difficulties in providing services they should be. When the hotels opened for the season, and at one point it looked as some might not, suppliers made it clear that they would supply only on a cash-on-delivery basis.

The Hotasa hotels, which include three in Can Picafort, are an extreme case, but they are far from alone in having owners seeking buyers. Much of Mallorca's hotel stock is up for sale. And there are very few buyers.

The accord between tourism minister Carlos Delgado and the hoteliers that should pave the way for reform of the tourism law and so facilitate hotel conversion and change of use has been sought by the hoteliers for some years. The antiquity of many hotels makes their redevelopment a pressing necessity, but even with agreement and legal reform, a question would remain. How would these conversions be funded?

Delgado has said that the days of expecting grants, especially from central government, have passed. The banks have all but turned the taps off. The markets are reassured by this summer's rise in tourism numbers, but the leading hotel chains - and those which would be listed and more attractive to investors - have tended to look overseas for growth potential.

The hype of all the talk of hotel renovations and changes of use and the unions getting hot under the collar and threatening protests as a consequence may therefore be just that - hype. Some hotels and hotel chains are in good enough shape to effect changes, but many are not.

One reason why owners want to sell hotels and why it is proving difficult to do so and would also prove difficult to convert them is because they are that old that the cost of conversion would be nigh on prohibitive. Buyers are unlikely to take on hotels that demand significant investment in addition to what are sales tags which are too high. Like with many restaurants or bars that are for sale, the expectations of owners are unrealistic, based on past or expected performance and divorced from the circumstances that now obtain.

Bellevue, though taken on by Posibilitum, is a case in point when it comes to old stock. The complex, all 1400 apartments of it, is nearly 40 years old. Its sheer size is a constraint on renovation as is its age, but renovation is badly needed. Bellevue has acquired a more diverse market over the past few years - it isn't the ultra-Brit complex it once was - but it tends to be hotels for the British market in the resorts of Alcúdia and Magalluf that are the oldest and which attract less profit because of the very nature of the particular market they cater for. Another reason, therefore, why prospective buyers might be wary.

A further reason is the complexity of financing arrangements and ownership issues. The travel and hotel group Orizonia had, still has as far as I am aware, a mortgage on Bellevue which was raised as a guarantee against a debt to the company run up by the previous owners, the now bust Grupo Marsans. And there is a similar story with Hotasa.

Bank funding requires security, and in the case of Hotasa, the house has well and truly been bet. The court bankruptcy proceedings relating to Nueva Rumasa have revealed the scale of the mortgages that hang over Hotasa. One hotel alone, Santa Fe in Can Picafort, has been used as a guarantee four times, to which can be added the embargo slapped on it by the Hacienda in respect of a debt of some 120,000 euros. In total, the seven Hotasa hotels in the Balearics have mortgages valued at just short of 138 million euros, three and a half times the size of the mortgage debt said to be owed to Orizonia.

The judge presiding over the proceedings has been obliged to appoint five administrators because of the sheer complexity of the hotels' affairs. The labyrinth of different companies in addition to the various mortgages would surely make a purchaser riding to Hotasa's aid, be it Posibilitum or any other, pause while the administrators try and unravel the affairs. Hotasa may be a specific case, but who's to say what complexity might apply to other hotels or hotel groups and which might add to deterring prospective purchasers.

Outdated, unprofitable, underfunded, debt-ridden: the reasons why there are so few buyers for hotels and why the much-hoped-for conversions may yet never take place.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.