Humanising Tourism: Cala Millor

If you go hunting on the steam internet, you can unearth old copies of local publications: local, as in a municipality's or even parts of municipalities. One of the pearls (pun intended) to be found is a copy of Manacor's "Perlas y Cuevas" (pearls and caves) dated 17 September, 1983. The cover of this edition is interesting for different reasons. One, almost incidentally, is that there is a photo of the first president of the Balearics, Gabriel Cañellas: he'd become president on 10 June that year.

Cañellas was thus a symbol of the new democracy, albeit that it had taken over seven years from the time of Franco's death for autonomous government to arrive in the Balearics. Of further interest is the name which appears under the title: the magazine's director, i.e. editor, Rafael Ferrer Massanet. And why is he of interest? Well, for one thing he had set the magazine up in the early 1960s. Another was that he was a considerable writer, journalist and historian. Among his interests was the study of the Civil War, in which - where Mallorca was concerned - Manacor had played a significant role. It was Manacor's coast - Porto Cristo - where Captain Alberto Bayo's Republicans made one of their landings in August eighty years ago; the mission was of course to prove to be a total disaster. The other landing was at Punta Amer in neighbouring Sant Llorenç.

He was also a lyricist and penned the words to "hits" by one of the leading Mallorcan pop groups of the 1960s - Los 5 del Este, whose fame was initially acquired in Cala Millor. With such titles as "Sí, sí, sí", their collected works were typical of the time: light, undemanding pop that would never give the censors cause for concern.

The picture one has of Ferrer Massanet is of a highly cultured man - he also established the first private art gallery in Manacor - yet one who was not turned off by the arrival of tourism. Writers of his vintage weren't necessarily kind to the onset of mass tourism, though most of this criticism was delayed until after Franco had died. "Perlas y Cuevas" was never solely about tourism of course (it is, incidentally, still going), but tourism played a significant role in its coverage. Ferrer Massanet appeared to embrace it, warts and all. In 1969, for instance, the magazine carried a glowing interview with Jaume de Juan Pons, who was responsible for the Playa Moreia hotel in S'Illot. The story of that hotel, apocryphal possibly, was that in 1963 he turned up in a Seat 600, took a shovel out of the car and started digging. The hotel opened the following year.

And so one comes to that September 1983 edition. Ferrer Massanet was still the editor, his name, as it had always been, under the title. But what else do we see on that cover? There is a photo - black and white. A coastline. Buildings, some several stories high. It's Cala Millor. Yet, why is Cala Millor featuring in a Manacor publication? The headline tells the story - "Bahia Cala Millor" (Cala Millor bay). The resort has its own odd story, but it doesn't extend to being in three municipalities: only the two - Sant Llorenç and Son Servera. What we in fact see is more than Cala Millor, because here is the conurbation that emerged on the east coast, one that crosses the border of Sant Llorenç into the Manacor part (the larger part) of S'Illot.

That particular issue was marking the fact that the tourist fiestas were taking place; the fourth time that they had been staged. One assumes that it was Ferrer Massanet who wrote on the cover about travellers whose lives might be full of traumas being able to forget their problems. Why? Because Cala Millor would allow them to. In addition, under the heading "Bahia Cala Millor" it reads ... "and the humanisation of international tourism".

That one word, humanisation, can now perhaps seem strange. In the context of current debates regarding "massification" and "saturation", here was a tribute to the humanising qualities of mass tourism. The photo was evidence of that tourism, the conurbation of the bay of Cala Millor.

One might say, well it was 33 years ago. It was indeed, but by 1983 there was a full-scale debate going on about the future of tourism and of the legacy created by coastal developments. The photo of Cañellas was, with hindsight, not so incidental. The first regional government set about attempting to legislate for what were being perceived as errors of the past. Where Ferrer Massanet was concerned, or so it appeared, those errors were not as great as were being argued. "Sí, sí, sí", Cala Millor, the human face of Mallorcan tourism.

Days And Weeks Of The Tourist

Fifty years ago, an order went out from the Spanish Ministry for Information and Tourism. Manuel Fraga, the minister, instituted the "day of the tourist". Resorts were commanded - not asked but commanded - to put on a day of special celebration in honour of their guests. In Mallorca and the Balearics, the press, never knowingly anything less than compliant (it didn't have much choice as Fraga was in censorious and commanding control of information as well), said: "The day of the tourist was celebrated with immense joy. All hotels on the island organised programmes of entertainment, which started in the morning with bagpipe and drum music. The oldest and most typical dishes of the island were served, though lobster was served, too, and that is not the most typical or the oldest. Free accommodation stays were raffled. There were attractions for every taste as well as flowers and music. There was no doubt this day of the tourist was a pleasure. Without being handed a bill, tourists could have fun and also line their stomachs."

Well, perhaps there was just a hint of dissenting comment in that last sentence, but that would have depended on how it was interpreted. Nevertheless, the first day of the tourist was considered a grand success. Similar days were organised for some years after. At some stage, it was clearly felt that there was no longer any need for them. The cost of the lobster probably became prohibitive. Or maybe it was because a successor of Fraga's lost his commander and his job.

Back in the day, they could do things like order hotels to put on days of immense joy. Woe betide any member of a hotel staff who was not wearing a beaming smile all day. A moment of less than total joyousness could have found him or her packed off to the fields for a month's hard labour along with the black marketeers (those who were unlucky enough to be caught and who were small enough fry). It was all a bit Korean, northern as opposed to southern. But there again, perhaps hotel staff were all too happy to get into the mood. The day of the tourist was an expression of gratitude, and those employed in the industry had as much to be grateful for as the lucky tourists who were woken up with the sound of bagpipes, an honour normally only reserved for the Queen when in residence at Balmoral.

While tourist days, since those heady times under Franco, have become ad-hoc affairs, usually to coincide with World Tourism Day at the end of September, there is one resort which has been making a greater contribution to celebrating tourists than any other. And that is Cala Millor. For years now, it hasn't just had a day, it has had a whole week.

In the edition of the local publication "Perlas y Cuevas" from 17 September, 1983, the front page had a headline which read "Cala Millor bay or the humanisation of international tourism". Its editorial spoke of travellers whose lives might be full of traumas who were able to forget their problems because when the party is the party, it is celebrated in Cala Millor. In 1983, it was in fact the fourth tourist week. It was a fiesta that bore a strong resemblance to most other fiestas. There was plenty of sport, some folk dance, concerts by the local band of music, a grand parade of floats, and fireworks which brought the whole week to its climax. There was only one aspect that was conspicuous by its absence from a regular fiesta - religion. Tourism was the religion after all, and it was being fully humanised 31 years ago in Cala Millor.

It's impressive that Cala Millor has been able to keep this tradition for the new age going for as long as it has, but even its efforts can strike one as a little strange. Once upon a time, when tourism was new and everyone's gratitude needed to be conveyed, it was perfectly understandable. But nowadays? Well, perhaps there is in fact even more need. In 1964, tourists were not taken for granted. What has happened since is that they have been taken for granted. Rather than strange, therefore, a week devoted to celebrating tourism is to be applauded, as are tourist days. Alcúdia, which introduced one a few years, celebrates its tomorrow. More strange perhaps is the fact that a day or a week should have to be dedicated to the celebration of tourists. Every day of the year should be a celebration.

In Alcúdia, they give English prominence in the poster for the tourist day, for once an acknowledgement that tourists shouldn't be taken for granted and be expected to understand Catalan or Castellano. Even so, much as Cala Millor's tourist week in 1983 was excellent, the publication was of course only in Spanish.

Tales Of The Llevant: Cala Bona

Ninety years ago, on 20 July 1924, there was an inauguration in Cala Bona. It wouldn't have been a grand affair. It is doubtful that numerous dignitaries and general freeloaders attended. This, after all, was just a tiny place on the east coast with a wee small port and some fishermen. Nevertheless, on that day ninety years ago Miquel Vives Servera and his wife, Matilde Maria Gonzalez Miralles, opened Sa Fonda de Can Cupa, sometimes also referred to as Sa Fonda de Can Bona. Their daughter, also Matilde, who was eighteen years old at the time, came to be renowned for her bouillabaisse and lobster à l'Américaine, but even then she had a good reputation. There may not have been many dignitaries at the opening, but the fonda (inn) attracted people from various parts of Mallorca. They came from Sineu, they came from Sant Joan, and the doctor in Vilafranca also came. The inn flourished and the inn became a hotel. The Hotel Cala Bona.

In 1960, just as the tourism boom was about to get underway, the hotel could boast all of fifteen rooms. The clientele wasn't foreign. It primarily came just the short distance from Manacor to sample a new speciality of the house, red mullet. In 1961, a plan was put forward to put two more floors on to the hotel. By the following year, the German tour operator Quelle had entered into an arrangement with the hotel, and the rest, needless to say, was history. Cala Bona, as a tourist resort, was born, and its pioneer was Matilde's son, Sebastian Bauzá. In 1963, the Hotel Llevant was opened, but immediately hit problems. The failure of a tour operator it had contracted with left it with more waiters than guests. By 1964, though, things had picked up. And there was another hotel, not one that was the creation of local Mallorcan families but of a Swiss couple, Wolfgang and Trudel Schrader, who had been invited by a friend to Cala Bona in 1960, had bought some land and had built a hotel. It was the Gran Sol.

In 1992, Matilde Vives was honoured by the Cala Millor hoteliers' association. She was asked if, back in the days of the original inn, she could have imagined how the inn and then the hotel would come to play a part in the new tourism world. It was a daft question. How could she have been expected to have foreseen what was to be? And especially on the east coast of Mallorca. As she commented then, while Cala Bona had its inn, Cala Millor had nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a house and certainly not a hotel. It wasn't until 1933 that a hotel emerged in Cala Millor - the Eureka - by which time there were also some small houses.

In the inter-war years, the east coast was all but overlooked when it came to the early development of resorts (Porto Cristo and especially the caves were a different matter; they hadn't been overlooked). As I remarked yesterday, Cala Ratjada, which had its rich villa and palace owners, might have become one of those inter-war resorts, but it didn't. The only true tourism development was way down on the south-east corner in what was to be called Cala d'Or. When tourism development kicked in in the 1960s, it was development with a large "D". The coast from Cala Bona down to Calas de Mallorca was referred to, in derogatory terms, as the "wall of concrete", and it was compared with a similar "wall" along the Playa de Palma. There was, however, one pretty crucial difference. Playa de Palma was planned. They actually wanted to build a wall of concrete in Palma. It was within one municipality, i.e. Palma, and stretched from the original resort of Ciudad Jardin to the border with Llucmajor and so Arenal, which, as an incipient resort development back in the 1930s, had been called Bellavista. The east-coast wall was not planned quite so systematically; it couldn't have been because there were three municipalities involved. 

This so-called east-coast wall came into being in a more piecemeal fashion. Calas de Mallorca, at its lower end, wasn't a factor until a 1963 law on "the centres of national touristic interest" declared it a zone for development (Playa de Muro was another resort which was covered by this law). By the time that Calas de Mallorca was being legally defined, Cala Millor had been, as tourism legend tells us, "discovered" by Skytours.

Mallorca's tourism history is full of pioneers, those like Sebastian Bauzá and indeed his mother and father. But these pioneers, down Mallorca's east coast certainly, were not all, as was the case with Cala Bona, local people. There were the Schraders as well. And there were also the Belgians. Which is another tale entirely.

Mallorca's Forgotten Tourist Resorts

One of the clichés about football matches is that if you don't notice or hardly ever hear a commentator mention the referee, then the ref must be having a good match. He is getting on with what he's supposed to do, not making a rick and not drawing undue attention to himself.

If Mallorca's resorts were like football referees, then there are some which constantly do make a rick. For all the wrong reasons, the refs of Magalluf, Arenal, Playa de Palma and Cala Rajada have been too liberal with their red cards, have missed obvious penalties or offsides or have been conned by a dive. There are some resorts which do a degree of preening and bring attention to themselves. Alcúdia is one. It shouts about its marina and watersports, at the same time overlooking its Mile. But drawing attention is not as bad as making a rick, so long as the attention is merited.

As with the performance of the ref on the day, the reports in the papers the following day will make no mention of the man with the whistle if he has put in a solid and undemonstrative shift. Occasionally, he will be mentioned for having had a blinder: for rightly not issuing a red, for correctly not awarding a penalty and for not being conned by a dive. But usually it's the making of a rick which produces the reporter's column inches. Bad performance equals good copy.

So it also is with Mallorca's resorts. The reporting of them almost inevitably centres on the bad. Why? Well, what is there to be said about resorts that just get on with things, don't make a fuss and never experience any trouble? Of course, it isn't always the bad, which is why there are reports of the good. Alcúdia might be showing off when it shouts about its cruise ships arriving for the first time, but then why not.

But how many resorts ever really get mentioned? You would be forgiven for thinking sometimes that there were only about half a dozen, yet there are many more about which little is ever heard. These are the resorts which, like the sound-performing, undemonstrative ref, just get on with being resorts. If there is one thing wrong with some of them, it is that they don't indulge in more of the Alcúdia promo exercises. But then they don't all have cruise ships and supposedly award-winning marinas.

Some time ago, I wrote a piece about Mallorca's north-south divide in which I said that "if you are unfortunate enough to live right out on the east coast, you will know that, for all intents and purposes, you don't exist".

If one takes the east as stretching from Cala Rajada to Cala d'Or and Santanyí, ask yourself how often you ever hear about the east-coast resorts. Cala Rajada, yes, but mainly if you are German and you are concerned that it has become the New Arenal. Porto Cristo? Usually only when they are knocking bridges down. Other resorts?

If you take the three resorts along the bay of Alcúdia, their combined tourist population isn't that much lower than that in Calvià, which has the highest concentration of tourists and which attracts the greatest attention, mainly because Magalluf and to a lesser extent Santa Ponsa are considered to equate to Calvià when they quite plainly do not. But the bay of Alcúdia covers a fair distance. By comparison, the bay of Cala Millor, something of a misnomer admittedly, covers a far shorter distance. Yet, from Costa dels Pins to S'Illot there is a tourist population greatly in excess of Alcúdia on its own. In terms of tourist populations, it ranks third behind Calvià and Palma.

So why is so little heard of it? The reason lies with the ref analogy. It doesn't make a rick. There is no bad performance. Both police and politicians say that it is quiet. Nothing really happens other than tourists, in great numbers, getting on and enjoying themselves. There is, though, going to be a bit of showing-off. A tourist consortium has been formed by the two municipalities, Sant Llorenç and Son Servera, into which Cala Millor falls. It is something of a pioneering move for town halls to combine in order to undertake a joint promotional drive, one aimed at enhancing the bay as a tourist destination.

It's good. One can argue that it has taken the town halls a hell of a long time to get round to something as obvious as joint co-ordination and co-operation, but let's not be too critical. One fancies we'll be hearing more. And there won't be any ricks.

* Photo of Cala Millor from Wikipedia.

MALLORCA TODAY - Cala Millor tourist train

The tourist train that runs between Cala Millor and the Costa Pinos and which was suspended last summer because of various technical and safety issues has been given the all-clear by Son Servera town hall to start up again this season.