"Friends and neighbours, as the new spokesperson for the neighbourhood association, I hope for the collaboration of all residents, working together as an association of friends in this time of crisis in order to cure all the ills in the area, to beautify and enrich it and enhance our local heritage." These words were written twenty-five years ago. They were written about Magalluf. The author was Pepe Tirado, the president of Acotur, the association of tourist services businesses. Poor old Pep. A quarter of a century's worth of working together and a summer's worth of railing against the evils of Punta Bellend and mamading, and blow me he finds himself in danger of being torpedoed below the waist line by a new association: Calvia con Futuro, an association which I imagine is creating great excitement in the quiet resorts such as Illetes and the leafy hinterland parts like Es Capdella: Magalluf con Futuro would be more apt.
Hey ho, never mind, Pep, but there you were a couple of weeks ago announcing the results of a survey of Magalluf businesses by Acotur in which businesses overwhelmingly said they would be in favour of tougher local ordinance and were against practices which degraded the area around the strip and which were out of control.
The Future of Magalluf would doubtless agree, espousing, as it does, sustainable tourism. I wonder if they know this what means. It's a concept which sound good and altruistic, and Gabriel Escarrer of Meliá did after all use the S-word when he said that certain businesses could take their "pathetic expertise somewhere else". And which businesses was he referring to exactly? Well, perhaps he was referring to Carnage, the bar-crawl and pool-party organisers, or to the bar in which the infamous blowjob video was filmed. And what do you know? Both are represented on the Future of Magalluf.
Jaime Martínez, the tourism minister, welcomed the new association, but you could detect that he wasn't overwhelmed. There are several other associations and business groups in Magalluf as it is, such as Acotur, and they have long had the ear of Calvia town hall or regional government. It is legitimate to question how effective they have been and indeed how representative they truly are, but another association is just that - another association amidst all the various voices that are raised. And in the case of the Future of Magalluf one can sense that it is grabbing hold of the coat tails of betterment in the resort and the desire for and acceptance of this betterment, as indicated by the Acotur survey.
Martínez, formerly part of the Calvia town hall apparatus, has also said that bar crawls are not wanted, which implies a criticism of the town hall which set out new rules for their organisation earlier this year and which were generally flouted. And here lies the problem. If there are new rules or if there is self-regulation by members of an association, who'll be the first to break them? The Future of Magalluf might try and portray itself as acting in a co-operative manner, but individual businesses will always place themselves above the collective.
The association does at least have a respected president, even if not all of its component parts have hitherto acted in a wholly respectable fashion. Alfonso Robledo is the president of the PIMEM (small to medium-sized businesses) restaurant association, albeit that this association left PIMEM in August. He is said to be neutral and to not have business interests in Calvia and therefore Magalluf. This neutrality is one reason why he was invited to be president, it is said, but this in a way is interesting in itself. One of the Future of Magalluf's vice-presidents, unless I am very much mistaken, once took to social media to rail against anyone who didn't live and work in Magalluf, i.e. their opinions and views were not valid and they could basically do one. Perhaps, however, this was one of the "mistakes" to which she has alluded.
I am, I think I need to make clear, not against businesses involved with this association. Indeed, I was one of the few in the media who attacked the punitive nature of measures taken against the likes of the Playhouse bar (and which have not actually been implemented). They were caught up in the storm that broke out because of the blowjob video and were thus victims of a situation - the salacious and lewd activities, the excessive drinking and so on - that has obtained for years and which has been promoted by other businesses with greater clout in Magalluf. There is unquestionably an imbalance in Magalluf, a favouring of certain businesses over others, and this has come firmly to light with the detention (and now release) of the chief of police. An even playing-field, a fairness in supervision, an improvement in standards of behaviour; these should all be welcomed. But whether they can be achieved is another matter.
Showing posts with label Calvia town hall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Calvia town hall. Show all posts
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Monday, July 07, 2014
Damage Prevention: Magalluf and social media
Who would have thought it? Gentlemanly, former England cricket captain Andrew Strauss caught using the c-word to describe Kevin Pietersen. Strauss felt the need to issue an immediate and unreserved apology, though maybe he had nothing to apologise for. He thought he was off air. His mistake was in not knowing that there was a broadcast feed via a Fox Sports app in Australia.
Little that is nowadays said or done is not subject to being brought to the public's attention. Society, in whatever form, has become its own broadcaster. In this multi-connected, networked, voyeuristic world, there can be no room for naïvité. Strauss's bigger mistake was that he was naïve.
Such is the potential for embarrassment that media management should be shifting its emphasis. This management should be about anticipation, about damage prevention, rather than reaction and damage limitation. Nowadays, a media "crisis" can arise frequently and at random; the Murphy's Law for the technological world - what can go wrong will go wrong and will be on everyone's phone. It is naïve to believe that all damage can be prevented, but the need now is to at least try to prevent it. And accepting that it is impossible to prevent all damage, then mechanisms need to be in place to ensure adequate, appropriate and swift responses. Strauss's response was all three. He now surely understands what networked society means.
Amidst all the debate and arguments about the Magalluf video, there is one very important point which stands out. Peter Newey on the Facebook page of "The Bulletin" made it very well: "the only thing that is new is the technology that enables people to video such goings-on and then send them out to watch on their phones". Absolutely. Otherwise, and as many other commentators have observed, there was nothing new. Such goings-on have been going on for years. It's just that they didn't end up on What's App. But now that one has, there are others, and there will doubtless be more. Like happy-slappy copycatism bred filmed-on-phone beatings, there will be happy slappers applying further blows to a reputation that can barely go much lower.
The surprise about the Magalluf video is that there should be any surprise that one of that variety has found its way into the public domain. Technology being as it is, goings-on of this sort having been as common for so many years as they have, it was all but inevitable that one day the public would know and would be able to join in with the voyeurism. So inevitable that it might have been predicted.
You cannot plan for every eventuality. It is ridiculous to suggest that you can. But there are means of damage prevention, when you know all too well the potential sources of damage: the sources that have been goings-on for years and about which nothing has been done. Blame the bar-crawl organisers all that you will, but they are merely the product of historical inaction, of a failure to prevent damage. This failure has finally caught up with Magalluf. Technology has exposed the failure to prevent the damage; its Carnage, if you like. This technology will not go away. If more damage is not to be caused, then the sources of technology's appetite for recording, filming and broadcasting have to be made to go away.
The responses from officialdom to the video, those of outrage and of investigations, will include no admissions of failings, both past and present, no apologies for the abrogations of responsibility by different bodies; the town hall is by no means the only one. Yet, the warning signs were so clearly there. From the broadcast media to informal social media there has been a short but predictable step, one that is more graphic and salacious than the established media, but one that has pandered to the prurient appetite of this media and also of the internet user. When the BBC's Stacey Dooley documentary featured a similar scene, among its various other negative images, the reaction was to condemn the BBC. Even someone like Pepe Tirado of Acotur, a critic of so much that is wrong in Magalluf, leapt to the defence of Magalluf and echoed the condemnation. It may have been Magalluf, but it was our Magalluf, our Mallorcan Magalluf. No one else's. And certainly not one for a foreign broadcaster to be poking its nose into.
But of course it isn't a Mallorcan Magalluf. It is everyone's. And technology makes it so. There may have been some naïvité surrounding the BBC documentary, but there is absolutely no place for naïvité in networked society; social media can wreak havoc, can cause carnage.
The damage is done, but more damage has to now be prevented, and its sources - all of them - eliminated.
Little that is nowadays said or done is not subject to being brought to the public's attention. Society, in whatever form, has become its own broadcaster. In this multi-connected, networked, voyeuristic world, there can be no room for naïvité. Strauss's bigger mistake was that he was naïve.
Such is the potential for embarrassment that media management should be shifting its emphasis. This management should be about anticipation, about damage prevention, rather than reaction and damage limitation. Nowadays, a media "crisis" can arise frequently and at random; the Murphy's Law for the technological world - what can go wrong will go wrong and will be on everyone's phone. It is naïve to believe that all damage can be prevented, but the need now is to at least try to prevent it. And accepting that it is impossible to prevent all damage, then mechanisms need to be in place to ensure adequate, appropriate and swift responses. Strauss's response was all three. He now surely understands what networked society means.
Amidst all the debate and arguments about the Magalluf video, there is one very important point which stands out. Peter Newey on the Facebook page of "The Bulletin" made it very well: "the only thing that is new is the technology that enables people to video such goings-on and then send them out to watch on their phones". Absolutely. Otherwise, and as many other commentators have observed, there was nothing new. Such goings-on have been going on for years. It's just that they didn't end up on What's App. But now that one has, there are others, and there will doubtless be more. Like happy-slappy copycatism bred filmed-on-phone beatings, there will be happy slappers applying further blows to a reputation that can barely go much lower.
The surprise about the Magalluf video is that there should be any surprise that one of that variety has found its way into the public domain. Technology being as it is, goings-on of this sort having been as common for so many years as they have, it was all but inevitable that one day the public would know and would be able to join in with the voyeurism. So inevitable that it might have been predicted.
You cannot plan for every eventuality. It is ridiculous to suggest that you can. But there are means of damage prevention, when you know all too well the potential sources of damage: the sources that have been goings-on for years and about which nothing has been done. Blame the bar-crawl organisers all that you will, but they are merely the product of historical inaction, of a failure to prevent damage. This failure has finally caught up with Magalluf. Technology has exposed the failure to prevent the damage; its Carnage, if you like. This technology will not go away. If more damage is not to be caused, then the sources of technology's appetite for recording, filming and broadcasting have to be made to go away.
The responses from officialdom to the video, those of outrage and of investigations, will include no admissions of failings, both past and present, no apologies for the abrogations of responsibility by different bodies; the town hall is by no means the only one. Yet, the warning signs were so clearly there. From the broadcast media to informal social media there has been a short but predictable step, one that is more graphic and salacious than the established media, but one that has pandered to the prurient appetite of this media and also of the internet user. When the BBC's Stacey Dooley documentary featured a similar scene, among its various other negative images, the reaction was to condemn the BBC. Even someone like Pepe Tirado of Acotur, a critic of so much that is wrong in Magalluf, leapt to the defence of Magalluf and echoed the condemnation. It may have been Magalluf, but it was our Magalluf, our Mallorcan Magalluf. No one else's. And certainly not one for a foreign broadcaster to be poking its nose into.
But of course it isn't a Mallorcan Magalluf. It is everyone's. And technology makes it so. There may have been some naïvité surrounding the BBC documentary, but there is absolutely no place for naïvité in networked society; social media can wreak havoc, can cause carnage.
The damage is done, but more damage has to now be prevented, and its sources - all of them - eliminated.
Saturday, July 05, 2014
That Video - Some Good From The Carnage?
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Wednesday, September 18, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Calvia town hall calls for reinstatement of residence cards for European nationals
Calvia town hall has announced that it will pass a council motion that will forward a request to Brussels to reverse a decision taken in 2006 whereby European (EU) nationals who are resident in Spain were no longer issued with an identity residence card. The card is felt to be more practical than alternative means of identification, namely carrying a passport or a notarised copy of the same.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Unbelievable Remedies: Magalluf
Incidents centred on Magalluf's Punta Ballena have decreased considerably. Thus spake a newspaper report of 15 August. "Great evils" require "grand remedies", it was said. These great evils were implied rather than defined and they were hyperbole; the committing of great evils in modern-day Mallorca is a rare occurrence.
But never let it be said that exaggerated words cannot exaggerate situations. This is why there is such a thing as exaggeration. Its purpose is distortion or disproportion. From great evils do grand or great remedies come. The greater the evil, the grander the remedy and so therefore the greater the rejoicing at deliverance from evil.
The grand remedies (equally disproportionate insofar as there can be such a thing as an equal measure of disproportion) can be counted. Counted on fewer than the total number of fingers on both hands. Take away the thumbs and you have the numerical value of the remedies. Eight. Eight local police officers. The magnificent seven plus one. Incidents have decreased considerably.
It would be nice to believe that Punta Ballena has been or is being delivered from evil. Or evils. Nice to believe, but there are plenty of unbelievers. Decreased considerably? Depends. The report's evils were related to the great drunken unwashed. The lesser of evils in that remedies are less grand. They don't have to be super-grand where youthful tourists who are off their faces are concerned. It is, nevertheless, reasonable to ask why the not so grand remedy of a few more cops to tackle the lagering, Jägerbombing, shot-shooting, laughing-gassing invasion force took as long as it did to occur to anyone. Not, or so it would seem, that the eight make a great deal of difference. Despite what the considerable-decrease report suggests to the contrary.
Four days before this report, Javier Pierotti posted again on his "Magaluf Caos" blog. His video with this post was as troubling as the one he had originally posted of a driver trapped by a mob along the strip. It would take far too long to summarise what Javier said in his entry for 11 August, but if you go to the bottom of it, you will see that, in addition to Calvia town hall, he has sent his complaint to television and other media organisations in Spain as well as to the Spanish Government, the Interior Ministry, police agencies, the regional government in the Balearics, the courts in Palma, the Attorney-General, the British Consulate and the Complaints Office of the European Community.
Four days later came the report in the local press. Not about Javier's complaint but about incidents having decreased considerably, a considerable decrease that appears at variance with what is being said by those who aren't in positions of authority. The considerable-decrease report, moreover, did not mention the problems of prostitutes, looky-looky men and violence. There are plenty of people who have mentioned them. Before and since the report of 15 August. Are these the greater evils; greater because they go un-decreased?
Javier Pierotti does not seek to attach blame to the local police. Others do. It is wise that I don't repeat some of the things said on social media, but from what is said, there is clear frustration and anger in Magalluf. The police are one target for this discontent but the greater one is the body politic, in particular that which, to paraphrase some of the sentiments, lies inert in a bunker in Calvia.
What happens in Mallorca stays in Mallorca. It's a ridiculous saying because nothing can stay in Mallorca any longer. The reactions to Stacey Dooley (and to "Bild" on Playa de Palma) were absurd for various reasons, one of which was that they neglected the fact that conventional media are only one part of the story. Through social media, nothing stays in Mallorca. Regular on-the-spot reports by those who have not taken the media shilling and who have no axe to grind other than that they have had it with all the problems are constantly reinforced and added to: hourly, daily, weekly. They too can be prone to exaggeration or distortion. They can be and often are far more accusatory than conventional media. There may be exaggerations, but why would people who work and live in Magalluf invent things? They stand to lose, which is why they draw attention to what they see as inertia and indifference. And why when, four days after Javier Pierotti* posted that he had notified who he had notified, the report of incidents decreasing considerably was greeted with disbelief.
* http://javierpierotti.blogspot.com.es/2013/08/magaluf-caos-ii.html
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
But never let it be said that exaggerated words cannot exaggerate situations. This is why there is such a thing as exaggeration. Its purpose is distortion or disproportion. From great evils do grand or great remedies come. The greater the evil, the grander the remedy and so therefore the greater the rejoicing at deliverance from evil.
The grand remedies (equally disproportionate insofar as there can be such a thing as an equal measure of disproportion) can be counted. Counted on fewer than the total number of fingers on both hands. Take away the thumbs and you have the numerical value of the remedies. Eight. Eight local police officers. The magnificent seven plus one. Incidents have decreased considerably.
It would be nice to believe that Punta Ballena has been or is being delivered from evil. Or evils. Nice to believe, but there are plenty of unbelievers. Decreased considerably? Depends. The report's evils were related to the great drunken unwashed. The lesser of evils in that remedies are less grand. They don't have to be super-grand where youthful tourists who are off their faces are concerned. It is, nevertheless, reasonable to ask why the not so grand remedy of a few more cops to tackle the lagering, Jägerbombing, shot-shooting, laughing-gassing invasion force took as long as it did to occur to anyone. Not, or so it would seem, that the eight make a great deal of difference. Despite what the considerable-decrease report suggests to the contrary.
Four days before this report, Javier Pierotti posted again on his "Magaluf Caos" blog. His video with this post was as troubling as the one he had originally posted of a driver trapped by a mob along the strip. It would take far too long to summarise what Javier said in his entry for 11 August, but if you go to the bottom of it, you will see that, in addition to Calvia town hall, he has sent his complaint to television and other media organisations in Spain as well as to the Spanish Government, the Interior Ministry, police agencies, the regional government in the Balearics, the courts in Palma, the Attorney-General, the British Consulate and the Complaints Office of the European Community.
Four days later came the report in the local press. Not about Javier's complaint but about incidents having decreased considerably, a considerable decrease that appears at variance with what is being said by those who aren't in positions of authority. The considerable-decrease report, moreover, did not mention the problems of prostitutes, looky-looky men and violence. There are plenty of people who have mentioned them. Before and since the report of 15 August. Are these the greater evils; greater because they go un-decreased?
Javier Pierotti does not seek to attach blame to the local police. Others do. It is wise that I don't repeat some of the things said on social media, but from what is said, there is clear frustration and anger in Magalluf. The police are one target for this discontent but the greater one is the body politic, in particular that which, to paraphrase some of the sentiments, lies inert in a bunker in Calvia.
What happens in Mallorca stays in Mallorca. It's a ridiculous saying because nothing can stay in Mallorca any longer. The reactions to Stacey Dooley (and to "Bild" on Playa de Palma) were absurd for various reasons, one of which was that they neglected the fact that conventional media are only one part of the story. Through social media, nothing stays in Mallorca. Regular on-the-spot reports by those who have not taken the media shilling and who have no axe to grind other than that they have had it with all the problems are constantly reinforced and added to: hourly, daily, weekly. They too can be prone to exaggeration or distortion. They can be and often are far more accusatory than conventional media. There may be exaggerations, but why would people who work and live in Magalluf invent things? They stand to lose, which is why they draw attention to what they see as inertia and indifference. And why when, four days after Javier Pierotti* posted that he had notified who he had notified, the report of incidents decreasing considerably was greeted with disbelief.
* http://javierpierotti.blogspot.com.es/2013/08/magaluf-caos-ii.html
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, June 06, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Calvia town hall to be denounced over Mallorca Rocks
As flagged up two days ago, Acotur, the tourist business association, has said that it will issue a "denuncia" against Calvia town hall for the granting of licences which permit the concerts at the Mallorca Rocks hotel. Acotur argues that the town hall has hidden information from authorities, i.e. the interior ministry and the Council of Mallorca, and that the concerts represent a health and safety risk.
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