Anarchists Say No To Cruises

With Palma continuing to buckle under the pressure of the cruise hordes, we learn that the tourism ministry is planning to offer "incentives" to cruise operators in order to prevent their ships all turning up at the weekend. Instead, said tourism director-general Pilar Carbonell, the ships should come during the week so that the weekends can be "decongested". 

And what might these "incentives" be? Pilar couldn't say, and besides they wouldn't be available until 2018 at the earliest, as schedules have already been firmed up for next year at least. Whatever they might be, Pilar wants to avoid there being repeats of situations where eight ships arrive at the same time. But wasn't it a midweek day when there was all that fuss about the number of ships in May? And is it my imagination, or are Sundays often quite light when it comes to ships? Still, if the government can ensure there are no ships at the weekend, then no one needs worry any longer about whether the shops are open or not.

The cruise thousands who may or may not descend on the capital this coming Friday and Saturday had better take note and ensure that they avoid the Plaça del Pes de la Palla. Which is where precisely? Near to the Sant Francesc basilica, that's where, and so not far from the Cathedral. And why should they avoid this square? Anarchists, that's why.

During last week there was an announcement of two days of whatever taking place in the square. Anarchists, left-wingers and environmental organisations will be having what appear to be conferences under the theme of, more or less, the city is for those who live there, not for those who visit it.

Tourism is a scourge, suggest the anarchists, and they seem to reserve particular contempt for the "invasion" by Nordic countries, some sort of current-day Viking re-enactment that is leading to the Nordics buying up all available property.

So, cruise passengers beware, especially those from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and presumably also Finland. Don't venture to that particular square or indeed to other parts of the city that will be part of an "anti-tourist route".

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.

Monsters Of The Seas

Harmony Of The Seas will bring more than 100,000 passengers to Palma over the course of the summer and into autumn. On Monday the world's largest cruise ship will arrive. Its maiden voyage from Barcelona has had among its passengers some 2,500 journalists, travel agents and others from the tourism industry. You could say that Royal Caribbean has pushed the boat out in terms of attracting publicity.

When the ship arrived in Barcelona prior to its voyage, there was a protest. It wasn't large, only some 150 people. It wasn't, said the organisers, against tourists but against the tourism industry. Nevertheless, coaches taking passengers to cruise ships in the port were jeered. The protest was motivated by what is now becoming a familiar theme - the mass tourism of these monsters of the seas is not sustainable for the destinations that are visited.

The Balearic tourism minister, Biel Barceló, wishes to set a limit on the number of ships on any given day. He accepts that the number of four is subjective. He might also accept that the citing of the eight ships on one day in early May did not involve 22,000 passengers traipsing through the streets of the city. Three of the ships were home base. People were getting on, people were getting off and being taken to the airport. As ever, you can use numbers to suit an argument.

And the argument is being had over and over. The mantra of this summer is overcrowding. Competitor destination instability, huge supply of accommodation, colossal cruise ships. This is mass on a scale that not even Mallorca has previously experienced.

How does the government deal with it? Barceló suggests that there will be regulation in order to limit the number of ships, the cruise operators having given the suggestion of a limit short shrift. Spreading the load across the course of a week rather than loading influx on to one or two days sounds like common sense. It is also in keeping with Barceló's wish to spread the total tourism load over more months than is the case. It's easier said than done though, and he knows it.

And members of the government doesn't necessarily agree. President Armengol has said this week that she is against limits being placed on the number of tourist arrivals. She wants to spread the tourism load not by smoothing out the number which currently comes but by adding to it in the lower months of the year, thereby assisting with creating greater employment. Barceló has flip-flopped on the question of a limit. He has said that it would be difficult but he also intimated that he would like there to be one.

Barceló is not wrong in believing it would be difficult. The cruise-shop story is something of a sideshow. It only affects Palma. The mass is shortlived, even if it can be repeated almost daily. By far the most important contributory factor to the Barceló overcrowding theme is holiday accommodation. As he struggles to find "consensus" for planned legislation, that has been made ever more difficult by Brussels and the Spanish Supreme Court.

The European Commission issued a report earlier this week in which it said that bans on the so-called collaborative (sharing) economy services such as Airbnb and also Uber (for quasi-taxi service) should only be the "last resort". The Commission wants common rules to apply and has distinguished between individuals who rent out their properties on an occasional basis and operators who rent out in a "professional capacity". For the latter, it is suggesting that there should be a "threshold" on the level of activity but it is certainly not proposing onerous restrictions: quite the opposite.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has this week ruled against the regional government in Madrid. It had decreed that a holiday rental via, for example, an Airbnb-promoted property must have a minimum stay of five days. The court has ruled that this is a restriction of competition. It might not appear to have too much relevance for Mallorca, given that tourists typically stay for longer than five days, but it does relevance insofar as the Supreme Court is laying down principles of competition, and they are not so far removed from those of the European Commission.

Against the background of all this has come a further report this week. It states that the availability of holiday rental in Spain as a whole now exceeds the supply of "regulated" accommodation (hotels, for instance) for the first time. It is said that there are 2.7 million holiday rental places as opposed to 2.4 million regulated places, and it is most unlikely that this trend will be reversed. In addition to Brussels and the Supreme Court, there is the National Competition Commission in Madrid: it is against bans on Airbnb and others.

There is a perfect storm that is creating overcrowding in Mallorca. The weather will be calm on Monday, but might a different storm brew? The protest in Barcelona will surely not have gone unnoticed.

Disharmony Of The Seas

On Monday, 13 June and on subsequent Mondays until late in October, Royal Caribbean's Harmony Of The Seas will form a colossal vision on early mornings in the bay of Palma before parking its massiveness in the port at eight o'clock. On board, at absolute capacity, can be 6,410 (or is it 6,780) passengers and 2,100 crew. The largest passenger ship in the world. Let the celebrations begin.

Impressive, that's the word. Impressive because of sheer size. Harmony Of The Seas is not alone in this regard. Watching these leviathans creep over the sea towards port, their movement imperceptible, their bulks do impress. There again, so do large aircraft when one sees them at relatively close hand. The instinct is to be impressed. Size matters.

Think about this for one moment. The largest single hotel complex in Mallorca in terms of total guest capacity is Alcudia's Bellevue. At a squeeze, and it would be, 6,000 people can be crammed into its 1,400 or so apartments of varying sizes. The upper limit might more typically be in the 5,000 range. Harmony Of The Seas plus crew dwarfs even Bellevue. Its human content exceeds even the most excessive of the island's land accommodation.

The ship, as with others in the contemporary fleet navigating the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the fjords and elsewhere, is representative of a new-age maritime Brutalist architecture. There is something almost Soviet about this design. Appropriate perhaps for the collectivist nature of its business. Pack 'em in, pack 'em high: fifteen decks in all on the Harmony.

Bellevue has a weirdly Soviet feel as well. Especially weird as it was built in the final years of the Franco regime. But its architecture is functional, utilitarian, Brutalist not so much because of the scale of the individual blocks but on account of the sense of "béton brut", the raw concrete Le Corbusier chose in bequeathing to the world the very term Brutalism.

Such land-based accommodation would not and could not be built now. Major new projects are of the Park Hyatt in Canyamel style. Its environmental ethics have been questioned, but at least the architecture has a reasonable (though by no means whole) sympathy for its wooded setting. Its human content might be only in the region of one tenth of Bellevue at full blast. 

Despite adding more floors, if the local authorities don't object, the trend in hotels is away from massiveness. At its best this trend is giving us the fabulously and lovingly re-crafted urban hotels, the boutiques of Palma and elsewhere. In full harmony with their environments. Harmony, that's another word.

Tourism in its mass version has always been dependent on the virtues of economies of scale. Greater the size, greater the volume, the lower the cost per unit. Volume is thus a virtue for the bottom line. Such economies still persist in Mallorca's sun-and-beach resorts - of course they do - but they are not on a scale of the behemoths of the oceans: more people on one ship than in any single hotel complex on the island.

What type of tourism is this? Is it the ultimate in terms of mass, one for which size, and very large size, is all that matters? We are impressed by the scale. But are we also appalled? Why are there such celebrations of these colossal apparitions lumbering closer and closer to port?

The cruise industry will baffle you with figures. Billions here, billions there. The employment, the sourcing of products and services, the general economic welfare that is generated. We get all that. But what of the direct impact? Two hundred euros per passenger. That was a spend figure cited last week for a Palma disembarking passenger. Way above a figure (acknowledged as an estimate) of sixty euros that the Balearic government came up with a few years ago. Better economic times may be returning, but by 140 euros? Direct individual spend is hugely variable. It depends on time in port and on the type of passenger: TUI Cruises have recently indulged in their own celebrations of all-inclusive cruise ships heading Mallorca's way.

The quest for cruising justification is necessary, given the disquiet expressed about it in certain quarters. It is the source of disharmony, with graffiti only a minor manifestation of this. And this disharmony arises not from the boutique-style ships, the clippers and the like but from the ominous floating housing estates. They are overwhelming in scale, and their human content can overwhelm as well.

This is before one gets to the environmental issue: air, noise, light pollution and marine. If land-based accommodation has been subject to ever tighter regulation, this seems to apply less to the temporary and transitory tourist container vessels. They come, in their huge numbers, and they go, leaving behind ... celebrations or disharmonies of the seas?

No Celebrations For Cruise Ships

There were eight cruise ships in port on Tuesday, a record in terms of the number of ships at one time. The president of the Balearic Ports Authority, Juan Gual de Torrella, said that they were happy because this reflected all the work that has been going into promoting this type of tourism. Not everyone was happy though.

Gual de Torrella noted that there won't be many days similar to Tuesday, when there was a total of 22,000 passengers: not a record, as there were 23,000 one day last summer. Of the eight ships, it should be noted that three were at the end of their cruises. Their passengers, both embarking and disembarking, were less likely than the passengers of the other five to have been wandering around the centre of the city. Wandering around and spending, by all accounts, comparatively little.

This was partly because there were coaches whisking passengers off to other parts of the island. The passengers are damned if they do, damned if they don't. If they do go into the city, then there are the complaints about human saturation, a factor that provoked the anti-tourist graffiti. If they don't, then the hostelries complain they're not making enough. No one, apart from the ports authority, seems particularly happy.

Getting hard and fast information about the benefits of cruise shipping for Palma is not easy. There needs to be more systematic evaluation. But according to some numbers from a few years ago - so they will have changed to a degree - the economic impact of cruising for the Balearics as a whole was put at 115 million euros. That's quite a lot of euros, but it was less than for golf tourism and under a quarter of the impact generated by nautical tourism.

The issue of spending by cruise passengers has long been argued about, often on the basis of no more than anecdote. But if a city - and not just the port itself, which clearly has its own benefits - is to admit several thousands of passengers on certain days and fewer on others, then should there not be a realistic and hopefully accurate assessment of the costs and benefits? Rather like statistics for airport passengers, it can seem that all that anyone is interested in are the human numbers (and the number of planes or ships) rather than figures for the costs - services, resources, environment - and for benefits, i.e. the wealth generated.

Tuesday's ships arrived against a background of Barcelona's mayor, Ada Colau, intimating that the city is looking to charge a tax on tourists who don't stay overnight. Among them would be cruise passengers who are currently exempt from paying Catalonia's tourist tax if ships are in port for under twelve hours. The city council argues that there are costs incurred because of cruises, such as those of cleaning, security and general infrastructure, as well as a social cost in terms of the impact on residents.

There was the further background of the announcement by TUI Cruises regarding its ships coming into Palma. What better way of demonstrating TUI's investment in its product and customer experience, the company's statement said, than unveiling a new addition - TUI Discovery - and introducing all-inclusive as standard? This apparent self-congratulation can be interpreted as insensitive. All-inclusive as standard? Would this be beneficial to Palma? There again, here is a tour company which, via its First Choice brand, once promoted all-inclusive hotels with the slogan of leaving your wallet at home, something for which there was an admission that this wasn't terribly sensitive in a BBC documentary about all-inclusives with which I was involved.

Announcements of all-inclusive cruises and record numbers of ships might be cause for celebration where some are concerned, but they are not for others. Given the political and social issues as they obtain at present, it might be wise to quieten the celebratory noises.

The Balearics Under Zombie Attack

I've no wish to alarm you unduly, but that bloke sitting next to you in the bar, can you be absolutely sure he isn't a zombie? There are zombie attacks every ten minutes, you know. Yes really.

Certain inhabitants of bars might give the impression of having gone into a zombie state, but the alarm being spread as regards zombies in our midst is probably exaggerated. I mean, someone who's taken onboard several gallons too many may have adopted the appearance of the undead, but generally speaking he won't have joined the ranks. On balance, it would be more likely that he was actually dead rather than in death no-man's land.

The every-ten-minutes-there's-a-zombie-attack alarm is of course all a publicity ruse. Partly, it is because of "The Walking Dead", but it is also because in Mallorca and the Balearics, normally sensible people are playing at being zombies. This is, I'm sorry to have to say, not a phenomenon confined to those who don't know better, i.e. children, but is in fact the pastime of grown-ups who really should do.

It is all a bit frightening, not that the zombies are frightening as such, but rather like there are those limping around labouring, in "me 'earty" fashion, under the misapprehension that they are Johnny Depp and so therefore pirates, there are also members of the adult class who seem to think they are zombies. The only upside of this, as far as I can see, is that piratical hegemony that has ruled for so long might be challenged. It's not much of a benefit, agreed, but one does have to try and look on the bright side and for some good out of all this zombie carrying-on.

When, do you suppose, will they open a zombie-themed hotel? Yes, I know, I know, but before you start saying low end of the all-inclusive market, the clientele in these cannot, in all truth, claim any zombie status. The thing with zombies, those who wish to carry the game to its logical conclusion that is, is that they can't drink alcohol. Or eat pizza. So I'm sorry, let's have no all-inclusive jibes, albeit I fancy that if and when they open the zombie-themed hotel, it would have to be all-inclusive. Let's face it, no self-respecting hotel, if this is the correct term, would wish a zombie clientele to be walking the streets of the resorts at any time of day or night: normally night, I fancy.

Now, you might think that they'd never do something as daft as have a zombie-themed hotel. Well I'm sorry, but they might well do. If they can have a zombie cruise ship, then they can certainly have a hotel as well. A zombie ship? Oh yes, indeed. It moored up in Ibiza just a short time ago. Not only that, the zombies took to the streets of San Antonio one dark morning before sun-up and were joined, with a payment of 29 euros per not-undead local, by indigenous Ibizan zombies. The town hall and the local police had gone along with the whole thing, and even informed the residents that they shouldn't be concerned by this zombie invasion.

It was all the idea of zombie enthusiasts who set up a WhatsApp group and who, at just short of 300 euros a pop, were able to catch the zombie ship from Valencia. And what an experience it was, especially for those who weren't zombies. Being confined to a ship on the open seas, there's no escape, and so they were never sure when a zombie might attack.

There are, it has to be said, cruises and then there are cruises. In the scheme of things a zombie cruise would not be the cruise of choice for the majority. Just as the Mein Schiff that has its heavy-metal clientele wouldn't be the preference of another majority. Eighteen-stone, tattoed Germans, head-banging and manically waving air guitars for twenty-four hours a day on a ship, sounds as close to hell as it can get, but not quite as hellish as zombies.

Or have I got this wrong? I think I may have. Why not zombies? Why not heavy-metal hairies with Megadeth t-shirts? It's all in the name of enjoyment after all, while Themes 'R' Us might be said to be the thematic slogan of contemporary tourism. And then, where zombies are concerned, Mallorca has some specific recent form in this regard. Films. In the summer the finishing touches to "Turbulencia zombi" by a Mallorcan director were made in the Palma area of Sant Jordi, and last September there were hordes of zombies being filmed at the likes of Cala Tuent for "Generation Z".

The zombies are here. So watch out. You never know when one might attack.

From "El Balear" To The "Oasis"

One hundred and eighty years ago, in 1834, the first steamship arrived in Palma. Its name was "El Rey Don Jaime", but it was nicknamed "El Balear". For Mallorca, totally reliant on shipping, it marked the dawn of the modern era of maritime transport. It meant speedier connections with the mainland - "El Balear", which operated once a month between Palma and Barcelona, could take just fifteen hours to complete the journey - and so a revolution for merchant and passenger shipping. Before the steamship belched and billowed out of Barcelona and made its way to Palma, a sailing ship doing the same journey could take up to twenty days.

With the arrival of the steamship came a further innovation - a new one, a tourist one. A year after the first steamship came to Mallorca, an announcement was made of a tour of Scotland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands to be made by steamship. Two years after this, the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company was founded. It was to become better known as P&O.

"El Balear" had its origins in a request made by a Joan Reynals to the board of commerce in Barcelona in 1829 to import "a steamship of new invention to Spain". It took until 1834 for "El Balear" to make its maiden voyage. It could carry a maximum of forty passengers - not many therefore - but the speed at which it could travel meant that it could be pressed into serving other regular routes, those to the south of France and to Cadiz. Despite there being these other lines, the venture was not a great success. In the first year of operation the losses amounted to over 7,500 pesetas - a fair old amount then.

In fact, it wasn't to be until the 1880s that steamship companies operating out of Mallorca were to truly to come into their own, and by the following decade there were two principal shipping concerns based in Mallorca. One of these was Isleña Marítima, and it was to play a crucial part in the subsequent development of the island's shipping.

Isleña Marítima was an early diversification into legitimate business by the Santa Margalida-born Joan March, who acquired the company. On 1 January 1917, a new company came into being. It was Trasmediterránea, a shipping company whose history is inextricably linked with Mallorca and with March. But the founding of Trasmediterránea is not as it is often reported. March, through Isleña Marítima, took control of Trasmediterránea the year after it started operation. Of the four original founders, none of them was actually Mallorcan. But once March had control, the company came to be seen as Mallorcan (though it was headquartered on the mainland) and came to have a virtual monopoly for decades, thanks to March's close relations with various politicians, one of whom of course was General Franco.

Though Trasmediterránea more or less ran merchant and passenger shipping, there were other other shipping concerns, and they were ones which, almost one hundred years after that tourist ship had journeyed in the North Atlantic, introduced the cruise ship to Mallorca.

Depending on which opinion you prefer, the role of cruise ships in inter-war tourism in Mallorca has either been totally overlooked or greatly exaggerated. It's true to say that it is often neglected, but it is also true to say that its significance hasn't been overstated. In the twelve months before the outbreak of the Civil War, over 5,000 passengers arrived in Palma on 360 ships. The routes included a direct one with New York, this line having in fact been established some twenty years previously.

And it wasn't only North America which sent cruise passengers. South America did, too. Just after Christmas 1925, the "Conde Verde" arrived in Palma with 450 passengers on board. The newspaper "ABC" carried a short news item about this ship, one that related an incident involving customs officials in Valencia before the ship set sail for Palma. Brushes with customs were a regular source of complaint by cruise passengers in those days. 

One aspect of tourism from those times which has been overlooked was that which involved North Africa. Indeed, the whole relationship between Mallorca and Algeria is one that has been largely forgotten. Packet ships operated between Palma and Algiers, and they brought back Algerian visitors to the island. A shipping route from Marseille via Palma to Algiers was to be mirrored by a seaplane route that Air France ran (bringing French and Algerian tourists to Mallorca) before the Civil War intervened.

But to come back to the cruise ships, when the passengers arrived, they were, thanks to the better roads and new coaches, taken off on their excursions. And where did they go? They were taken to the likes of Valldemossa, the Caves of Drach, Pollensa. The same places to which cruise passengers are now also taken, which just goes to show that not a lot has changed apart from the sheer volume of cruise passengers and the type of ship. In September, the largest cruise ship in the world, the "Oasis Of The Seas", with a passenger capacity of 6,360, will arrive in Palma.

Mysteries Of Alcúdia's Port

Passengers with Saga Cruises have been undertaking a Magical Mystery Tour of the Mediterranean. The cruise involves surprises; the passengers don't know which their ports of call will be. On Wednesday, they discovered that one of them was Puerto Alcúdia. Saga Pearl II docked, and as has now become traditional, lady mayor Coloma Terrasa was there at the commercial port to greet the passengers. One says traditional; it is a tradition now only in its third year.

Alcúdia may not have originally been the chosen Mallorcan destination. It might have been Palma. But Alcúdia stands to receive rather more than the couple of scheduled ships this year. The reason? Palma can get too congested. According to the harbour pilot, Avelino Fernández, speaking at the time of the boat show earlier this month, six or seven craft are likely to be diverted to Alcúdia.

Before anyone gets carried away - and there has perhaps been some misunderstanding as to the type of craft that Alcúdia can accommodate - none of the ships is going to be particularly large. Sr. Fernández reckons that ships of up to 220 metres length could be able to use the port. To put this into context, the Prinsendam, the largest to have so far come into Alcúdia, was 205 metres and had a passenger capacity of 740. There are never going to be giant ships arriving in Alcúdia.

But what of the passengers onboard Saga Pearl II? What would their impressions have been? If they were aware of a touch of local industrial history, they would have known that the most obvious sign of such history was as old as most of them: the former power station was constructed in the 1950s.

While GESA's one-time source of electricity generation in the north will not prevent cruise ships coming to Alcúdia, its presence does not offer the most charming of sights for the arriving passenger. De-commissioned long ago, its future remains as much of a mystery as the Saga Mediterranean mystery tour.

Industrial heritage is a fine thing - and Mallorca could, were anyone of a mind to, provide interesting excursions that highlight this heritage (old mine works, former factories and so on) - but there is a place for such heritage. Next to a commercial port with ambitions of increasing its cruise-ship business is arguably not one of these places.

The power station was of course due to have been converted into a museum of science and technology. This conversion was conceived as having been "the clearing in the forest" by the Barcelona-based architects firm which won the tender. No sooner had they won and had they presented their design at Alcúdia's auditorium, than the project was put on hold. Even at the time that the presentation was being made, there was an admission that funding was not in place. When crisis struck soon after, the project was placed in mothballs. Last heard of, the president of the Council of Mallorca, Maria Salom, had intimated that the project hadn't been particularly sensible. It would have been, one can see with hindsight, a project that was typical of the days of plenty and of profligacy, one without any guarantee of success. A vanity project, in other words. It will never happen.

But there are plenty of people who want something to happen. The architects would have retained the two chimneys. Perhaps this was right, perhaps it was wrong, but it is the chimneys, more than anything, which are the evidence of the abandoned and rotting power station. Passengers coming into port can't avoid them. Anyone on the bay of Alcúdia, admiring the sweep of this massive watery chunk lifted from between Cap Farrutx and Cap Pinar, can't avoid clocking them either.

GESA, it seems, can't get away from architectural-preservation controversy and/or eyesores. The power station has far greater merit in terms of preservation than Palma's non-descript office block of sixties Brutalism, but its location is the issue. It is simply wrong for the present day.

This said, it does hold an important role in Alcúdia's history and development, as indeed does the old port, now modernised and with deeper waters for larger craft. Puerto Alcúdia had enjoyed tourism from the 1930s, but the early sixties tourism movement was only partially responsible for the boom that the port experienced. The power station and its workers were also responsible. 

Will anything happen? It's impossible to say. Demolition is probably not an option. One only has to think of the interminable wrangle and legal opinion in respect of the GESA building to know that demolition would be unlikely. So, passengers coming into Alcúdia will have to get used to the sight. The power station's going nowhere.

MALLORCA TODAY - Prinsendam cruise ship in Alcúdia

The "Prinsendam" with a capacity of over 800 passengers docked in Puerto Alcúdia yesterday. It is the third cruise ship to arrive in Alcúdia since the commercial port was redeveloped, it is the largest but the first truly cruise ship, the previous two - "Sea Cloud" and "The World" - having been private charter and residential.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

All The World's Your Lobster

There is a restaurant in Alcúdia which has long publicised itself as being a specialist in lobster. It is a restaurant owned by one of the port's dominant families. It is, as a consequence, a big name in matters of local nosebagging.

When a couple of hundred of the world's filthy rich pitch up on "The World", there would be, one would assume, a pecking order for enticing it to part with healthy wads in local eateries. One wouldn't be surprised if there had been some prior-to-docking invitations being forwarded to on-board handheld communications devices. Or perhaps protocol demands that such unseemly acts of publicity are frowned upon. It's rather as though royalty were going to be disembarking. It's simply not the done thing to be touting one's establishment so brazenly.

"The World" duly came to Alcúdia and duly left. Nothing of such size, in passenger terms, or of such seaborne wealth had ever been witnessed or hoped for in the admittedly short life of the new commercial port. What a sight it was. Sort of. "The World" doesn't really look like ships should be. Or as they used to be. Gone is a sleek arrow shape. One cannot distinguish between fore and aft, between bow and stern. "The World" wasn't designed so much as it was drafted by an architect, one familiar with the creation of multi-storey car parks and one who had spent too long as a small child using one part of an egg box to make a hull and placing piles of Ryvita in it to look like decks.

One assumes that the inhabitants of "The World" do, from time to time, live on land in houses like normal people (or probably in stately pleasure-domes like less than normal people). Or maybe they don't. As is said of the ship, it is constantly circumnavigating the globe, so perhaps the owners, i.e. the inhabitants and therefore residents, are a tribe of circumnavigational Kevin Costners in the endless search for Dryland and succeeding rather better than Costner's Mariner character in finding some.

What a bizarre existence it must be. They must get shore time or they would go mad. A claustrophobic world moving around the world with the sea as the back garden and the horizon as the view from the living-room. "The World" says that for the prices of a cabin - from 600 grand US dollars for the poor rich to 13 million dollars for the Bill Gateses - you get comfort from each other, "good company and lots of laughter". The maniacal laughter that is induced by cabin fever, of being too long before the mast, of being struck by a form of calenture and imagining the sea to be green fields and needing to throw oneself into it. There is presumably a permanent on-board team of psychologists, but who counsels them?

For three days the giant pile of white Ryvita was docked at Alcúdia's port. Now it has gone to continue its endless voyage, its many years mission to seek out new life and new civilisations, boldly going where no billionaires have gone before, which probably isn't accurate as they have been before. But few, if any, would have been to the new civilisation of Alcúdia before.

Where will it be heading? Not along the east coast of Africa past Somalia, one would wager. There is world and there is world. And the world is lobster-shaped.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Alcúdia seeks more cruise tourism

Following the arrival of the first cruise ship in Alcúdia last summer, representatives from the town have been back in Florida for the Cruise Shipping Miami exhibition in order to promote Alcúdia as a cruise destination. Two more ships are expected to dock in Alcúdia this summer.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Balearics ports reduce taxes to attract more cruises

Cruise ship traffic having fallen in 2012, the Balearics Ports Authority is to reduce more than 40% of taxes in 2013 in order to try and boost the number of cruises coming into Palma and the ports on the other Balearic islands.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Number of cruise passengers plummets

Cruise-ship passenger numbers for the Balearics were down significantly during the first nine months of this year, there having been a decline of 24%, representing fewer than a million passengers.

See more: El Mundo

The Benefit Of Cruise Ships Is Greatly Exaggerated

The date had been pencilled into diaries for months. 17 October was to be the day when six cruise ships arrived in Palma on the same day. In the end, there were five, as one cancelled, but five ships on an October day is some going. On only one occasion this summer have the same number of ships docked in Palma on one day (15 September), but to have so many in October is unusual.

It sounds as though this should be something to celebrate. In a way, it is. But the five ships with over 8,000 passengers in total were something of a letdown. No, more than just something of a letdown. Local businesses complained that they didn't do much business.

Perhaps someone should have warned the local businesses not to get too excited. Perhaps the local businesses should have realised. October is not high season. Not being high season means greater economy class (greater than usual). Greater economy class means spending less (less than usual).

There is an enormous amount of misinformation spread about cruise ships and their value to the local economy. The simple fact of five ships arriving on one day is taken as an indication of a vibrant cruise economy in Mallorca, when it isn't really anything of the sort. It is good for the port itself, it can be good for excursions operators and their chosen attractions, but it is far less good for everyone else.

It does depend on the type of passenger. Americans are good news, but American ships come only rarely. Italians can be good as they are used to buying gifts to take home (more so than others?), but spending on gifts or anything was in limited supply on 17 October. More business can be generated by only two ships being in port. It all depends.

One of the factors is the length of stay. If passengers typically spend no more than three hours before returning to ship - usually for lunch and then to await departure - how much business can really be generated? Very little for bars and restaurants, you would have to think, especially as many cruises operate on all-inclusive lines. So why the anticipation and the excitement? It is more in the hope than in the reality.

And this hope tells its own sorry, pathetic story. There is something mercenary but also patronising about the arrival of a cruise ship. There is a sense of fighting for scraps from a lofty alien force that appears for a short time, which might condescend to dispense with some scrappy largesse but which then disappears to partake of the on-ship buffet, leaving local business owners staring forlornly at the great hulks and weeping because of their misfortune.

Many years ago, I was on the island of Mykonos. A ship with American tourists (one that wasn't a military ship, as the American military was an altogether different type of tourist) came in one day. The jostling and fighting at the harbour side was a sad sight but it was one I had experienced on arrival, despite being a mere teenage backpacker. Economies are more advanced now, expectations are different, but it is similar when the cruise ships come into Palma. It's as though beggars anticipate a sudden bonanza. This is what I mean by patronising and mercenary.

There is far too much expectation from cruise ships. Far too much that is unrealistic. Many ships are organised so that passengers are whisked away by coach to an attraction that has paid handsomely in the form of a commission to the ship's operator in order to get the visitors. The stays are very short, the passengers less likely these days to be lined with gold. The ships may be luxury, but the economics of cruising have changed along with the market.

The economic benefits of cruise ships are questionable. There are benefits to the port itself, but cruise ships do not make jobs other than indirectly for a port workforce. They don't even mean sales of local produce, as ship stocking-up has usually been done elsewhere. Yet a city and an island are made to fall at the feet of cruise operators and to bow to the passengers who appear and then disappear in a flash. It is the transience of tourism at its most extreme and at its most unseemly.

Figures will be arrived at. Cruise ships bring x millions. But to whom? As always with such numbers, one has to understand where the spend might go. To the port authority, to specific and limited numbers of attractions, to coach operators, to hotels which accommodate journey-joining or journey-ending passengers. How much goes elsewhere? On 17 October very little it would seem.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Don't Believe The Hype: Alcúdia and cruises

I guess you could say that it looked quite impressive, even with its sails down. I said to some old Mallorcan woman who was just staring vacantly in its general direction through the wire fencing that it was "impresionante". Not that I really meant it. It was more a case of finding something to say. She seemed somewhat startled by the fact that someone would say anything, but she agreed.

It would have looked a great deal more impressive had one been able to get up close. I knew there was little chance of doing so, but I asked the port cop anyway. You need to be accredited, he said, which I pretty much suspected would be his answer. I hadn't necessarily wanted to get right by it, just to be able to go up onto the elevated walkway so that I might get a decent opportunity of taking a photo, rather than taking one with the lens through the fence and at ground level, the result of which was useless.

Accreditation and all that, but was there not something to be said for letting people get up close? It was, after all, the first time a cruise ship (of sorts) had come to Alcúdia. The old Mallorcan woman would probably have relished the opportunity of staring vacantly from less of a distance. Should more of an occasion not have been made of this maiden cruise voyage to Alcúdia?

Perhaps they realised that it wasn't quite as it seemed. Don't believe the hype. I wonder who first coined this expression. Was it from the sixties? Ralph Nader maybe? Sounds like the sort of thing he would have said. It doesn't really matter, but hype there had been regarding Sea Cloud's visit to Alcúdia. The first cruise ship. The only problem was, as I came to realise when trying to trace the ship's movements, that it wasn't a cruise as such. Not a scheduled one, as it wasn't listed anywhere. A charter doesn't carry quite the same weight as a scheduled cruise does, and I assume that it had to have been a charter.

Consequently, and despite the spin that has come and will come not least from Alcúdia town hall, Sea Cloud's appearance doesn't mean a great deal. Not in terms of future cruise ships coming to Alcúdia.

The pre-Sea Cloud hype extended to all manner of possibilities. Excursions around Alcúdia, more custom for local restaurants and shops, putting Alcúdia on the cruise map, even combatting seasonality. The only one of these that might be said to have some substance is that to do with the map. But then presumably cruise lines already know. They only have to look at a map.

I shook my head with amused disbelief at the apologetic table that had been laid out with a white cloth near to the entrance (and exit) to the terminal. There were a few "siurells", examples of local product, and some leaflets, one for the local restaurant association. It was pitiable in truth. The ship was in port for sic hours, there were only 47 passengers, they were travelling on a ship with five-star dining, and the hype would have it that the restaurants would suddenly be inundated with high-net-worth custom from a ship that would normally set you back around three and a half grand for a seven-day cruise. By the time I got down to the port, it was gone eleven. The ship had been in port for over three hours and was due to set sail at two. I counted at least 20 passengers who were already returning. So much for the excursions, so much for the local restaurants.

As I was walking away from the terminal, my less than adequate photos about to be deleted, I wondered what first impressions a visitor on a cruise ship would have. As you leave the terminal area and head towards the Paseo Marítimo, there isn't, if I am being honest, anything that is particularly remarkable. In fact, there isn't anything remarkable. Pleasant, but then so are many places. And what of the sight as you come into port? To quote Son Fe Mick, who commented on my previous article about Sea Cloud (22 July, "The Phantom Cruise'"), there is a "bloody great rusty power station. When are they going to knock it down and build a 1000 year old cathedral?" The point is very well made. Enter Palma by sea and the cathedral dominates the landscape. Enter Alcúdia and it is an abandoned power station.

An architect friend of mine, who hadn't know the background to the power station and plans for its redevelopment (now almost certainly also abandoned) until I told him, was amazed at the idea that they would keep the chimneys, which is what the plans envisaged. Industrial heritage and its preservation is fine, but only in the right context. Alcúdia's power station isn't Battersea's. It isn't the Tate Modern, which was part of the inspiration for the plans. It should be removed, and that includes the chimneys. But chances are that it won't be, and so future cruise passengers (two ships are scheduled for next year but won't have that many more passengers than Sea Cloud) will be confronted with the sight of the power station.

Alcúdia as a cruise destination. Nice idea, but don't believe the hype.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Phantom Cruise? Sea Cloud in Alcúdia

26 July will go down in the annals of Alcúdia's history.

What great days there have been over the years. The day they officially opened the first roundabout and then unveiled the most un-horselike sculpture known to Western civilisation. The day they opened the bypass behind Bellevue and put an end to the coal trucks lumbering along the coast road to the power station. The day that Lidl opened.

Yet even these landmark days will be as nothing compared with when the first cruise ship arrives. The town band will be there, pipers to pipe the ship into dock. In fact, the pipers might well be there, too, a frightful bagpipe wailing at an hour when most would prefer to still be asleep. The folk dancers will ball their bot in their own peculiar Mallorcan way. Men may even wear hats, and the lady mayor will eschew the jeans she wore for the day when the market opened in the port and favour a summer frock.

Ships can sometimes be venerable because of their age. Cruise ships, as a rule, tend not to be particularly venerable. The multi-decked, all-inclusive on the high seas colossi that bounce over the waves of the Mediterranean are of far more recent vintage. Such cruise ships have not yet taken to arriving in Alcúdia. The length of time it has been hoped that Alcúdia might one day be able to welcome a cruise ship is to be marked by a ship that is suitably old. Eighty years old in fact.

Sea Cloud is not what you tend of think of when it comes to the cruise liner. Apart from its age, it isn't particularly big. Like some ships which have undergone transformation into becoming cruisers, Sea Cloud was originally a recreational ship; one of the finer of its time. It did, though, lend itself to the war effort; it was a weather ship with the US Navy during World War II. Its masts were removed but they are now back, all four of them. When Sea Cloud arrives in Alcúdia, one trusts the sails will all be in full billow. It will be a sight to behold, no question, but does it genuinely mark the start of a golden age of cruise ships coming into Alcúdia's expensive new terminal?

This is the hope of course. There will now be two and not just one ship next year. But three in two years do not constitute a golden age. Alcúdia will always have to contend with a ruddy great port on the south side of the island, to say nothing of those in Menorca.

The further hope is that cruise ships will bring with them a plenitude of passengers that they will disgorge in order for them to offer their patronage to the hostelries and businesses of the port. The great excitement, other than that generated by Sea Cloud being the first cruise ship, is that it will be carrying a payload with very deep pockets. Sea Cloud isn't exactly cheap, and its luxurious suites suggest anything but cheapness.

Not being cheap equals being exclusive. The leviathans of the waves that transport hundreds of passengers aren't exclusive, hence they produce the numbers that can be boasted about who end up in Palma's port and are then taken off to some caves on an excursion coach. Alcúdia will not be able to claim hundreds. It won't even be able to claim one hundred, or even fifty. Sea Cloud will have 47 passengers, 17 shy of its capacity. There will in fact be more crew.

The magnificent 47, once they have negotiated the prancing and the piping, once they have received gifts (what are they and who's paying for them?), once they have passed an array of gastronomic products that will be on display, will head off into the Alcúdia morning. Or will they? It is being said that they will be able to undertake an excursion of the town and maybe they will. But they only have six hours and they'll be off at two in the afternoon. Six hours and that'll be it for a year, until 6 August, 2013 when "The World" will arrive; not the whole world, you understand, but a ship by that name.

The only slight concern I have regarding the arrival of Sea Cloud is that, according to its schedule, it isn't actually due to be coming to Alcúdia on 26 July. Presumably it must be, but on its website there is no mention of the fact. There is a cruise that starts in Barcelona the following day, and one that will end today in Nice. I confess to being somewhat confused. Is it a genuine cruise or what exactly is it, and so who are the 47?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Alcúdia anticipates its first cruise ship on 26 July

The first cruise ship to use the new terminal at Alcúdia's commercial port is scheduled to dock at eight o'clock in the morning this coming Thursday (26 July). Sea Cloud, a four-mast luxury sailing ship will bring 47 passengers, so hardly a big ship, but it marks what is hoped will be the development of Alcúdia as a cruise destination. Two ships are now due to come to Alcúdia in 2013.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Inca looks to boost tourism

Inca town hall is in discussion with a cruise-ship operator to put the town on its list of excursions, a cultural route being planned together with the possibility for shopping; Inca being renowned for its leather industry.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - More bad news for Palma cruise ships

Following yesterday's news that confirmed sailings by cruise ships into Palma in 2012 were down by 20% comes further news that Palma is going to lose around 10,000 cruise passengers as a result of itinerary changes. At the same time as this loss was being announced, Balearics tourism minister Carlos Delgado was pressing for cruise ships to be included in the Spanish national tourism plan.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Palma cruise ship decline in 2012

Confirmed visits by cruise ships to Palma in 2012 are currently some 20% lower than they were in 2011, one reason being, it is suggested, the Costa Concordia accident.

See more: Ultima Hora