What does someone who organises an event called Foro Vacacional do after he leaves the organisation he was organising it on behalf of? Answer: he becomes the head of the Foro Vacacional, he being Juan Estarellas, the former president (founder) of the Aptur holiday rentals' association. The Foro is more than just an event, it is a body which promotes a professionalisation of the rentals' market.
Estarellas stepped down as president of Aptur just after a forum took place in February. Aptur had been the organiser of the forum. Aptur and the forum can seem as though they are much the same, even if they are not.
The world of holiday rentals in Mallorca (and the Balearics) might appear to be a small one, given the apparent ubiquity of Sr. Estarellas, but small it has ceased to be, as I think we all know. It is big business, and just to prove the point, businesses involved with that February forum were none other than Airbnb, Booking.com and HomeAway.
These three giants of the online rentals' market (aka collaborative economy) provided data with which Aptur, sorry, Foro Vacacional was able to announce at the same time as there was another forum (this one for the Tramuntana mountains) that holiday rentals generate 283 million euros in the Tramuntana each year. In fact, they apparently generate 1,700 million euros in total across the seventeen municipalities under consideration. Eh?
This higher figure was excluded from at least two reports of this income - one of which I wrote. It was difficult to understand whether the lower amount was just spending on staying in actual properties and so therefore the higher one was total revenue from spending (restaurants, shops, etc.). Whatever it was for, are we really to believe that in each of the seventeen municipalities there is on average a nice round annual revenue of 100 million euros?
These figures, however one looks at them, are astronomical. They may well be right, but the problem as ever is that numbers are tossed about and inevitably invite some scepticism. Designed to highlight current economic benefit and potential future benefit, they can either be taken as being impressive or somewhat alarming. As with other parts of the island, there are concerns about the Tramuntana being overrun by tourism and not just the tourism staying in a mountain holiday rental property.
The Foro Vacacional study suggests that cycling tourism brings in some 150 million euros on its own (this is a figure, it would appear, for the whole island or possibly the Balearics). Cycling tourism is viewed as a growth sector for the Tramuntana. Hence, and as part of the ongoing professionalism, rental properties in the mountains will be able to classify themselves as cycling friendly and be graded according to facilities. Which is fine, but this inevitably raises - yet again - the issue of saturation. The number of cyclists on roads in the mountains is something that has concerned various town halls, Escorca most certainly. In Bunyola, the town hall is having to take measures against the "invasion" of bikes in the main square.
The growth of rentals' tourism, of whatever type, has proved to be extremely beneficial to municipalities without a great deal of tourism. Selva is an example. So successful has the promotion of the town been, however, that the town hall has become alarmed at the pressure being placed on infrastructure - roads, water supplies and so on. The massive increase in properties for rent has caught the town hall on the hop.
Fornalutx is another case. Courtesy of a poster having been installed in the town hall the other day, it has now officially become one of the limited number of Spain's prettiest villages (the only one in Mallorca or the Balearics). Criteria for this award include traffic and cleanliness. But doesn't Fornalutx run the risk of encountering similar issues to Selva from the publicity given to its newly acquired status and from the onward march of rentals? Might its virtuous prettiness in fact prove to be a burden?
This said, one comes back to the figures. Foro Vacacional excluded Calvia from the list of municipalities because of the distortion created by the Calvia resorts. But there is distortion elsewhere, Pollensa being the prime example. It, as has been well reported, has more rentals' places than hotel places. In this regard, it is unique among the island's main tourism municipalities.
The distribution is, therefore, highly uneven. Andratx, Pollensa and Soller must surely account for the bulk of this Tramuntana rentals' trade. But will the potential future trade across the Tramuntana be realised? Foro Vacacional will hope so, and the upcoming legislation (zoning and all) might well add to this hope. However, while the likes of Pollensa can absorb this trade, would villages right in the mountains be able to do likewise?
Showing posts with label Cycling tourism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cycling tourism. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 09, 2017
Friday, March 28, 2014
In Praise Of Cycling Tourism
Call the season what you will, we are almost in April, and it seems appropriate to revisit cycling. In November there is very little cycling. By now and into April there is an awful lot of it, and along with this awful lot of cycling there is an awful lot of hot-under-the-collarness. More of that in a bit.
On Sunday there is a cycling event. Another damn cycling event, some will say and bemoan. It is the Mallorca Classic. In fact, it is the Mallorca Classic by Max Hürzeler. The race's name has been given this marketing appendage. The use of "by" (someone) is a piece of marketing me-too-ism that would normally make me want to find the nearest bike tyre and attack it with a sharp blade. But in Max Hürzeler's case, I shall make an exception. Hürzeler is one of the heroes of Mallorca's winter tourism (shall we call it off-season tourism instead). If a Classic is by him, then why ever not. He's deserved it.
In 1989, Hürzeler founded Bicycle Holidays. Though it is now 25 years since the founding of the business, Hürzeler had his idea for bringing cyclists to Mallorca some years before. A professional cyclist himself, at the start of the 1980s he had approached a travel-agency owner in his native Switzerland and had presented to him the concept of flying cyclists to the island. The travel-agency owner thought he was nuts.
He may well have been in one regard; the roads were certainly not as good as they now are. But he was undeterred. In 1985, still a leading pro cyclist, he organised his first training camp in Mallorca. Within four years the number of cyclists who came had risen from 185 to 1,400. He retired from cycling, started Bicycle Holidays and the rest is the history of growth.
Hürzeler has said that he didn't invent cycling tourism in Mallorca, just that he made it better, but he caught a wave, one that had been identified in the first tourism plan to be drawn up by the regional government in the 1980s. Cycling was one of its key, off-season elements, and the enthusiasm for cycling in Germany was to be made ever greater by its own cycling stars - Udo Bölts, Erik Zabel and Jan Ullrich - in a way not too dissimilar to that in which Wiggins and Cavendish have heightened British cycling enthusiasm.
The growth of cycling tourism in the 1990s prompted the Balearics Confederation of Business Associations (CAEB), in collaboration with the government, to produce the first proper study of this tourism. It is an incredibly detailed study, and one aspect it looked at was the other activities that cycling tourists engaged in. The sorts of things they didn't do (or hardly at all) were to also play golf, go sailing or to visit attractions. What they did most was to visit towns and "typical markets". This was closely followed (by 50.9% of them) by gastronomy routes. That left 49.1% who said they didn't, but the fact that gastronomy (and visiting markets) were vastly more popular than any other activities gives a lie to the often-made criticism of cyclists; that they are not interested in restaurants and indeed don't go to them. Times have moved on, but it is no truer now than it was in 1995 when the research was conducted to suggest that cyclists don't frequent restaurants and therefore spend money on the "complementary offer".
Of course, not all the cyclists that Bicycle Holidays and others bring to Mallorca meet with everyone's approval. Frankly, I despair. What do people want or expect? Nothing it seems. Or nothing which entails a bit of inconvenience whilst driving. The vitriol that can be levelled against cyclists can be staggering and beyond rationality.
Max Hürzeler is partly responsible for this. He is also responsible for having given Mallorca something it might not have had or not have had to such a large extent, which is at least some off-season tourism. If you find a road closed on Sunday because of the Classic, it will be an inconvenience. But so what? There's an even greater inconvenience, and that's not having cycling tourism.
Friday, February 14, 2014
The New Route To Cycling
Cycling tourism in Majorca is nothing new but it has undergone a significant boom in recent years. The hoteliers' federation calculates that it now generates an economic impact to the tune of sixty million euros per annum. But how does this 60 million stack up against the total economic impact of tourism? It is hard to be exact, because it is hard to know that like is being measured with like, but in 2011 the federation produced a report which estimated that the total impact was 9,090 million euros. 60 million, if one's being honest, is chicken feed in the overall scheme of things.
But overall scheme of things is what matters. Tourism is far from being standardised, either in terms of tourists themselves or the type of tourism in which they engage. Small the contribution may be, but the cycling niche, thanks to its boom, is finally realising benefits, and they most obviously manifest themselves in hotels opening earlier and more hotels opening earlier than has been the case. It is cycling and sports tourism in general which has prompted an increase in hotel openings this winter in Alcúdia. A total of thirty hotels will open between this month and April, seven more than last year, while in February alone, seven will have opened by the end of the month, which will be two more than 2013. The increases may not be huge but they are increases nevertheless.
A factor which may result in further early hotel opening over the next few years will be the grand cycling route which is to be created along the bay of Alcúdia. It has been promised for at least a decade but only now is going to come into being. One reason why it has been held back has been coming to an agreement as to precisely how to cope with the road that runs by the side of the Albufera nature park from the English bridge in Playa de Muro to Can Picafort. How this will be coped with has still to be explained, as Muro town hall, responsible for this section of the route (along presumably with the Council of Majorca, which has overall responsibility for the carreteras), has yet to present its design. Each of the three town halls involved - Alcúdia, Muro and Santa Margalida - will assume responsibility for layout of the route in their respective towns. At present, only Alcúdia has firmed up its ideas, which will see the route run from the coastal road coming from Puerto Pollensa, up to the Magic Roundabout and then along the Carretera Artà towards Playa de Muro.
The route will cost some 600,000 euros, and the finance will come from the regional government. The three town halls are also expected to apportion finance for the route from their 2014 budgets. All being well, and once Muro and Santa Margalida have finalised their designs, work could start on the route later this year. It is all pretty good news, it must be said.
Just going back to the economic impact of tourism and the report that the hoteliers' federation issued in 2011, it is interesting to see the marked difference between Pollensa and the bay of Alcúdia resorts. The economic impact was measured in terms of hotel activity and not total tourism activity, and so the difference highlights - not the first time - quite how small Pollensa's hotel tourism is by comparison with its neighbours. Alcúdia, perhaps surprisingly as it is the biggest of the resorts, didn't generate the most impact; Playa de Muro with 790 million beat Alcúdia's 748 million, an indication of the generally higher quality of Playa de Muro's hotels. Can Picafort generated 443 million, while Pollensa raised only 209 million.
Pollensa's performance is most definitely not a reflection of low quality hotels. Rather, it is reflection of the fact that the town does not have anything like the number of hotels as, say, Alcúdia does. It is also a reflection of just how important non-hotel accommodation, i.e. holiday lets (of different types) is to Pollensa's tourism economy.
For the record, the resort in Majorca which generated the highest economic impact was Playa de Palma - 1,665 million. Palmanova-Magalluf came second with 999 million.
But overall scheme of things is what matters. Tourism is far from being standardised, either in terms of tourists themselves or the type of tourism in which they engage. Small the contribution may be, but the cycling niche, thanks to its boom, is finally realising benefits, and they most obviously manifest themselves in hotels opening earlier and more hotels opening earlier than has been the case. It is cycling and sports tourism in general which has prompted an increase in hotel openings this winter in Alcúdia. A total of thirty hotels will open between this month and April, seven more than last year, while in February alone, seven will have opened by the end of the month, which will be two more than 2013. The increases may not be huge but they are increases nevertheless.
A factor which may result in further early hotel opening over the next few years will be the grand cycling route which is to be created along the bay of Alcúdia. It has been promised for at least a decade but only now is going to come into being. One reason why it has been held back has been coming to an agreement as to precisely how to cope with the road that runs by the side of the Albufera nature park from the English bridge in Playa de Muro to Can Picafort. How this will be coped with has still to be explained, as Muro town hall, responsible for this section of the route (along presumably with the Council of Majorca, which has overall responsibility for the carreteras), has yet to present its design. Each of the three town halls involved - Alcúdia, Muro and Santa Margalida - will assume responsibility for layout of the route in their respective towns. At present, only Alcúdia has firmed up its ideas, which will see the route run from the coastal road coming from Puerto Pollensa, up to the Magic Roundabout and then along the Carretera Artà towards Playa de Muro.
The route will cost some 600,000 euros, and the finance will come from the regional government. The three town halls are also expected to apportion finance for the route from their 2014 budgets. All being well, and once Muro and Santa Margalida have finalised their designs, work could start on the route later this year. It is all pretty good news, it must be said.
Just going back to the economic impact of tourism and the report that the hoteliers' federation issued in 2011, it is interesting to see the marked difference between Pollensa and the bay of Alcúdia resorts. The economic impact was measured in terms of hotel activity and not total tourism activity, and so the difference highlights - not the first time - quite how small Pollensa's hotel tourism is by comparison with its neighbours. Alcúdia, perhaps surprisingly as it is the biggest of the resorts, didn't generate the most impact; Playa de Muro with 790 million beat Alcúdia's 748 million, an indication of the generally higher quality of Playa de Muro's hotels. Can Picafort generated 443 million, while Pollensa raised only 209 million.
Pollensa's performance is most definitely not a reflection of low quality hotels. Rather, it is reflection of the fact that the town does not have anything like the number of hotels as, say, Alcúdia does. It is also a reflection of just how important non-hotel accommodation, i.e. holiday lets (of different types) is to Pollensa's tourism economy.
For the record, the resort in Majorca which generated the highest economic impact was Playa de Palma - 1,665 million. Palmanova-Magalluf came second with 999 million.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
A Strange Thing In Playa de Muro
There is a strange thing happening in Playa de Muro. It is losing its abandonment. That of the unlovely row of units across from the sumptuous summer palaces by the beach. This removal of the abandonment that has been the resort's permanent winter is the consequence of winter, a winter in a Mallorcan style that refuses to be termed otherwise even in warm spring; a Mallorcan winter means that which isn't summer, and a Mallorcan summer, in turn, is partly real summer, partly spring, partly autumn.
Holidays on two wheels are to blame. Or to be praised. Where units were once the resting place for the leaves of winter to mound up and rot until the council sent in the boy with the blower, they are now opening, being converted into off-season and main-season palacetes to serve the palaces o'er yonder. Palacetes of two wheels.
This dismal and forgotten row had first been remembered a few short years ago. The devil's work of the Grupo Boulevard demolished some of the unloveliness and built a different type of palace, one of black glass, and placed beneath it a shop of high-classness, a café of high-classness, a restaurant of ... ah well, there's the devil's work, some would maintain, those some being the Little Mallorcans of British origin who rail against commerce that advances the cause of restaurants as marketing opportunities. They should look at Boulevard's palace and marvel, marvel at how it has brought life and light where there was dinginess. Following its lead have come the revamped units where once only vamps of the darkness of night would have trod. But it has been a lead enabled by the two wheels. Playa de Muro lives, and it lives in phoney summer and phoney spring as well as in real summer and real spring.
It has been a movement over recent winters, but that movement has gathered such pace that Playa de Muro has come alive in phoney summer. Playa de Muro lives. Even I am shocked by the extent that this new life has been breathed into the resort. I hadn't expected it. Not so soon. If ever. Playa de Muro is evidence of how transformation can occur. It helps if there are summer palaces by the beach which can command an audience in phoney summer. But then there are many summer palaces across Mallorca that stand forlorn and gathering sand and dust in winter. They are not unique to Muro. What is, it would appear, is a determination, about which there had been great scepticism. Mine. Next to the palacetes of two wheels there will be a festival of two wheels this week, one that has been stolen from the island's south, packed into pantechnicons and transported sixty or so kilometres to the north. Then comes a race. The Mallorca 312. Did you know that if you take a coastal route around Mallorca, one that starts in Playa de Muro and ends in Playa de Muro, the distance is 312 kilometres? 312.2 kilometres, to be precise. It will be 312.2 kilometres of road closures and cursings to add to the normal cursings directed at the two wheels, but these cursings are so misplaced, as narrow in their mindless mutterings as the narrowness of the Little Mallorcans of British origin who curse an establishment that fails to conform to quaint Mallorca.
Summer hasn't started. It doesn't, as most people understand summer, start for over two months. In Mallorca it starts in a couple of weeks. But it has burst forth already. In Playa de Muro at any rate. The resort has left behind the permanent winter it had inherited so many years ago when those unlovely units were abandoned. It has been revived, and summer has arrived. To become a permanent summer instead? That would be nice. But no. Or at least, you would think no. There again, we hadn't (I hadn't) thought this revival would occur as it is occurring. Strange things happening indeed.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Holidays on two wheels are to blame. Or to be praised. Where units were once the resting place for the leaves of winter to mound up and rot until the council sent in the boy with the blower, they are now opening, being converted into off-season and main-season palacetes to serve the palaces o'er yonder. Palacetes of two wheels.
This dismal and forgotten row had first been remembered a few short years ago. The devil's work of the Grupo Boulevard demolished some of the unloveliness and built a different type of palace, one of black glass, and placed beneath it a shop of high-classness, a café of high-classness, a restaurant of ... ah well, there's the devil's work, some would maintain, those some being the Little Mallorcans of British origin who rail against commerce that advances the cause of restaurants as marketing opportunities. They should look at Boulevard's palace and marvel, marvel at how it has brought life and light where there was dinginess. Following its lead have come the revamped units where once only vamps of the darkness of night would have trod. But it has been a lead enabled by the two wheels. Playa de Muro lives, and it lives in phoney summer and phoney spring as well as in real summer and real spring.
It has been a movement over recent winters, but that movement has gathered such pace that Playa de Muro has come alive in phoney summer. Playa de Muro lives. Even I am shocked by the extent that this new life has been breathed into the resort. I hadn't expected it. Not so soon. If ever. Playa de Muro is evidence of how transformation can occur. It helps if there are summer palaces by the beach which can command an audience in phoney summer. But then there are many summer palaces across Mallorca that stand forlorn and gathering sand and dust in winter. They are not unique to Muro. What is, it would appear, is a determination, about which there had been great scepticism. Mine. Next to the palacetes of two wheels there will be a festival of two wheels this week, one that has been stolen from the island's south, packed into pantechnicons and transported sixty or so kilometres to the north. Then comes a race. The Mallorca 312. Did you know that if you take a coastal route around Mallorca, one that starts in Playa de Muro and ends in Playa de Muro, the distance is 312 kilometres? 312.2 kilometres, to be precise. It will be 312.2 kilometres of road closures and cursings to add to the normal cursings directed at the two wheels, but these cursings are so misplaced, as narrow in their mindless mutterings as the narrowness of the Little Mallorcans of British origin who curse an establishment that fails to conform to quaint Mallorca.
Summer hasn't started. It doesn't, as most people understand summer, start for over two months. In Mallorca it starts in a couple of weeks. But it has burst forth already. In Playa de Muro at any rate. The resort has left behind the permanent winter it had inherited so many years ago when those unlovely units were abandoned. It has been revived, and summer has arrived. To become a permanent summer instead? That would be nice. But no. Or at least, you would think no. There again, we hadn't (I hadn't) thought this revival would occur as it is occurring. Strange things happening indeed.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
The Mallorca Branding Of Bradley
Yesterday, I referred to the small attention that the Balearics tourism promotion action plan is to give to cycling tourism. As cycling tourism is meant to be a key component of winter tourism, this small attention seems perverse. And as Mallorca is currently in the midst of yet more Wiggo fever, it seems doubly perverse that not more attention is planned and that Bradley Wiggins isn't a part of this promotion.
On the face of it, the face of Wiggins would make a perfect fit with Mallorcan promotion of cycling tourism and tourism promotion in general, especially to a UK market. He spends much of his time on the island, he has expressed his fondness for the island, he is able to benefit from its diverse geography in his training. Wiggo, the face of Mallorca, or a facet of Mallorca makes sense.
However, it isn't quite this simple. The Wiggins face and the Wiggins name are two of the most marketable assets in sport at present. His are not assets as strong or as recognisable as, say, Beckham, Bolt or Messi, but they are strong nevertheless. And such strength means value, the value that comes from both image and name rights.
Wiggins has a smart agent. He is Jonathan Marks of MTC. It is Marks who looks after many of his affairs and it would be he who would advise on image rights. If it hasn't already been done, the Wiggins name is surely worth protecting, branding it as a trade mark and name. The Wiggins image - that hugely recognisable face - would be worth even more from its intellectual property protection.
There is some grey area about the use of a name for marketing purposes, but there is also a growing amount of case law that makes even the use of a name something to be wary of doing. The protection of a person's physical image is better understood and more clearly made under law, but whether it is just name or both name and image, then any organisation which might wish to gain from using either should watch out.
So, using Wiggins, his name or his face, would potentially be fraught with risk were they to be used without permission. It doesn't automatically follow that permission means payment, but normally of course it does, and for a highly recognisable "brand" such as Wiggins, the payment would almost certainly not be cheap.
Given Wiggins' affiliation with Mallorca and especially Alcúdia and Pollensa, he may feel personally that he wants to give something back and would so waive the need for compensation. He may feel this, but would his agent? It is his role to do as much as he can for his client and to ensure that he optimises the return on himself as a brand.
Mallorca has of course used names and images in the past. How successful any of this celebrity association has been is hard to say. Michael Douglas may be the one exception to an otherwise questionable investment in various "faces", but I say may be. The tourism ministry has pretty much turned its back on these endorsements and relationships, recognising that they don't necessarily work. This said, one reason for them not working lies with the fit between the celebrity and what is being promoted. Wiggins equals cycling tourism most certainly does fit, so there may be grounds for revisiting the whole issue of celebrity association. A caveat to this, however, would be just how well known the Wiggins image is internationally.
The relationship, though, is two way. What might be good for Mallorca, might not necessarily be good for Wiggins. Hot property that he is, requests for his image are doubtless hitting Mr. Marks desk every day. Not all will be agreed to. Strategic development of the Wiggins image demands that agreements coincide with this development. Then there is the man himself. He is, as most of us are now aware, less than comfortable with the trappings of celebrity. As a part-time resident of the island, would he really want his face being more known than it already is?
Suggestions as to celebrity associations are sometimes made without fully understanding the implications. A prime example was Pollensa's idea of using Agatha Christie, an idea about which nothing more has been heard. I suspect I know why. Firstly, the image was wrong (unless Puerto Pollensa does wish to promote itself solely as a retirement home for ageing dames, as the typical Christie image would convey). Secondly, the Christie estate guards the image jealously, which means a high tariff being placed on it.
Wiggins is altogether more sensible, but if cost were a factor, and it more than likely would be, which part of local government would be prepared to bear the cost? At present, none would probably be the answer.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
On the face of it, the face of Wiggins would make a perfect fit with Mallorcan promotion of cycling tourism and tourism promotion in general, especially to a UK market. He spends much of his time on the island, he has expressed his fondness for the island, he is able to benefit from its diverse geography in his training. Wiggo, the face of Mallorca, or a facet of Mallorca makes sense.
However, it isn't quite this simple. The Wiggins face and the Wiggins name are two of the most marketable assets in sport at present. His are not assets as strong or as recognisable as, say, Beckham, Bolt or Messi, but they are strong nevertheless. And such strength means value, the value that comes from both image and name rights.
Wiggins has a smart agent. He is Jonathan Marks of MTC. It is Marks who looks after many of his affairs and it would be he who would advise on image rights. If it hasn't already been done, the Wiggins name is surely worth protecting, branding it as a trade mark and name. The Wiggins image - that hugely recognisable face - would be worth even more from its intellectual property protection.
There is some grey area about the use of a name for marketing purposes, but there is also a growing amount of case law that makes even the use of a name something to be wary of doing. The protection of a person's physical image is better understood and more clearly made under law, but whether it is just name or both name and image, then any organisation which might wish to gain from using either should watch out.
So, using Wiggins, his name or his face, would potentially be fraught with risk were they to be used without permission. It doesn't automatically follow that permission means payment, but normally of course it does, and for a highly recognisable "brand" such as Wiggins, the payment would almost certainly not be cheap.
Given Wiggins' affiliation with Mallorca and especially Alcúdia and Pollensa, he may feel personally that he wants to give something back and would so waive the need for compensation. He may feel this, but would his agent? It is his role to do as much as he can for his client and to ensure that he optimises the return on himself as a brand.
Mallorca has of course used names and images in the past. How successful any of this celebrity association has been is hard to say. Michael Douglas may be the one exception to an otherwise questionable investment in various "faces", but I say may be. The tourism ministry has pretty much turned its back on these endorsements and relationships, recognising that they don't necessarily work. This said, one reason for them not working lies with the fit between the celebrity and what is being promoted. Wiggins equals cycling tourism most certainly does fit, so there may be grounds for revisiting the whole issue of celebrity association. A caveat to this, however, would be just how well known the Wiggins image is internationally.
The relationship, though, is two way. What might be good for Mallorca, might not necessarily be good for Wiggins. Hot property that he is, requests for his image are doubtless hitting Mr. Marks desk every day. Not all will be agreed to. Strategic development of the Wiggins image demands that agreements coincide with this development. Then there is the man himself. He is, as most of us are now aware, less than comfortable with the trappings of celebrity. As a part-time resident of the island, would he really want his face being more known than it already is?
Suggestions as to celebrity associations are sometimes made without fully understanding the implications. A prime example was Pollensa's idea of using Agatha Christie, an idea about which nothing more has been heard. I suspect I know why. Firstly, the image was wrong (unless Puerto Pollensa does wish to promote itself solely as a retirement home for ageing dames, as the typical Christie image would convey). Secondly, the Christie estate guards the image jealously, which means a high tariff being placed on it.
Wiggins is altogether more sensible, but if cost were a factor, and it more than likely would be, which part of local government would be prepared to bear the cost? At present, none would probably be the answer.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Ace Face (Of Mallorca): Bradley Wiggins
The Style Council made some rotten videos. So rotten were they, that you have to assume they were deliberate. The most rotten (and obscure) was one for "My Ever Changing Moods". Weller and Talbot were lycra-ed up and engaged in a cycle race. It was rubbish, unlike the song. It was postmodernist irony maybe, though the irony was lost on me.
The Modfather on a bike, though, was apt. Apt for the new Modfather on a bike. The biker with burns. The retro roader. Bradley Wiggins, Brad Wiggins, Wiggo, Wiggy; he sounds as though he could have been in The Jam or The Style Council. The nearest to a Wiggo who was (is) in the pop-music business was Pete Wiggs of the ultimate retro dance group Saint Etienne. More aptness; Saint Etienne, which became eponymous in a musical context because of the football club, and just north of where Stage 12 finished. Of the Tour de France.
Musically, the Tour de France has only ever been done by German postmodernists. Kraftwerk. But, with the short hair, the sharp suits, Kraftwerk could have been electro-Mod. Everything comes around in creating a coincidence of synchronicity, itself with a Mod motif: Sting, the Ace Face of "Quadrophenia" - Pete Townshend and The Who's paean to the Mods - and the composer of "Synchronicity".
Bradley Wiggins' affinity for Modism and Paul Weller in particular has been well-chronicled. It's stretching things to suggest that Wiggins' success makes cycling the new rock 'n' roll, but his success does highlight a commonality with his musical hero. Wiggins, and Mark Cavendish come to that, has attitude. He is edgy. He has given cycling a profile among the British that a more conventional figure such as Chris Hoy, or Chris Boardman twenty-odd years ago, could not have managed.
At the same time, however, he has revealed the extent to which he wants to be seen as a role model. This doesn't come across as the self-important narcissism of a braggart but as coming genuinely from the heart. He is a character many times over, a true sporting hero among many who are held up as being so but who are anything but heroic.
Wiggins, as has also been well-chronicled, has an affinity for Mallorca. His association with Puerto Pollensa and Puerto Alcúdia is such that he is almost claimed as one of our own. As Humphrey Carter in his "Daily Bulletin" leader yesterday alluded to, the Balearics tourism ministry should be looking at how this claim can be turned into promotional gold.
Cycling, as much if not more than golf, is the mainstay of Mallorca's off-season tourism. Not every cyclist is a Wiggins or a Cavendish, not every team that comes to Mallorca in the winter to train is Team Sky, not everyone who comes to Mallorca in winter, or who might come, is necessarily a cyclist, but association is what counts. Alcúdia, home to Team Sky; the Tour de France, trained in Mallorca. And there is probably more association to be forged thanks to the Olympics.
The great white hope of winter tourism, namely sports tourism, will have its forum this October. If they haven't already, the ministerial organisers should consider seeing if Wiggins and Team Sky are available for some promotion to coincide with the forum. (As an aside, it is satisfying to note that Judge Castro, in charge of the "caso Palma Arena" corruption investigations, has made an association similar to the one I made in a previous article in respect of this forum and has requested sight of the budget. It is said that the forum in October will be costing 80,000 euros, massively less than the 1.2 million euros that a similar event arranged by the Duke of Palma's organisation did.)
The forum offers a golden opportunity. Wiggins may seem an unlikely "face" of Mallorca, but only because he doesn't conform to the norm. Yet, that quirky mix of role model, attitude and retro might be highly appropriate. Mallorca, the model for other destinations to aspire to, one with a touch of swagger, arrogance even that comes from a new-found self-belief (one can but hope), and one with retro holiday brought up to date for the modern world: "This Is The Modern World" for the brave new world of Mallorca's tourism.
And that unlikely face, the Ace Face of cycling's Modism, will be spied now and then, as he has been before, taking a coffee at Puerto Pollensa's Cappuccino or 1919. More aptness. The Modfather of cycling to the Modfather himself whose Style Council alter ego was that of The Cappuccino Kid.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The Modfather on a bike, though, was apt. Apt for the new Modfather on a bike. The biker with burns. The retro roader. Bradley Wiggins, Brad Wiggins, Wiggo, Wiggy; he sounds as though he could have been in The Jam or The Style Council. The nearest to a Wiggo who was (is) in the pop-music business was Pete Wiggs of the ultimate retro dance group Saint Etienne. More aptness; Saint Etienne, which became eponymous in a musical context because of the football club, and just north of where Stage 12 finished. Of the Tour de France.
Musically, the Tour de France has only ever been done by German postmodernists. Kraftwerk. But, with the short hair, the sharp suits, Kraftwerk could have been electro-Mod. Everything comes around in creating a coincidence of synchronicity, itself with a Mod motif: Sting, the Ace Face of "Quadrophenia" - Pete Townshend and The Who's paean to the Mods - and the composer of "Synchronicity".
Bradley Wiggins' affinity for Modism and Paul Weller in particular has been well-chronicled. It's stretching things to suggest that Wiggins' success makes cycling the new rock 'n' roll, but his success does highlight a commonality with his musical hero. Wiggins, and Mark Cavendish come to that, has attitude. He is edgy. He has given cycling a profile among the British that a more conventional figure such as Chris Hoy, or Chris Boardman twenty-odd years ago, could not have managed.
At the same time, however, he has revealed the extent to which he wants to be seen as a role model. This doesn't come across as the self-important narcissism of a braggart but as coming genuinely from the heart. He is a character many times over, a true sporting hero among many who are held up as being so but who are anything but heroic.
Wiggins, as has also been well-chronicled, has an affinity for Mallorca. His association with Puerto Pollensa and Puerto Alcúdia is such that he is almost claimed as one of our own. As Humphrey Carter in his "Daily Bulletin" leader yesterday alluded to, the Balearics tourism ministry should be looking at how this claim can be turned into promotional gold.
Cycling, as much if not more than golf, is the mainstay of Mallorca's off-season tourism. Not every cyclist is a Wiggins or a Cavendish, not every team that comes to Mallorca in the winter to train is Team Sky, not everyone who comes to Mallorca in winter, or who might come, is necessarily a cyclist, but association is what counts. Alcúdia, home to Team Sky; the Tour de France, trained in Mallorca. And there is probably more association to be forged thanks to the Olympics.
The great white hope of winter tourism, namely sports tourism, will have its forum this October. If they haven't already, the ministerial organisers should consider seeing if Wiggins and Team Sky are available for some promotion to coincide with the forum. (As an aside, it is satisfying to note that Judge Castro, in charge of the "caso Palma Arena" corruption investigations, has made an association similar to the one I made in a previous article in respect of this forum and has requested sight of the budget. It is said that the forum in October will be costing 80,000 euros, massively less than the 1.2 million euros that a similar event arranged by the Duke of Palma's organisation did.)
The forum offers a golden opportunity. Wiggins may seem an unlikely "face" of Mallorca, but only because he doesn't conform to the norm. Yet, that quirky mix of role model, attitude and retro might be highly appropriate. Mallorca, the model for other destinations to aspire to, one with a touch of swagger, arrogance even that comes from a new-found self-belief (one can but hope), and one with retro holiday brought up to date for the modern world: "This Is The Modern World" for the brave new world of Mallorca's tourism.
And that unlikely face, the Ace Face of cycling's Modism, will be spied now and then, as he has been before, taking a coffee at Puerto Pollensa's Cappuccino or 1919. More aptness. The Modfather of cycling to the Modfather himself whose Style Council alter ego was that of The Cappuccino Kid.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Cyclomania: Mallorca and cycling tourism
I love cyclists. I love their tap-dancing sounds on solid supermarket floors. I love their wailing to each other as they race along the carreteras. I love the roads being alive with the sound of cycling whoosh and the shouts of greeting they exchange with white-van men. I want to stroke their spokes and handlebars. I want to hug each and every one of them as I drive past them. Each and every one of the 90,000 of them.
I haven't always loved cyclists. I have been saloon-car Scrooge to toe-clipping and a-cloppetying Tiny Tims. But I have been visited by the ghosts of cycling past, present and future. I have seen the error of my ways.
It started last year with my being upbraided for the annual ritual that coincides with the beginning of the cycling season, i.e. the ritual of taking the rise. Then something more personal happened. Two old friends, one from schooldays, one from university. They came out. It was a surprise, but these are liberated times. One, to whom I spoke recently for the first time in years, confessed to being a "mad road biker". "A mad road biker?" I enquired. Yes, mad. Not mad as in being sectioned or maniac mad, but mad keen. Old friendships can mean much when bringing on a conversion; that with the other friend was so intimate, he once head-butted me while doing a Denis Law impression.
The mad road biker is so mad keen he began to ask about cycling in Mallorca. One day, he might become one of the thousands of cyclists on the island's roads in late winter and early spring. Ninety thousand of them, the number expected between March and mid-May this year.
Ninety thousand isn't a huge number. If you take the total of the island's annual tourist intake to be around nine million, cyclists amount to a mere one per cent. But it's something, when set against the general absence of tourists in the off-season.
Ah yes but, goes the cyclophobe opposition; 90,000 not spending anything, to say nothing of them getting in the way on the roads. There's an element of truth in the non-spending argument, but only an element. A drink here or there at a bar may not amount to a great deal, but you try hacking up the side of the Puig Major with a three-course lunch washed down with a bottle of red rumbling and sloshing around inside you. It's the après-cycle when the cyclist comes into his or her consumption own. I've seen them. Seen them individually demolishing the side of a cow. Were Erdinger to have its own brewery in places like Playa de Muro, then it would be drunk dry daily.
While there is a myth that cyclists keep their cash firmly in their panniers - the director of Mallorca's tourism development says they actually spend 15% more than your average tourist - there is also a myth that they are all German and therefore only quaffing "weizen". It seems as though they are all German, all "heil", hale and hearty, but they are not. It's because some are Swiss or Austrian. The country that apparently dispatches the greatest number of cycling tourists is the UK. 30%. A statistic I find hard to believe, given the lack of UK flights by comparison with those from Germany. But we will, I suppose, have to take the tourism ministry at its word and accept that the 30% is a reflection of the fact that suddenly cycling has become a sport that the Brits are any good at.
The 90,000 on two wheels have to be considered in the wider context of activity tourism. There are, it would appear, 150,000 hikers tramping across Mallorca on an annual basis as well as 100,000 golfers. Both figures seem surprisingly high, but there again, you're less aware of golfers than you are of cyclists. Golfers don't, as a rule, launch a tee shot down a main road.
Put these numbers together and the level of activity tourism as a whole starts to sound a bit more respectable. It's still not huge, but the 3.8% of tourism that the three groups together represent is 3.8% that might not otherwise be in Mallorca, and it is a percentage that is rising year in year out.
With an eye on increasing the number of cycling tourists, plans are afoot to improve both bike lanes and safety. Three cyclists were killed in Mallorca in 2010, the same number as in 2009. Some roads have a particularly bad reputation for being unsafe, such as that between Pollensa and Campanet, one route in the north of the island, the area most favoured by cyclists. There is a proposal, coming from the Alcúdia and Can Picafort hotel association, of revisiting the idea of creating a special bike lane that would run between Puerto Pollensa and Artà, across more or less the whole of the northern tourist zone in other words. Good. They should do all of this.
I don't expect a wholesale conversion of the island's cyclophobes into born-again cyclophiles. Loving cyclists may be stretching things, but learning to live with them isn't. Even if they do sound daft when they're clomping around a supermarket.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
I haven't always loved cyclists. I have been saloon-car Scrooge to toe-clipping and a-cloppetying Tiny Tims. But I have been visited by the ghosts of cycling past, present and future. I have seen the error of my ways.
It started last year with my being upbraided for the annual ritual that coincides with the beginning of the cycling season, i.e. the ritual of taking the rise. Then something more personal happened. Two old friends, one from schooldays, one from university. They came out. It was a surprise, but these are liberated times. One, to whom I spoke recently for the first time in years, confessed to being a "mad road biker". "A mad road biker?" I enquired. Yes, mad. Not mad as in being sectioned or maniac mad, but mad keen. Old friendships can mean much when bringing on a conversion; that with the other friend was so intimate, he once head-butted me while doing a Denis Law impression.
The mad road biker is so mad keen he began to ask about cycling in Mallorca. One day, he might become one of the thousands of cyclists on the island's roads in late winter and early spring. Ninety thousand of them, the number expected between March and mid-May this year.
Ninety thousand isn't a huge number. If you take the total of the island's annual tourist intake to be around nine million, cyclists amount to a mere one per cent. But it's something, when set against the general absence of tourists in the off-season.
Ah yes but, goes the cyclophobe opposition; 90,000 not spending anything, to say nothing of them getting in the way on the roads. There's an element of truth in the non-spending argument, but only an element. A drink here or there at a bar may not amount to a great deal, but you try hacking up the side of the Puig Major with a three-course lunch washed down with a bottle of red rumbling and sloshing around inside you. It's the après-cycle when the cyclist comes into his or her consumption own. I've seen them. Seen them individually demolishing the side of a cow. Were Erdinger to have its own brewery in places like Playa de Muro, then it would be drunk dry daily.
While there is a myth that cyclists keep their cash firmly in their panniers - the director of Mallorca's tourism development says they actually spend 15% more than your average tourist - there is also a myth that they are all German and therefore only quaffing "weizen". It seems as though they are all German, all "heil", hale and hearty, but they are not. It's because some are Swiss or Austrian. The country that apparently dispatches the greatest number of cycling tourists is the UK. 30%. A statistic I find hard to believe, given the lack of UK flights by comparison with those from Germany. But we will, I suppose, have to take the tourism ministry at its word and accept that the 30% is a reflection of the fact that suddenly cycling has become a sport that the Brits are any good at.
The 90,000 on two wheels have to be considered in the wider context of activity tourism. There are, it would appear, 150,000 hikers tramping across Mallorca on an annual basis as well as 100,000 golfers. Both figures seem surprisingly high, but there again, you're less aware of golfers than you are of cyclists. Golfers don't, as a rule, launch a tee shot down a main road.
Put these numbers together and the level of activity tourism as a whole starts to sound a bit more respectable. It's still not huge, but the 3.8% of tourism that the three groups together represent is 3.8% that might not otherwise be in Mallorca, and it is a percentage that is rising year in year out.
With an eye on increasing the number of cycling tourists, plans are afoot to improve both bike lanes and safety. Three cyclists were killed in Mallorca in 2010, the same number as in 2009. Some roads have a particularly bad reputation for being unsafe, such as that between Pollensa and Campanet, one route in the north of the island, the area most favoured by cyclists. There is a proposal, coming from the Alcúdia and Can Picafort hotel association, of revisiting the idea of creating a special bike lane that would run between Puerto Pollensa and Artà, across more or less the whole of the northern tourist zone in other words. Good. They should do all of this.
I don't expect a wholesale conversion of the island's cyclophobes into born-again cyclophiles. Loving cyclists may be stretching things, but learning to live with them isn't. Even if they do sound daft when they're clomping around a supermarket.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, March 07, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Levels of cycling tourism in Mallorca
From March to the middle of May, the number of cycling tourists expected to visit Mallorca will be around 90,000 in total, roughly one per cent of the total number of tourists that the island receives in a year. Mainly located in Alcúdia and Pollensa and in Playa de Palma, 30% of this number comprises British cyclists.
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