How Farming Land Reform Aided Tourism

In a document of 1933, drawn up as part of what was called the "Registro de la Propiedad Expropiable", there is a list of owners of land ("rustic property") who each possessed more than 250 hectares. There are nearly 70 names on this list for the Balearics as a whole. Many of them are similar - they were members of families - and a couple are familiar names. Juan March Ordinas, he of the Banca March, is one of them. A second was Joaquín Gual de Torrella. In addition to some land in Binissalem, he had much more in Alcúdia, Muro and Sa Pobla. The exact amount of land in the first two was unspecified. For Sa Pobla, it was specified. He owned most of it.

Gual de Torrella is central to the story of the development of Albufera. This member of the Mallorcan nobility acquired vast amounts of land - hence why he had interests in Sa Pobla, Alcúdia and Muro - included among which was the farming colony of Gatamoix, which had been founded by the British engineers responsible for draining and cultivating Albufera.

I referred yesterday to the farming colonies of the second half of the nineteenth century. Gatamoix was the biggest of them. Unlike others, such as Colonia Sant Pere, it lasted only a short time. It wasn't a philanthropic exercise on behalf of Frederick Bateman and the other engineers. They needed workers, so they created the colony. Bateman's son, Lee, was philanthropic. He also went native and was incredibly vain. He renamed the colony Sant Lluís, a Catalan corruption of his Christian name, and presided over the financial ruin of the New Majorca Land Company. Gual de Torrella got himself a bargain and promptly decided to close Gatamoix.

The sad story of Gatamoix is just one example of how Mallorca's land was subject to the whims of private landowners. The 1933 list, because of the families involved, shows that the island's land was in the hands of a small and select group of owners. Not all were bad or unscrupulous (Gual de Torrella did some immense good; it was he who was responsible for introducing rice cultivation to Albufera), but for political reasons (this was the time of the Second Republic and some of the owners were from the nobility) and for legitimate farming reasons, expropriation was deemed necessary in 1933.

Pre-tourism, Mallorca had long faced a struggle in optimising its land resources in terms of exploitation, self-sufficiency and export. The farming colonies had partly been a response to this struggle, and they were an attempt at some form of planning. But by 1933, there was still a lack of order. Land and its use was fragmented, despite reforms that had been ongoing for a century, and partly this was because the land was still predominantly in the hands of this select group of owners. This struggle wasn't helped by how the land was used. By the 1930s, there was still a reliance on cereal farming (Bateman had envisaged wheat cultivation at Albufera, which proved disastrous), but alternative crops promised far better yields and export possibilities - these were almonds, figs and carobs. And it was their cultivation which was the farming reason for the drawing up of the register of land for expropriation.

There was also, of course, the political reason, and in addition there was some pragmatism. Earlier changes to inheritance meant that the great estates of this select landowning class could no longer just be handed down. Also, a number of these owners had serious financial difficulties. The expropriation register hastened a process that had got underway before the Republic came into being, namely the sale of land.

When we consider Mallorca's tourism development, we tend to do so in terms of the tourist himself and of factors such as the jet engine and tour operators. What is often overlooked is the land factor. The expropriation register of 1933 may have referred to "rustic property", predominantly in rural areas, but some of it included coastal land (Albufera was a case in point). Typically, this land had been considered all but worthless, but entrepreneurs (and bankers) were starting to appreciate that it might not be, and this change in attitude towards coastal land plus inheritance rules, financial difficulties and the expropriation register combined to produce an unexpected result.

A fundamental reason why Mallorca's tourism took off as it did in the 1960s was the existence of nascent resorts which sprang up during the wars, and they came about almost by accident. Both in anticipation of the expropriation register and once it was published, sales of rural land which included parcels of coastal land led to the creation of Son Bauló (Can Picafort), Palmanova and Cala d'Or, to name but three.

Tourism development has been a principal cause for the decline of the farming sector. Yet, without a realisation that they would, reforms of rural land were to prove to be crucial to the very industry which was to usurp farming's one-time economic dominance.

MALLORCA TODAY - Less expropriation of coast in Playa de Muro

The strict application of the old coasts law had led to the possibility that some 100,000 square metres of coastal land occupied primarily by hotels in Playa de Muro could have been expropriated. The reformed law means that there will now only be 20,000 square metres due to be taken back, but the town hall plans to contest this.

See more: Ultima Hora

All That Noise And All That Sound: Playa de Palma

"The noise that is made does not correspond with the reality."

This could be a maxim for much of what occurs - or rather doesn't - in Mallorca, especially when it comes to major projects. Never a truer word spoken, and it took a German to speak them. A couple of weeks ago TUI's Volker Böttcher expressed his frustration with plans for the regeneration of Playa de Palma. "We hear many things but don't know what they will be." All that noise and all that sound.

Playa de Palma, where TUI are concerned, is important. It represents a stable, staple even, element of the tour operator's portfolio. Böttcher said that in twenty years time it will still be important, but this future importance doesn't overlook present deterioration and a future which includes new and exclusive hotels. This is meant to be the future. Or was. The plan for Playa de Palma is in disarray.

The noise surrounding the regeneration has emanated from far and wide, even from higher echelons of national government. The iconic significance that has been attached to the project makes the wailing because of its collapse, partial or total, that much louder amidst the sounds of false icons and ambitions crashing into the bay of Palma.

The project has always been highly ambitious, which is not a reason for its deserving to fail. It has envisaged a transformation of the extended resort, one designed to establish long-term competitiveness for what is the most emblematic of Mallorca's tourist areas. The scale of the ambition has, though, been its downfall.

The regeneration has been proposed for what are currently productive hotels and for residences. It is this that distinguishes it from urban renewal programmes, some of them aimed at creating tourism which doesn't already exist, and from altogether smaller, essentially one-off projects to upgrade coastal towns, such as have been the case in the UK. Add to this the need for wholesale expropriation of hotels and dwellings, and what you have with Playa de Palma is something of a leap into the unknown, the remodelling of a tourist area in people's lifetimes. As far as I know, it is unique.

Talk of expropriation raises its own issues. Apart from a psychological dimension, there is that of agreeing valuation and all the likely legal wrangles that would arise, the swiftness with which compensation might be forthcoming (and it hasn't always been swift in the past with other infrastructure schemes) and precisely where the money would come from, not just for compulsory purchase but also for the whole project. There is the mere matter of some four billion euros to be found, roughly a third of it from the public purse. We now have the Balearics president calling on the European Union to cough up for tourist-resort modernisation. For Playa de Palma in other words.

The consortium that is overseeing the plan accepts that it has made mistakes, mainly of a presentational nature. It believes though that regeneration cannot be effected without expropriation and re-building. It's right. It can't be. When its director of planning, Joseba Dañobeitia, speaks of hotels built from the '60s into the '90s being incapable of competing with other, newer destinations, he should also be adding that whole resorts can't compete. Playa de Palma, and the same applies elsewhere, is hamstrung by its past, by having been a first-mover in mass tourism and having been left behind both by greater modernity and by tourist expectations.

But what is now left of the regeneration plan is some tarting-up and a piecemeal approach whereby individual owners can seek to enter into agreements with the consortium for their property or land to be purchased. Rather than an integrated, root-and-branch approach, you end up with the worst of all solutions; something which is neither here not there.

The consortium insists that what has been envisaged is not a "revolution" or "luxury" but simply an improvement to tourism quality. The trouble is, as TUI's boss has alluded to, that no one has been clear as to what has been really envisaged. Hoteliers insist that what is needed is a maintenance of three-star accommodation, that which satisfies the sort of market that has been meat and drink to Playa de Palma for years. Perhaps so, but going forward would this be acceptable to the likes of TUI which has called for hotel upgrades? The plan, in basic terms, is not complicated. Aesthetic improvements and better hotels, and if this means fewer hotels, then so be it; there is over-supply as it is.

Playa de Palma will remain important to TUI, but twenty years is a long time. It has been long enough to see Playa de Palma and much of Mallorca engulfed by what maybe should have been foreseen but wasn't, namely the emergence of quality rivals. I have no wish to make light of the proposals for expropriation and of the impact this would have, but they should send in the bulldozers tomorrow. And not just in Playa de Palma.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.