A hotel that is emblematic of the quality of Iberostar and of many of the hotels in Playa de Muro, the hotel that takes its name from that of the resort is celebrating its 25th anniversary. It is a hotel that is rather different to others in the area, as it is open nine months a year, thanks to its involvement with cycling tourism.
See more: El Mundo
Showing posts with label Iberostar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iberostar. Show all posts
Monday, July 23, 2012
Friday, October 14, 2011
The Three Degrees: Mallorca's winter tourism
I was dreaming of a less-than-white Christmas. No rubbish weather for me. Bronzed, golden brown. I was dreaming and then I was told to stop. By the BBC website home page. Make it real. Make what real? Make a holiday in the Canaries real, courtesy of Iberostar. I clicked the link. Dreams can come true.
You're given no false impression as to why you would wish to make it real in the Canaries. Off you go with the family, one of whom is the child with the snorkel kit who greets you as you click from the BBC site. And why is he wearing snorkel kit? Because he wants to go snorkelling of course. In the sea. Departing from a beach. In the sun. Sun and beach. In winter.
This is a promotion by the same Iberostar which grew rich on the back of Mallorcan tourism - Mallorcan summer tourism. Once you have scrolled down the list of the 13 four or five-star hotels on the four main Canary islands - all available with special offers to the end of November, for booking through the winter to the end of April - you come to a footnote. It is under "most popular destinations". Hotels in Majorca. Click.
Well, having clicked, you can probably guess. The red squares on the calendar mean the hotels are closed. All of them. Until April. Mallorca is "most popular", when it is open. But who can blame Iberostar for flogging the Canaries? They're doing what has long been one half of the mainstay of winter tourism promoted by tour operators, travel agents and now hotels. What do they all promote? Either snow or winter sun.
Summer tourism means sun and the movement of millions in its pursuit; winter tourism means snow or sun and the movement of millions more. But you move the millions to where you can pretty much guarantee good coverings of snow or good amounts of sun in temperatures of at least 20 degrees.
Sorry, Mallorca, but you fail the 20-degree test. By three degrees. It may not seem much, but the average temperature for the six months of the off-season is only 17. The psychological barrier is 20 degrees (minimum). Tenerife, by comparison and despite having almost as many days of rain if not as much rain as Mallorca (10 millimetres less on average), comes in at 21.9 degrees (which also happens to break the 70 Fahrenheit barrier). This is why the boy has his snorkel kit on, this is why dreams can be made real - in the Canaries - and this is why Iberostar makes them real there, and not in Mallorca.
Weather does matter. In fact, it is all that matters.
Mallorca's winter tourism. Discuss. Culture, gastronomy, bird-watching, hiking, Nordic walking, cycling, golf, senior tourism. There is much which is available and promoted; it combines to create an under-mass of winter tourism approximately one-tenth the size of that which comes in summer. Unless there were real incentives, such as major, and one means major, attractions, the ratio is unlikely to ever alter fundamentally. And it's all down to those missing three degrees.
There is a great deal of what one might call apologism for Mallorca in winter. And it is apologism that entails preaching to oneself or the converted. It is apologism that can cover all the list above and more that bring about the around one million off-season visitors. But it can only ever get the apologists so far, because something's missing. Three degrees' worth. At least.
This all said, it's a nonsense when you think about it. A nonsense, not that Iberostar or any other hotel chain, airline or tour operator would choose Tenerife over Mallorca, but that Iberostar and all the other hotel chains are sitting on colossal amounts of prime real estate in Mallorca which sit idle for six months of the year. All that asset being unproductive, being wasted; an asset and an investment that have contributed to the cost of land in Mallorca for everyone else, largely deprived of their own productiveness for twelve months of the year.
The tourism industry in Mallorca would probably like to believe that it is efficient. It isn't. It is massively inefficient. Inefficient in terms of asset and resources and inefficient in having been singularly incapable of arriving at solutions to make these resources more efficient, twelve months of the year. But then, what can it do about the weather? Not much. It makes efficient use of one resource - the sun - for six months, and that's it. In the Canaries, on the other hand ... .
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
You're given no false impression as to why you would wish to make it real in the Canaries. Off you go with the family, one of whom is the child with the snorkel kit who greets you as you click from the BBC site. And why is he wearing snorkel kit? Because he wants to go snorkelling of course. In the sea. Departing from a beach. In the sun. Sun and beach. In winter.
This is a promotion by the same Iberostar which grew rich on the back of Mallorcan tourism - Mallorcan summer tourism. Once you have scrolled down the list of the 13 four or five-star hotels on the four main Canary islands - all available with special offers to the end of November, for booking through the winter to the end of April - you come to a footnote. It is under "most popular destinations". Hotels in Majorca. Click.
Well, having clicked, you can probably guess. The red squares on the calendar mean the hotels are closed. All of them. Until April. Mallorca is "most popular", when it is open. But who can blame Iberostar for flogging the Canaries? They're doing what has long been one half of the mainstay of winter tourism promoted by tour operators, travel agents and now hotels. What do they all promote? Either snow or winter sun.
Summer tourism means sun and the movement of millions in its pursuit; winter tourism means snow or sun and the movement of millions more. But you move the millions to where you can pretty much guarantee good coverings of snow or good amounts of sun in temperatures of at least 20 degrees.
Sorry, Mallorca, but you fail the 20-degree test. By three degrees. It may not seem much, but the average temperature for the six months of the off-season is only 17. The psychological barrier is 20 degrees (minimum). Tenerife, by comparison and despite having almost as many days of rain if not as much rain as Mallorca (10 millimetres less on average), comes in at 21.9 degrees (which also happens to break the 70 Fahrenheit barrier). This is why the boy has his snorkel kit on, this is why dreams can be made real - in the Canaries - and this is why Iberostar makes them real there, and not in Mallorca.
Weather does matter. In fact, it is all that matters.
Mallorca's winter tourism. Discuss. Culture, gastronomy, bird-watching, hiking, Nordic walking, cycling, golf, senior tourism. There is much which is available and promoted; it combines to create an under-mass of winter tourism approximately one-tenth the size of that which comes in summer. Unless there were real incentives, such as major, and one means major, attractions, the ratio is unlikely to ever alter fundamentally. And it's all down to those missing three degrees.
There is a great deal of what one might call apologism for Mallorca in winter. And it is apologism that entails preaching to oneself or the converted. It is apologism that can cover all the list above and more that bring about the around one million off-season visitors. But it can only ever get the apologists so far, because something's missing. Three degrees' worth. At least.
This all said, it's a nonsense when you think about it. A nonsense, not that Iberostar or any other hotel chain, airline or tour operator would choose Tenerife over Mallorca, but that Iberostar and all the other hotel chains are sitting on colossal amounts of prime real estate in Mallorca which sit idle for six months of the year. All that asset being unproductive, being wasted; an asset and an investment that have contributed to the cost of land in Mallorca for everyone else, largely deprived of their own productiveness for twelve months of the year.
The tourism industry in Mallorca would probably like to believe that it is efficient. It isn't. It is massively inefficient. Inefficient in terms of asset and resources and inefficient in having been singularly incapable of arriving at solutions to make these resources more efficient, twelve months of the year. But then, what can it do about the weather? Not much. It makes efficient use of one resource - the sun - for six months, and that's it. In the Canaries, on the other hand ... .
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
The Power Of The Hotels
If you have wondered just how powerful and how important Mallorca's hoteliers are, then a glance at the rankings of hotel chains produced by the magazine "Hosteltur" will tell you more or less all you need to know.
From a base of over 100 Spanish hotel chains, four Mallorcan groups are in the top five in terms of their turnover, and the same four feature in the top five of Spanish hotels internationally (by number of rooms). The four are, and you could probably guess at them anyway, Meliá Hotels International, Barceló, Riu and Iberostar. Only one non-Mallorcan group, NH, breaks the island's stranglehold at the top of the Spanish hotel industry, though another, Husa, does edge Iberostar into sixth place in terms of rooms in Spain alone.
Scan down the list of hotel companies in the Spanish room ranking and further familiar names appear, such as Grupotel, Viva, Garden. Mallorca's economy is founded on tourism and is founded, furthermore, on a hotel industry which also regularly has its members high on the lists of best-performing Mallorcan companies of any sort, which is hardly surprising, given the dominance of tourism and hotels.
Mallorca's hotel groups are not just important to the island's economy, they are important to Spain's as well. This concentration of economic power, which brings with it political influence, should leave you in little doubt as to how much the Balearic Government is inclined to listen to the hotel industry. If it seeks to limit holiday lets, then who is there to say no? If it accedes to demands for all-inclusive offers from tour operators, who is there to say it shouldn't, especially if a tour operator owns a piece of the action? Riu, as an example, is 50% owned by TUI.
The hoteliers get a bad press, partly because of issues such as holiday lets, yet Mallorca's economy would be nowhere without them, while the island would not have come to have acquired a status, a kudos, that its hotel industry has given it both within Spain and internationally.
It may be hard for some to accept, but we should really be praising the hotels.
A curiosity is how it has come to be that Mallorca could have four of the five leading hotel groups in Spain and four which feature among the top 30 of all the world's hotel groups.
Of the four companies, Barceló is by far the oldest, dating back to the start of the 1930s. Riu and Meliá were created in the 1950s, while Iberostar is the new kid on the block; it was founded in the 1980s. A simple explanation for the strength of these leading hotel chains is that they were in the right place at the right time to cash in on the tourism explosion from the sixties onwards, but this doesn't explain Iberostar, which came along that much later, and nor does it explain why Mallorca rather than other major centres of mass tourism in Spain.
There may, though, be a different simple explanation - business nous, entrepreneurialism and innovation. Does Mallorca have these in greater supply than elsewhere in Spain? It would be a facile conclusion to make, but consider how just one set of brothers has done so much for Mallorca. Miguel Fluxá is the president and founder of Iberostar: one brother is president of Lottusse, the original Fluxá family leather business; the other brother founded the footwear firm Camper.
Right place and right time did count for something, but it also demanded the right thing. For Riu, this meant tapping into the German market from a very early stage, creating an alliance in the '60s with the tour operator Dr. Tigges, then reinforcing the German link through its association with TUI, which was forged in the seventies, and afterwards embarking on expansion to the Canaries and, in 1991, the Dominican Republic.
The internationalisation of Riu and the other major Mallorcan hotel chains has been key to the positions they now enjoy. Mallorca exports its hotel know-how and technology, yet there is an irony in that this has helped to develop destinations which are competitors to Mallorca.
The big four may eclipse other hotel chains in Mallorca, but all of the chains combine to make one massive force of business, economics and political nature. Complaints against the hotels, such as those regarding all-inclusives, are, I'm afraid, unlikely to cut much ice. Just think of Riu. Half-owned by TUI which is quarter-owned by a Russian. And the Chinese are on the prowl as well; the HNA group is a shareholder in NH. What chance does the little guy have against all this lot?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
From a base of over 100 Spanish hotel chains, four Mallorcan groups are in the top five in terms of their turnover, and the same four feature in the top five of Spanish hotels internationally (by number of rooms). The four are, and you could probably guess at them anyway, Meliá Hotels International, Barceló, Riu and Iberostar. Only one non-Mallorcan group, NH, breaks the island's stranglehold at the top of the Spanish hotel industry, though another, Husa, does edge Iberostar into sixth place in terms of rooms in Spain alone.
Scan down the list of hotel companies in the Spanish room ranking and further familiar names appear, such as Grupotel, Viva, Garden. Mallorca's economy is founded on tourism and is founded, furthermore, on a hotel industry which also regularly has its members high on the lists of best-performing Mallorcan companies of any sort, which is hardly surprising, given the dominance of tourism and hotels.
Mallorca's hotel groups are not just important to the island's economy, they are important to Spain's as well. This concentration of economic power, which brings with it political influence, should leave you in little doubt as to how much the Balearic Government is inclined to listen to the hotel industry. If it seeks to limit holiday lets, then who is there to say no? If it accedes to demands for all-inclusive offers from tour operators, who is there to say it shouldn't, especially if a tour operator owns a piece of the action? Riu, as an example, is 50% owned by TUI.
The hoteliers get a bad press, partly because of issues such as holiday lets, yet Mallorca's economy would be nowhere without them, while the island would not have come to have acquired a status, a kudos, that its hotel industry has given it both within Spain and internationally.
It may be hard for some to accept, but we should really be praising the hotels.
A curiosity is how it has come to be that Mallorca could have four of the five leading hotel groups in Spain and four which feature among the top 30 of all the world's hotel groups.
Of the four companies, Barceló is by far the oldest, dating back to the start of the 1930s. Riu and Meliá were created in the 1950s, while Iberostar is the new kid on the block; it was founded in the 1980s. A simple explanation for the strength of these leading hotel chains is that they were in the right place at the right time to cash in on the tourism explosion from the sixties onwards, but this doesn't explain Iberostar, which came along that much later, and nor does it explain why Mallorca rather than other major centres of mass tourism in Spain.
There may, though, be a different simple explanation - business nous, entrepreneurialism and innovation. Does Mallorca have these in greater supply than elsewhere in Spain? It would be a facile conclusion to make, but consider how just one set of brothers has done so much for Mallorca. Miguel Fluxá is the president and founder of Iberostar: one brother is president of Lottusse, the original Fluxá family leather business; the other brother founded the footwear firm Camper.
Right place and right time did count for something, but it also demanded the right thing. For Riu, this meant tapping into the German market from a very early stage, creating an alliance in the '60s with the tour operator Dr. Tigges, then reinforcing the German link through its association with TUI, which was forged in the seventies, and afterwards embarking on expansion to the Canaries and, in 1991, the Dominican Republic.
The internationalisation of Riu and the other major Mallorcan hotel chains has been key to the positions they now enjoy. Mallorca exports its hotel know-how and technology, yet there is an irony in that this has helped to develop destinations which are competitors to Mallorca.
The big four may eclipse other hotel chains in Mallorca, but all of the chains combine to make one massive force of business, economics and political nature. Complaints against the hotels, such as those regarding all-inclusives, are, I'm afraid, unlikely to cut much ice. Just think of Riu. Half-owned by TUI which is quarter-owned by a Russian. And the Chinese are on the prowl as well; the HNA group is a shareholder in NH. What chance does the little guy have against all this lot?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Stars
Awards ceremonies. You know the sort of thing. Oscars, BAFTAs and the like: Gwyneth squirting tears and dear, dear David Niven sending his fridge. And then there are the annual awards given out by the "Travel Trade Gazette" (TTG). Is any awards ceremony not glittering? That of the TTG was, because they said so. All the worthies of the travel industry and Austin Healey, to boot. But hopefully he didn't boot anyone. He was there, it seems, more because he was a "star" of "Strictly Come Dancing". Was he really. Be careful with the star turn. I once attended a do where a well-known, former BBC weatherman went down like a lead weather balloon when he littered his after-dinner ents with so-called jokes of questionable racial content. At least it wasn't the Central Synagogue's annual get-together. And with that connection ... I have previously mentioned my Henry Kissinger story, but not the fact that when he made his speech in New Orleans he had to stop and ask what audience he was actually addressing. Speech-making by cut and paste, and a fat cheque, to boot. Not only if you're Austin Healey.
Be all this as it may. The TTG's annual awards, and the list is long enough to take up a weekend break, were held last week. The nominations were ... ? Among those for "trade-facing website of the year" and "travel gives back" - whatever they are - were those for hotel chain of the year. Six nominees, three of them Mallorcan. And the winner was ... ? Iberostar. Riu and Sol Melia were the two other Mallorca-based chains.
Clearly, this accolade was bestowed not solely because of Iberostar's hotels on the island - it is an international player and an important one - but the hotels in the area (six of them in Alcúdia and Playa de Muro) exude a class and distinction that is well worthy of the company being awarded the top honour. While there is some navel-gazing in respect of some of the island's hotel stock in comparison with the newer holiday destinations of Turkey and Egypt and so on, Iberostar impresses with its commitment to constant improvement. A winter does not pass without major renovation in at least one of its establishments; renovation, moreover, which has created a certain differentiation, such as the high-tech styling of the Playa de Muro Village reception, within the context of a strong and visible brand image and corporate identity: the Iberostar "star" is one of the iconic symbols of local hospitality.
The Iberostar hotels of Alcúdia bay are new by comparison with some others. The Club Macs are now almost forty years old, Bellevue not far behind. It is perhaps understandable that concerns are expressed about the general quality of the island's hotel stock - compared with that in competitor destinations - if one takes into account the fact that Mallorca (and Spain) was at the vanguard of mass tourism. Rather like Britain suffered from being the first European country to undergo an industrial revolution and thereby created an infrastructure destined for obsolescence because of the lack of a formula to apply, so Mallorca had no template to go by when it gave itself over to hotels. Those who followed could learn from the mistakes. The Iberostars, though, rather than the pack-em-in, sell-em-cheap philosophy, opted for one of built-in quality supported by that strong brand image to reflect and to convey this quality. This is not to be critical, especially given the sheer scale of some of the older stock. The investment required for the sort of improvements that might bring them up to the levels of the competitor destinations would be enormous. But having said that, the investment Iberostar puts in is far from insignificant. Witness, if you had, the total gutting and then refurbishment of the likes of the Albufera Playa.
Iberostar deserves its award and deserves to be recognised as a company which demonstrates how good Mallorca can be if it really tries. Stars? Several.
Just on travel, you might be interested in knowing some websites to visit which offer savings for a variety of travel needs. "The Times" has listed 33 such sites. Go here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/news/article6849547.ece
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Kinks, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaojZhoeE5s. Today's title - ginger bloke and his group.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Index for September 2009
Alcúdia day of the tourist - 9 September 2009, 11 September 2009
Alcúdia Fair 2009 - 26 September 2009
Alcúdia old town shops - 1 September 2009
Balearic Government rationalisation - 5 September 2009, 6 September 2009
Barcarès - 4 September 2009, 10 September 2009, 16 September 2009
Binissalem Vermar 2009 - 22 September 2009
Catalan v. Castilian - 27 September 2009
Celebrities - 20 September 2009, 28 September 2009
Christian names - 14 September 2009, 23 September 2009
Diario de Mallorca - 29 September 2009
Fiestas - 22 September 2009
Guardia Civil - 27 September 2009
Hacienda scam - 4 September 2009
Holiday rentals - 18 September 2009
Hospital General de Muro - 28 September 2009
Hotels closing early - 17 September 2009
Iberostar - 30 September 2009
IKEA - 21 September 2009
Illegal street selling, Alcúdia - 7 September 2009
Internet and newspapers - 29 September 2009
Jamón serrano circuit, Alcúdia - 25 September 2009
Market value, invoice - 3 September 2009
Natural and butane gas - 24 September 2009
Obra Cultural Balear - 27 September 2009
Plastic bags - 11 September 2009
Posters - 8 September 2009
Puerto Alcudia's new terminal - 16 September 2009
Sa Pobla-Alcúdia railway - 12 September 2009, 13 September 2009, 16 September 2009
Social conflict - 19 September 2009
Status Quo - 2 September 2009
Storms - 14 September 2009, 17 September 2009
Sun, Sea and A&E - 28 September 2009
Tourism promotion - 6 September 2009
Travel awards - 30 September 2009
Travel writing - 15 September 2009
Be all this as it may. The TTG's annual awards, and the list is long enough to take up a weekend break, were held last week. The nominations were ... ? Among those for "trade-facing website of the year" and "travel gives back" - whatever they are - were those for hotel chain of the year. Six nominees, three of them Mallorcan. And the winner was ... ? Iberostar. Riu and Sol Melia were the two other Mallorca-based chains.
Clearly, this accolade was bestowed not solely because of Iberostar's hotels on the island - it is an international player and an important one - but the hotels in the area (six of them in Alcúdia and Playa de Muro) exude a class and distinction that is well worthy of the company being awarded the top honour. While there is some navel-gazing in respect of some of the island's hotel stock in comparison with the newer holiday destinations of Turkey and Egypt and so on, Iberostar impresses with its commitment to constant improvement. A winter does not pass without major renovation in at least one of its establishments; renovation, moreover, which has created a certain differentiation, such as the high-tech styling of the Playa de Muro Village reception, within the context of a strong and visible brand image and corporate identity: the Iberostar "star" is one of the iconic symbols of local hospitality.
The Iberostar hotels of Alcúdia bay are new by comparison with some others. The Club Macs are now almost forty years old, Bellevue not far behind. It is perhaps understandable that concerns are expressed about the general quality of the island's hotel stock - compared with that in competitor destinations - if one takes into account the fact that Mallorca (and Spain) was at the vanguard of mass tourism. Rather like Britain suffered from being the first European country to undergo an industrial revolution and thereby created an infrastructure destined for obsolescence because of the lack of a formula to apply, so Mallorca had no template to go by when it gave itself over to hotels. Those who followed could learn from the mistakes. The Iberostars, though, rather than the pack-em-in, sell-em-cheap philosophy, opted for one of built-in quality supported by that strong brand image to reflect and to convey this quality. This is not to be critical, especially given the sheer scale of some of the older stock. The investment required for the sort of improvements that might bring them up to the levels of the competitor destinations would be enormous. But having said that, the investment Iberostar puts in is far from insignificant. Witness, if you had, the total gutting and then refurbishment of the likes of the Albufera Playa.
Iberostar deserves its award and deserves to be recognised as a company which demonstrates how good Mallorca can be if it really tries. Stars? Several.
Just on travel, you might be interested in knowing some websites to visit which offer savings for a variety of travel needs. "The Times" has listed 33 such sites. Go here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/news/article6849547.ece
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Kinks, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaojZhoeE5s. Today's title - ginger bloke and his group.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Index for September 2009
Alcúdia day of the tourist - 9 September 2009, 11 September 2009
Alcúdia Fair 2009 - 26 September 2009
Alcúdia old town shops - 1 September 2009
Balearic Government rationalisation - 5 September 2009, 6 September 2009
Barcarès - 4 September 2009, 10 September 2009, 16 September 2009
Binissalem Vermar 2009 - 22 September 2009
Catalan v. Castilian - 27 September 2009
Celebrities - 20 September 2009, 28 September 2009
Christian names - 14 September 2009, 23 September 2009
Diario de Mallorca - 29 September 2009
Fiestas - 22 September 2009
Guardia Civil - 27 September 2009
Hacienda scam - 4 September 2009
Holiday rentals - 18 September 2009
Hospital General de Muro - 28 September 2009
Hotels closing early - 17 September 2009
Iberostar - 30 September 2009
IKEA - 21 September 2009
Illegal street selling, Alcúdia - 7 September 2009
Internet and newspapers - 29 September 2009
Jamón serrano circuit, Alcúdia - 25 September 2009
Market value, invoice - 3 September 2009
Natural and butane gas - 24 September 2009
Obra Cultural Balear - 27 September 2009
Plastic bags - 11 September 2009
Posters - 8 September 2009
Puerto Alcudia's new terminal - 16 September 2009
Sa Pobla-Alcúdia railway - 12 September 2009, 13 September 2009, 16 September 2009
Social conflict - 19 September 2009
Status Quo - 2 September 2009
Storms - 14 September 2009, 17 September 2009
Sun, Sea and A&E - 28 September 2009
Tourism promotion - 6 September 2009
Travel awards - 30 September 2009
Travel writing - 15 September 2009
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Part Of The Union
Water. Of the utilities, water provision is arguably the most important. It is why the regular water “outages” are so hard to deal with. They never last that long, but they are frequent, usually in the mornings, disrupting showers or washing-machines. I rang the company this morning. Weren’t aware of any cut to supply, but a “técnico” would have a look. Never saw a técnico but the water came back on again after about an hour. Just one of those small trials of local life that really should not have to be.
Noises emanating from the World Travel Market are all very positive. If proof were needed of the importance of the British market, it has been there in abundance - in addition to the politicians, the top people of TUI, Thomas Cook and the Iberostar hotels have made their way to London, and have combined to declare that 2008 will be another excellent year. There is another side to this. If proof were needed of the importance of the tour operators and the major hotel chains to the Balearic and central governments, it has also been there in abundance. The politicians alienate these businesses at their peril, and so when the president of Iberostar announces, as reported in the “Diario” that the recuperation of the coastlines is a “political responsibility” and not one for the likes of Iberostar to assume, one well imagines that the politicians take due note.
There are few more impressive figures in Mallorcan life than Miquel Fluxà, the Iberostar president. He has presided over a highly successful international hotel chain that locally in Alcúdia and Can Picafort and more so in Playa de Muro is a byword for quality as it is elsewhere. Yesterday I was looking around the work going on at the Iberostar Albufera Playa. The interiors are being gutted and refurbished. Its neighbour, the Albufera Park, was similarly refitted last winter; the old Dunas Park became the remodelled Playa de Muro Village the winter before that. Continuous improvement - the old maxim of the quality movement.
And a bit more on politicians, or to be more precise political parties. The Unió Mallorquina (UM - Mallorcan Union) has celebrated its first 25 years. The UM is a nationalist party dedicated to the preservation of facets of Mallorcan (and Balearic) life, the customs, the language and so on. Its achievements cannot be underestimated. Its representatives hold positions of some power in Mallorca, the departing president was the head of the Mallorca council and is now president of the Balearic parliament, the mayors of both Alcúdia and Pollensa are UM. The Alcúdia mayor, Miquel Ferrer, has been in the running to take over as president of the party, but to the annoyance of Ferrer supporters who see his main rival, Miquel Nadal, as being too Palma-centric and being “of the past”, Nadal looks set to be the new president.
For many British expatriates, were they even to have an interest in local or indeed national politics (which generally they do not), the UM would not, I suspect, be the party of choice; that, one might presume, would be the Partido Popular. I declare no interest other than the fact that the UM has demonstrated that a nationalist party can build respectability in a relatively short period. UM nationalism is no militancy. Mallorca and the Balearics have no separatist tendency nor are they a part of any grand Catalan autonomy. Coincidentally, a survey in today’s “Ultima Hora” refers to the fact that the Balearics rank joint fourth among the regions of Spain in terms of how much the people of these regions identify with Spain (the Basque land and Catalonia being right down the list). It is perhaps a curiosity that this affinity with Spain co-exists with such a strong local political voice.
QUIZ
Yesterday - For all old Moodyists everywhere, The Moody Blues. Today’s title - who?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Noises emanating from the World Travel Market are all very positive. If proof were needed of the importance of the British market, it has been there in abundance - in addition to the politicians, the top people of TUI, Thomas Cook and the Iberostar hotels have made their way to London, and have combined to declare that 2008 will be another excellent year. There is another side to this. If proof were needed of the importance of the tour operators and the major hotel chains to the Balearic and central governments, it has also been there in abundance. The politicians alienate these businesses at their peril, and so when the president of Iberostar announces, as reported in the “Diario” that the recuperation of the coastlines is a “political responsibility” and not one for the likes of Iberostar to assume, one well imagines that the politicians take due note.
There are few more impressive figures in Mallorcan life than Miquel Fluxà, the Iberostar president. He has presided over a highly successful international hotel chain that locally in Alcúdia and Can Picafort and more so in Playa de Muro is a byword for quality as it is elsewhere. Yesterday I was looking around the work going on at the Iberostar Albufera Playa. The interiors are being gutted and refurbished. Its neighbour, the Albufera Park, was similarly refitted last winter; the old Dunas Park became the remodelled Playa de Muro Village the winter before that. Continuous improvement - the old maxim of the quality movement.
And a bit more on politicians, or to be more precise political parties. The Unió Mallorquina (UM - Mallorcan Union) has celebrated its first 25 years. The UM is a nationalist party dedicated to the preservation of facets of Mallorcan (and Balearic) life, the customs, the language and so on. Its achievements cannot be underestimated. Its representatives hold positions of some power in Mallorca, the departing president was the head of the Mallorca council and is now president of the Balearic parliament, the mayors of both Alcúdia and Pollensa are UM. The Alcúdia mayor, Miquel Ferrer, has been in the running to take over as president of the party, but to the annoyance of Ferrer supporters who see his main rival, Miquel Nadal, as being too Palma-centric and being “of the past”, Nadal looks set to be the new president.
For many British expatriates, were they even to have an interest in local or indeed national politics (which generally they do not), the UM would not, I suspect, be the party of choice; that, one might presume, would be the Partido Popular. I declare no interest other than the fact that the UM has demonstrated that a nationalist party can build respectability in a relatively short period. UM nationalism is no militancy. Mallorca and the Balearics have no separatist tendency nor are they a part of any grand Catalan autonomy. Coincidentally, a survey in today’s “Ultima Hora” refers to the fact that the Balearics rank joint fourth among the regions of Spain in terms of how much the people of these regions identify with Spain (the Basque land and Catalonia being right down the list). It is perhaps a curiosity that this affinity with Spain co-exists with such a strong local political voice.
QUIZ
Yesterday - For all old Moodyists everywhere, The Moody Blues. Today’s title - who?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
