The Benefit Of Cruise Ships Is Greatly Exaggerated

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Division Bell: Town halls, hotels and local business

One day we learn that the number of hotel places in Mallorca devoted to all-inclusive is set to double in 2011. The next we find out that the hotel federation is calling on the Council of Mallorca to press upon town halls the need to make their tourist areas prettier.

The two things don't add up. On the principle that all-inclusive guests tend to stay in situ, then what is the point in beautifying the surroundings? And if the doubling of all-inclusive places for next year were to be repeated in subsequent years, there would be even less point, other than so that guests can peer out from their balconies at well-tended museum pieces or can be transported to and from the airport through resorts which resemble empty film sets badly in need of a producer or two.

But the federation has a point. A quick drive through Can Picafort confirms it. Winter doesn't find the place at its best of course, certainly not when it is undergoing its annual dig for victory, but even in summer it's not exactly a thing of beauty. And so it is elsewhere, even in Puerto Pollensa which is meant to be a thing of beauty. This didn't stop the demonstration in June, one inspired by what was and still is perceived as the neglect of the resort. Oddly enough, the local hoteliers shunned the demonstration. So much for solidarity either with other businesses or with the hoteliers of the island.

Can Picafort and Puerto Pollensa both emphasize what the federation is saying, or at least implying, as they are representative of a common enough complaint that emanates from the resorts and is directed at town halls some kilometres away. In Can Picafort, while Santa Margalida town hall devotes funds to redoing the town's La Beata garden, money has mainly to be begged from the regional government environment ministry to improve the narrow promenade. It's something, even if there's not much that can be done about what lies next to the prom, and I'm not referring to the beach.

The complaint is that town halls, closeted away in their old-town buildings, ignore their resorts in favour of the towns themselves. This may be more a perception than fact, but perception goes a long way, and in another town, Muro, there is little denying the fact that its resort receives barely any type of improvement or intervention from the town hall except for its own annual event - the how-much-can-we-fine the bloke with the sunbeds concession. The town itself has been the beneficiary of municipal and tourism ministry finance, as in they laid some new pavements on which all the tourists who don't go there can walk.

Alcúdia is an exception. It is surely no coincidence that the connection between the old town, and therefore the town hall building, and the port area is all but seamless. There is no distance factor. Both the old town within the walls and the port area were a mess some years ago, but not now. The transformation of both would seem to be evidence of what the hotel federation is asking for. There may still be the resort's gloriously unsophisticated Mile area, but the town hall has continued to do what it can, such as with recent spend on the beach to install new showers, an improved beach walkway, lighting and play areas.

If the hotel federation manages to bring the town and down-there in the resorts closer together, then fine, but it manages itself to remain at loggerheads with what else is down there - the restaurants, bars and other businesses. Doubling the number of all-inclusive places is unlikely to improve relations, soured earlier this year by the hotels saying that local businesses moan too much and do nothing themselves by way of improving their product or promoting resorts. And again they have a point, as in Magalluf.

One of the better, most recent initiatives in Mallorca has been the introduction of the Mallorca Rocks concerts at the eponymous hotel, owned by the Fiesta group. Not only was this a good idea, it was also successful this summer, so much so that the number of concerts is going to increase in 2011. Step forward the local tourist business association to complain and to worry that the idea of "themed" hotels might spread.

Yet here is something fresh, something to be welcomed. But not by all, it would seem. And so, as ever, you have bodies pulling in different directions, ringing a division bell of opposing, antagonistic views. Just as town halls seem unable to accept their responsibilities for their resorts, so you have the hotels and local business warring in disagreement, Puerto Pollensa's hoteliers loftily declining to support a protest and, moreover, the hotels themselves helping to add to the undermining of the Playa de Palma renewal by insisting that 3-star accommodation has to be maintained. And mention of Playa de Palma is apposite, because this was meant to be a beautification of a resort. Remind me, who are now calling on improvements to resorts? Oh yes, the hotels.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.