Dating from the 1920s are three promotional images for hotels in Mallorca that were reproduced in the history of the Fomento del Turismo (Mallorca Tourist Board), which was published to coincide with its one-hundredth anniversary in 2005. Of the three, one is a photograph, while the other two are paintings. Though their styles and the medium differ, they share one thing in common - the images. None of the hotels exist any longer. They were the Hotel Costa Brava in Sóller and the Hotel Royal and Gran Hotel Mediterraneo in Palma, but in front of each hotel is a distinctive shape and colour: a white sail. The symbolism of the image is profound. Mallorca's tourism from the days well before the masses arrived was inextricably linked to the sea, to sail boats, to yachts and to ships.
It is a pretty obvious point to make that, once upon a time, what tourism there was in Mallorca came by sea, and even when the first planes started to bring tourists, they required the sea. Air France was something of a pioneer in this regard, its seaplanes making Mallorca a stop-off point on the route between Marseille and Algiers.
Nautical tourism, as opposed to tourism which arrived by ship, was, despite those white sails that had been witnessed in the 1920s, a minority element in the island's tourism mix in the years immediately after the Second World War. It might of course be said that all tourism was something of a minority interest in those days, but the story of Mallorca's tourism history is more complex and longer than one which takes the "boom" of the early 1960s as its starting-point. The entrepreneurs and visionaries of the tourist board were ever alert to opportunities, one of which was announced in 1947 and which was to be realised the following year. In 1948, Palma's Real Club Náutico was founded. In the same year, the Club Naútico de Sóller was also founded. It could count, it is said, on a sporting leisure "fleet" of more than 250 vessels - snipe dinghies, monotypes, felucca sailing boats.
1948 can probably, therefore, be cited as the year when nautical tourism truly started in Mallorca, and from its relatively humble beginnings it has grown to what it now is - a tourism niche capable of generating annual revenues in the order of some 500 million euros thanks to the marinas of the Balearics and of bringing over 300,000 tourists: a niche which is substantially greater than that of either cycling or golf.
Mallorca sits in the centre of an imaginary cross, its western and southern points shorter than those of the north and east. But if the distances to Sete and Sardinia are longer than those to Valencia and Algiers, they are no real distance for today's super yachts with cruising speeds of knots in the twenties or thirties and top speeds of double these. It is this advantageous location that has helped to make Mallorca the attraction it is to the nautical tourist, he or she with a super yacht or something rather more modest, but time was - long ago - when Mallorca was not looked upon so favourably by the traveller. It was an island, and for the traveller - the earliest form of "tourist" - of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, islands in the middle of the Mediterranean were felt to offer little in terms of experience by comparison with the grand cities and ports of the Med.
This perception was to alter, however. The yachts of the nineteenth century were the preserve of Europe's rich, nobility and bourgeoisie, and it was to be one of the nobility who was to not only mark Mallorca out as a destination that others from the upper class as well as from the wealthy middle class might wish to consider but also to - arguably - invent the whole idea of the luxury yacht. He was the Archduke Louis Salvador.
The Archduke's "Nixe" might just be the most famous vessel to be associated with Mallorca, though in what follows, there are other claimants to this crown. The Archduke, renowned for his work in documenting Mallorcan culture, society and nature in his series "Die Balearen" and for his property owning in the Tramuntana mountains, was one of life's restless souls. He liked to travel, and he had the means to do so. Though he came to Mallorca in the 1860s, he wasn't a permanent resident. His journeying was such that he came to realise that rather than fork out for stays on ships, he may as well have one of his own. In August 1872, therefore, the "Nixe", built in the shipyard in Fiume (aka Rijeka) in Croatia, was launched. Its initial journey was to Alexandria, where the Archduke was awaiting its arrival. He climbed aboard, and the "Nixe" set sail, finally entering Mallorcan waters for the first time in May 1873.
Fifty-two metres long and six metres wide, the "Nixe" was a large vessel which had three masts but which was principally propelled by its steam engine rather than its sails. There is a debate as to whether it deserves the description "yacht" or not, but for the purposes of Mallorcan nautical tourism history, "yacht" it is; and luxury yacht is an even better description.
For twenty-one years, the Archduke would take himself off on his journeys around the Mediterranean on board the "Nixe". It was Mallorca to which it always returned, until disaster struck. One night during the summer of 1894, the "Nixe", close to the Algerian coast, collided with a reef. No lives were lost, but the "Nixe" was. It ended up on the seabed.
The Archduke was nothing if not considerate to his crew. They didn't have to fear for losing their jobs because the Archduke was determined to replace the "Nixe". He went to the site of the birth of the original - Croatia - and found a craft called the "Hertha", which closely resembled the "Nixe". He bought it at a cost of eighty thousand florins, it set off for Mallorca, was anchored off Sóller and was renamed. The "Nixe II" arrived in November 1894, only months after the sinking.
Showing posts with label Nautical tourism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nautical tourism. Show all posts
Saturday, May 02, 2015
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Up, Up And Away
I am seriously considering a special blog devoted to Enviro Man. Here is part one:
"We only have five minutes to save the planet, Enviro Man."
"Then I will go and plant a tree and lay some stones."
See Enviro Man recuperate whole areas of wetland! Be amazed as he uses a spade to dig the earth for some new pines! Gasp as he cuts the tape and opens yet another new walkway across threatened dunes!
"Oh, Enviro Man, how can we possibly thank you?"
"There is no need to thank me. It is all in a day's work. But now I must fly, my organically powered jet packs lifting me across the natural environment of Mallorca, enabling me to see, with my recycled X-Ray Specs, villains in the act of natural desecration. Zap! Pow! Take that! Enviro Man will reclaim the land and protect it from greater harm." "Up, up and away!!!"
"Who is the man in the green suit?" asked the people.
"Enviro Man, people of Mallorca, is the environment minister," answered the mayor of Pollensa. "Every moment of every day, he makes our environment better and safer for future generations. See this new stone before you. The first of the second phase of the walkway between Puerto Pollensa and Pollensa. This is the gift of Enviro Man, along with a whole great wedge of some 450,000 euros of government money. In only the last two weeks, he has single-handedly saved Albufereta and laid the inaugural stones of the car parking in La Gola and now, here, by the road to Pollensa town for this pavement. And on each occasion, I have had my photo taken with him. I can tell you that he is an Enviro Man among men, and a fellow member, along with myself, of the Unió Mallorquina."
The people of Pollensa applauded and shouted their hurrahs, and watched as Enviro Man zoomed into the sky, looping and swooping and ready with his spade to plant yet more trees, with his scissors to cut more ribbons, with his ...
No, sod it, I've had enough of this.
Club de Producto náutico
How many organisations devoted to tourism promotion are needed to market an island? The answer is probably one, but that would be far too simple an answer. It's more like 500, at a conservative guess. The town halls, the Council of Mallorca's tourism promotion set-up and own department, the same at the regional government, the central government's ministry and promotional outfit, numerous talking-shops of a general tourism nature and then some more specific bodies. Take, for instance, nautical tourism. This alone has a whole raft (sic) of different groups, associations and whatever - those for diving, for yacht hire, for the various yacht (or nautical, if you must) clubs. Then there are the ports authority, the chamber of commerce and its nautical wing, the yacht clubs themselves ... the list goes on, a flotilla of different organisations bobbing on the water of let's try and grab as much well-minted yachtie and boatie-type tourism that's going.
The tourism ministry has now gone and created something called the "Club de Producto náutico". I think you can probably figure out what this means. This "Club", which is not a physical club of course but an abstract one, comprises many of the above and many not even mentioned, one more being the "Estaciones Náuticas de Baleares", of which Alcúdia is one. And no, I don't know what's happened to that either, despite the blaze of publicity earlier this year.
I suppose if you can get all the groups and associations pulling and veering in the right direction, all going starboard rather than some going to port (or should that be the other way round?), then this may be a good idea, but one does wonder at the sheer number and what they actually all do. We can at least be reassured that the Club is part of the whole marketing plan being developed, apparently, by Ibatur, the regional government's tourism marketing operation. One says reassured as quite how effective the "more than golf" etc message has been and quite how effective the money spent on the Nadal promotions will ever be, who can tell.
I have an aversion to anything that monikers itself "Club" or "Team". Both words are meaningless, bandied about as evidence of either prestige (Club) or of everyone sharing the same goals (Team) when neither is necessarily the case. They are marketing-speak, often a way of giving an impression of something positive being done, when in fact nothing much occurs. Still, maybe this particular Club will work, and it should, as Mallorca does have a lot going for it in terms of nautical tourism. If they could only ever agree on moorings and marina developments and ...
Little Britain's euro giveaways!
Forgot to highlight the Saturday and Wednesday euro specials at Puerto Alcúdia's Little Britain. There was a note on the WHAT'S ON BLOG, but if you missed that, then I shall remind you that there are bargains galore to be had on these days between 10am and 2pm.
John Hirst further
The "Dewsbury Reporter" confirms that Mr. Hirst worked for Allied Dunbar in the 1990s and no more (Hirst was from Dewsbury and a "jovial Yorkshireman", says the Reporter; I'm sure he was). Information about Mr. Hirst should be sent to the SFO.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Condé Nast publishes magazines such as "Vogue" and "Wired". Today's title - had this once before, though not the title as such.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
"We only have five minutes to save the planet, Enviro Man."
"Then I will go and plant a tree and lay some stones."
See Enviro Man recuperate whole areas of wetland! Be amazed as he uses a spade to dig the earth for some new pines! Gasp as he cuts the tape and opens yet another new walkway across threatened dunes!
"Oh, Enviro Man, how can we possibly thank you?"
"There is no need to thank me. It is all in a day's work. But now I must fly, my organically powered jet packs lifting me across the natural environment of Mallorca, enabling me to see, with my recycled X-Ray Specs, villains in the act of natural desecration. Zap! Pow! Take that! Enviro Man will reclaim the land and protect it from greater harm." "Up, up and away!!!"
"Who is the man in the green suit?" asked the people.
"Enviro Man, people of Mallorca, is the environment minister," answered the mayor of Pollensa. "Every moment of every day, he makes our environment better and safer for future generations. See this new stone before you. The first of the second phase of the walkway between Puerto Pollensa and Pollensa. This is the gift of Enviro Man, along with a whole great wedge of some 450,000 euros of government money. In only the last two weeks, he has single-handedly saved Albufereta and laid the inaugural stones of the car parking in La Gola and now, here, by the road to Pollensa town for this pavement. And on each occasion, I have had my photo taken with him. I can tell you that he is an Enviro Man among men, and a fellow member, along with myself, of the Unió Mallorquina."
The people of Pollensa applauded and shouted their hurrahs, and watched as Enviro Man zoomed into the sky, looping and swooping and ready with his spade to plant yet more trees, with his scissors to cut more ribbons, with his ...
No, sod it, I've had enough of this.
Club de Producto náutico
How many organisations devoted to tourism promotion are needed to market an island? The answer is probably one, but that would be far too simple an answer. It's more like 500, at a conservative guess. The town halls, the Council of Mallorca's tourism promotion set-up and own department, the same at the regional government, the central government's ministry and promotional outfit, numerous talking-shops of a general tourism nature and then some more specific bodies. Take, for instance, nautical tourism. This alone has a whole raft (sic) of different groups, associations and whatever - those for diving, for yacht hire, for the various yacht (or nautical, if you must) clubs. Then there are the ports authority, the chamber of commerce and its nautical wing, the yacht clubs themselves ... the list goes on, a flotilla of different organisations bobbing on the water of let's try and grab as much well-minted yachtie and boatie-type tourism that's going.
The tourism ministry has now gone and created something called the "Club de Producto náutico". I think you can probably figure out what this means. This "Club", which is not a physical club of course but an abstract one, comprises many of the above and many not even mentioned, one more being the "Estaciones Náuticas de Baleares", of which Alcúdia is one. And no, I don't know what's happened to that either, despite the blaze of publicity earlier this year.
I suppose if you can get all the groups and associations pulling and veering in the right direction, all going starboard rather than some going to port (or should that be the other way round?), then this may be a good idea, but one does wonder at the sheer number and what they actually all do. We can at least be reassured that the Club is part of the whole marketing plan being developed, apparently, by Ibatur, the regional government's tourism marketing operation. One says reassured as quite how effective the "more than golf" etc message has been and quite how effective the money spent on the Nadal promotions will ever be, who can tell.
I have an aversion to anything that monikers itself "Club" or "Team". Both words are meaningless, bandied about as evidence of either prestige (Club) or of everyone sharing the same goals (Team) when neither is necessarily the case. They are marketing-speak, often a way of giving an impression of something positive being done, when in fact nothing much occurs. Still, maybe this particular Club will work, and it should, as Mallorca does have a lot going for it in terms of nautical tourism. If they could only ever agree on moorings and marina developments and ...
Little Britain's euro giveaways!
Forgot to highlight the Saturday and Wednesday euro specials at Puerto Alcúdia's Little Britain. There was a note on the WHAT'S ON BLOG, but if you missed that, then I shall remind you that there are bargains galore to be had on these days between 10am and 2pm.
John Hirst further
The "Dewsbury Reporter" confirms that Mr. Hirst worked for Allied Dunbar in the 1990s and no more (Hirst was from Dewsbury and a "jovial Yorkshireman", says the Reporter; I'm sure he was). Information about Mr. Hirst should be sent to the SFO.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Condé Nast publishes magazines such as "Vogue" and "Wired". Today's title - had this once before, though not the title as such.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Sunday, June 15, 2008
The Story Of The Blues
Another day, another promotional tag. Mallorca is awash with branding, its seas are alive with the sound of slogans. And from the sea comes the latest - "IB-Blau", standing for Illes Balears Blau. One of the advantages of Catalan can be its closer proximity to English - blau is blue, and is also but one change of vowel from the French. IB-Blau is the rallying regatta call of Balearic yacht and boating tourism; into the blue and into, very much, the black of a profit and loss account that seeks ever more buoyant figures to add to the 520 million euros of income that floated in during 2007 on the hulls of seafaring. As "The Bulletin" points out, the Waterworldist wallet is a thing of some lucrativeness - a daily spend of 140 plus euros per day per head. At an average stay of 15 days, that represents a couple of grand of watering and feeding and the rest.
IBATUR, the Balearic Government's tourism promotional wing and they of the "much more than ... " sloganising, are well aware of the treasures that the Waterworldists bring in, but, in good eco-consciously correct fashion, say that the nautical-tourism promotion of the blue Balearic motif will not be supported by anything environmentally detrimental. In other words, there will not be a major development of the marinas save for floating moorings. Much more than nautical tourism, in IBATUR terms, but not much more by way of marinas. The good ship IB-Blau can sail into port with "The Ecology Song" blaring from its tannoy system and with its hold full of nautical-tourism bounty. Yet a regular annual increase of some 14% in terms of income demands more marina space unless the charges rise and are accommodated by that bulging Waterworldist wallet.
Despite the restrictions in terms of further physical moorings, here is a part of the tourism industry that does offer riches. It is the familiar argument of wealth generating more wealth, in the secondary sense to the restaurants and establishments near to the marinas. Which does raise the question of how diffuse that wealth generation is and would be in the whole of somewhere like Puerto Alcúdia. And the same might also be said for the new port terminal which is now under construction and which promises further riches from cruise ships using it as an alternative to Palma. It's good news for the port, in fact potentially very good news, but for all ...?
QUIZ
Chain - Van Morrison did a track called "Whatever Happened to P.J. Proby?", a question many of us will have asked. What's the link between Van the Man and "I Will Survive". Yesterday's title - "Come Fly With Me", Frank Sinatra. Today's title - which Liverpool band did this?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
IBATUR, the Balearic Government's tourism promotional wing and they of the "much more than ... " sloganising, are well aware of the treasures that the Waterworldists bring in, but, in good eco-consciously correct fashion, say that the nautical-tourism promotion of the blue Balearic motif will not be supported by anything environmentally detrimental. In other words, there will not be a major development of the marinas save for floating moorings. Much more than nautical tourism, in IBATUR terms, but not much more by way of marinas. The good ship IB-Blau can sail into port with "The Ecology Song" blaring from its tannoy system and with its hold full of nautical-tourism bounty. Yet a regular annual increase of some 14% in terms of income demands more marina space unless the charges rise and are accommodated by that bulging Waterworldist wallet.
Despite the restrictions in terms of further physical moorings, here is a part of the tourism industry that does offer riches. It is the familiar argument of wealth generating more wealth, in the secondary sense to the restaurants and establishments near to the marinas. Which does raise the question of how diffuse that wealth generation is and would be in the whole of somewhere like Puerto Alcúdia. And the same might also be said for the new port terminal which is now under construction and which promises further riches from cruise ships using it as an alternative to Palma. It's good news for the port, in fact potentially very good news, but for all ...?
QUIZ
Chain - Van Morrison did a track called "Whatever Happened to P.J. Proby?", a question many of us will have asked. What's the link between Van the Man and "I Will Survive". Yesterday's title - "Come Fly With Me", Frank Sinatra. Today's title - which Liverpool band did this?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Ship To Shore
Just not enough space. Familiar problem, but this is not a land issue, rather a sea one. Moorings. The Balearic Government, as reported in “Ultima Hora", recognises that there needs to be a doubling in the number of moorings around the Balearics to cope with demand.
Nautical tourism is often overlooked in the grand scheme of things. This seems rather odd. In the immediate northern area, each of the main centres - Can Picafort, Puerto Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa - has a marina, and there are others in Bonaire and Son Serra. Sailing is no small minority leisure activity. According to research for the Royal Yachting Association, some 2.5 million people took part in some sailing activity in 2006. (“The Times”, January 2007.)
Boat and yacht ownership is a rich man’s game. The cost of buying the vessel is one thing; the costs of mooring and maintenance are others. The high demand for moorings places them at a premium and at a price. Of course you don’t necessarily need a Bavaria 37 yacht, a small second-hand speedboat could be enough, but there are still those add-on costs.
The use of the boat is another thing entirely. There are few boatowners who actually use their boat for any longer than a few weeks a year, if that. I know people here with boats who complain that they have not been able to get out at all during the summer. What’s the point of having one then?
A growth area is that of co-ownership. In Puerto Alcúdia, for instance, both Challenger and Slice allow groups of owners to share a boat and to be able to use it for a set number of weeks. This spreads the cost of ownership and gets rid of many of the attendant hassles, not least of which are those dealing with the local port authorities and marina operators. Even so, it is not exactly cheap, but it does overcome the faintly absurd situation by which an expensive boat is tied up for weeks on end unused.
Nautical tourism has another side to it. The typical boatowner or yachtie and his chums are seen as, and often are, high net worth consumers. The higher the net worth, the higher the tourist spend; or so the theory goes. And the actual numbers are far from insignificant. At present, the annual value of Balearic nautical tourism is estimated to be 544 million euros; the number of nautical tourists nearly 300,000. The expansion of marina facilities, the increase in the number of moorings and the need for more dry-dock maintenance areas all come with an environmental price attached. What doesn’t? But my guess is that the government will find a way around this. Just think - 2.5 million people, or even a fraction of that number - loadsamoney.
QUIZ
Yesterday - The Who. Today’s title - song by an Irish chap; had one really big hit.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Nautical tourism is often overlooked in the grand scheme of things. This seems rather odd. In the immediate northern area, each of the main centres - Can Picafort, Puerto Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa - has a marina, and there are others in Bonaire and Son Serra. Sailing is no small minority leisure activity. According to research for the Royal Yachting Association, some 2.5 million people took part in some sailing activity in 2006. (“The Times”, January 2007.)
Boat and yacht ownership is a rich man’s game. The cost of buying the vessel is one thing; the costs of mooring and maintenance are others. The high demand for moorings places them at a premium and at a price. Of course you don’t necessarily need a Bavaria 37 yacht, a small second-hand speedboat could be enough, but there are still those add-on costs.
The use of the boat is another thing entirely. There are few boatowners who actually use their boat for any longer than a few weeks a year, if that. I know people here with boats who complain that they have not been able to get out at all during the summer. What’s the point of having one then?
A growth area is that of co-ownership. In Puerto Alcúdia, for instance, both Challenger and Slice allow groups of owners to share a boat and to be able to use it for a set number of weeks. This spreads the cost of ownership and gets rid of many of the attendant hassles, not least of which are those dealing with the local port authorities and marina operators. Even so, it is not exactly cheap, but it does overcome the faintly absurd situation by which an expensive boat is tied up for weeks on end unused.
Nautical tourism has another side to it. The typical boatowner or yachtie and his chums are seen as, and often are, high net worth consumers. The higher the net worth, the higher the tourist spend; or so the theory goes. And the actual numbers are far from insignificant. At present, the annual value of Balearic nautical tourism is estimated to be 544 million euros; the number of nautical tourists nearly 300,000. The expansion of marina facilities, the increase in the number of moorings and the need for more dry-dock maintenance areas all come with an environmental price attached. What doesn’t? But my guess is that the government will find a way around this. Just think - 2.5 million people, or even a fraction of that number - loadsamoney.
QUIZ
Yesterday - The Who. Today’s title - song by an Irish chap; had one really big hit.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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