The film director Mel Brooks, if I remember rightly, once came up with a gag about Hasidic park. I'm reminded of this because Mallorca may well find itself, only some kilometres apart, with two theme parks. One, the Christian theme park in Inca, is meant to embrace religions other than Christianity, hence, possibly, Hasidism; the other, in Sineu, would appear to be some sort of Jurassic Park (which was the basis for Brooks' gag). The two parks could be put together, and an element of one might mean that the gag was realised.
The plan for a dinosaur theme park leaves me feeling distinctly underwhelmed. The developers say that everyone is interested in the history of dinosaurs and so it will be a great success. I don't know, is everyone interested? Or is everyone just a little tired of dinosaurs? The idea has a touch of the dinosaur about it: a lumbering concept that had been Spielberged into popular culture and has been done to death ever since to the point of extinction.
Possibly dinosaurs haven't reached the end of their life cycle as excuses for theme parks or any other dino-based venture, but like pirates and their increasing proliferation on Mallorca, dinosaurs are a default setting for me-too family entertainment. They are unimaginative and old news. Does Mallorca really want to be a repository for re-working familiar themes? I'm far from convinced that a Christian theme park gives the island the right image. Add a dinosaur park as well, and Mallorca might look like somewhere that has run out of ideas while at the same time offering an attraction (the Christian park) that is out of keeping with a general touristic style.
The dino park will require that the Council of Mallorca declare that it is in the island's general interest. This is a procedural necessity and one that has been brought to bear in, for instance, approving new hotel developments. Because it would occupy a plot of so-called rustic land, there are certain constraints which might need to be worked around, such as the provision of energy sources and guaranteeing the integrity of flora and fauna. As with the Christian theme park and any other development of whatever type, one can already hear the rustling in the undergrowth of the environmental lobby preparing its objections. Things can take an awfully long time in Mallorca because of all the challenges to developments. By the time these have all been exhausted, it may not only be dinosaurs which are extinct.
It appears that the land that is being earmarked for dino park could do with a spot of tidying up. It is rustic but it is also, in a natural way, rusting. Neglected (it had been used for paintball before it was realised that there wasn't authorisation for this), it could do with being put to some use, and use that might actually make it appear attractive. This is not the sort of argument, however, which carries much weight with the enviros.
Sineu town hall backs the scheme. It would help, so it says, with bringing more tourists into the town. But would it? Like the Inca theme park site is out of town, so is the land for dino park. The chances are that visitors would be bussed in and then bussed out, never setting foot in Sineu itself. And then there is the location. Sineu is pretty much at the geographical centre of Mallorca. This might sound like an advantage in that the theme park would draw on the different areas of tourist accumulation, but there is an inherent disadvantage in not being right in or by one of these tourist centres. The House of Katmandu, just to give one example of a fairly new attraction on Mallorca, was sited in Magalluf. In all likelihood, it would have been a complete flop had it been in Sineu or some other part of the island's centre.
Of course, dino park could be fabulous. It could get the excursions coaches rolling in. But does it really set the pulse racing? The other theme park, the one about which we no longer hear anything and about which we may never hear anything more, did at least have something going for it in that it sounded exciting in its array of attractions. Mallorca, if it is to have theme parks, needs parks that really grab the attention, those that are innovative and could be considered representative of a dynamic, modernising tourism destination. Dinosaurs don't really do it in this respect. Like all the johnny-come-lately pirates should be forced to walk the plank or come up with something more inspiring, then so the dinosaurs should be threatened with being meteored by 2012DA14, the asteroid discovered by the observatory in Costitx, and made to think up something less dinosaur-like.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Showing posts with label Pirates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pirates. Show all posts
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Thursday, October 20, 2011
A Familiar Theme Now Coming To Campos
You are entitled to wonder "crisis, what crisis", given the sudden outbreak of development plans springing up left, right, centre and predominantly around the south-east of the island. The latest is an old theme, that of a theme park, long in the offing and long in the kicking into the tall grass of environmental objections.
We know of course that the tourism minister, well before he had been elected, had spoken of his wishes for there to be more theme parks, so the project conceived by the appropriately named Danish company, the Theme Park Group, comes as no surprise. The company has had its hopes dashed in the past, but it now must hope that it will be able to push ahead.
The plan is for there to be a park which occupies some 110 hectares of land. Exactly where is a secret, but only of sorts. It will be between the towns of Llucmajor and Campos. The company's website shows its location on the motorway between the two and north of Sa Ràpita where there are separate plans for a new 1250-place hotel.
The Danish theme park is not the only one in the area. Campos's neighbour, Ses Salines, has approved the idea for the Christian theme park. "Tierra Santa" was originally destined to be in Capdepera, but it may well now be heading to the town of the salt marshes. There has to be some allegory in all this. Lot's wife, pillar of salt and all that, though where Sodom and Gomorrah come into it, I'm not sure. The theme park will probably tell us.
Mention of Capdepera has some link with the Danish scheme. It is intended that one area with typical Mallorcan buildings will be included. The plan for the luxury hotel complex in Capdepera involves its being created in the style of a Mallorcan village. There is just one slight snag which has cropped up with this. No one seems to have met the Qatari sheikh said to be behind it all. Indeed, no one seems to be able to confirm that he exists. Even Hyatt, which would operate the hotel, is being somewhat circumspect about the project, though it has been associated with such a scheme for at least a couple of years.
If some scepticism has arisen in respect of Capdepera, there needn't be with the Danish scheme. As an idea, it has been doing the rounds for long enough to remove doubts, though there are the issues of permission (which should probably pose little problem with the new government) and of financing. The park will require 200 million euros of investment. A third of this would be forthcoming from the company itself together with tour operators said to be associates in the project. The rest would come from banks and financial institutions. One trusts that the banks will be more minded to release funds for the theme park than they otherwise appear to be.
Perhaps conscious of the environmental objections that have dashed previous theme park proposals, the company is careful to demonstrate the park's eco-credentials. Energy savings and limiting emissions, water savings, noise and light pollution, they are all there, alongside what the park will actually comprise: an adventure area, a fantasy world, a tropical world and pirates. Yes, really, yet more pirates. There will also be a lake and of course the Mallorcan buildings as part of a "Mallorca Experience".
It all sounds fair enough, but does it sound that original? What Mallorca could do with is a real attention-grabber, something which might say to the tourist that he should come to Mallorca, as opposed to it being an option he has for a day out that doesn't specifically influence the decision to holiday in Mallorca. One would have to wait and see. It might be highly original, but sorry, ever more pirates don't necessarily set the pulse racing.
I wish them the best of luck with it. Theme parks, and more of them, are good for tourism. But in one respect, the project may represent a missed opportunity. It would appear that it will only be open during the season. Or maybe I'm missing something. An all-year, all-weather theme park facility would mean a great deal more for Mallorca's tourism.
The company, in addition to pressing the environmental friendliness of the theme park, presses the right buttons in other ways. Mallorca has been chosen, it says, "because there is a need to improve the offer complementing sun and beach tourism". True enough, but the complements are necessary when the sun and beach are not on offer.
For more information, go to http://themeparkgroup.com
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
We know of course that the tourism minister, well before he had been elected, had spoken of his wishes for there to be more theme parks, so the project conceived by the appropriately named Danish company, the Theme Park Group, comes as no surprise. The company has had its hopes dashed in the past, but it now must hope that it will be able to push ahead.
The plan is for there to be a park which occupies some 110 hectares of land. Exactly where is a secret, but only of sorts. It will be between the towns of Llucmajor and Campos. The company's website shows its location on the motorway between the two and north of Sa Ràpita where there are separate plans for a new 1250-place hotel.
The Danish theme park is not the only one in the area. Campos's neighbour, Ses Salines, has approved the idea for the Christian theme park. "Tierra Santa" was originally destined to be in Capdepera, but it may well now be heading to the town of the salt marshes. There has to be some allegory in all this. Lot's wife, pillar of salt and all that, though where Sodom and Gomorrah come into it, I'm not sure. The theme park will probably tell us.
Mention of Capdepera has some link with the Danish scheme. It is intended that one area with typical Mallorcan buildings will be included. The plan for the luxury hotel complex in Capdepera involves its being created in the style of a Mallorcan village. There is just one slight snag which has cropped up with this. No one seems to have met the Qatari sheikh said to be behind it all. Indeed, no one seems to be able to confirm that he exists. Even Hyatt, which would operate the hotel, is being somewhat circumspect about the project, though it has been associated with such a scheme for at least a couple of years.
If some scepticism has arisen in respect of Capdepera, there needn't be with the Danish scheme. As an idea, it has been doing the rounds for long enough to remove doubts, though there are the issues of permission (which should probably pose little problem with the new government) and of financing. The park will require 200 million euros of investment. A third of this would be forthcoming from the company itself together with tour operators said to be associates in the project. The rest would come from banks and financial institutions. One trusts that the banks will be more minded to release funds for the theme park than they otherwise appear to be.
Perhaps conscious of the environmental objections that have dashed previous theme park proposals, the company is careful to demonstrate the park's eco-credentials. Energy savings and limiting emissions, water savings, noise and light pollution, they are all there, alongside what the park will actually comprise: an adventure area, a fantasy world, a tropical world and pirates. Yes, really, yet more pirates. There will also be a lake and of course the Mallorcan buildings as part of a "Mallorca Experience".
It all sounds fair enough, but does it sound that original? What Mallorca could do with is a real attention-grabber, something which might say to the tourist that he should come to Mallorca, as opposed to it being an option he has for a day out that doesn't specifically influence the decision to holiday in Mallorca. One would have to wait and see. It might be highly original, but sorry, ever more pirates don't necessarily set the pulse racing.
I wish them the best of luck with it. Theme parks, and more of them, are good for tourism. But in one respect, the project may represent a missed opportunity. It would appear that it will only be open during the season. Or maybe I'm missing something. An all-year, all-weather theme park facility would mean a great deal more for Mallorca's tourism.
The company, in addition to pressing the environmental friendliness of the theme park, presses the right buttons in other ways. Mallorca has been chosen, it says, "because there is a need to improve the offer complementing sun and beach tourism". True enough, but the complements are necessary when the sun and beach are not on offer.
For more information, go to http://themeparkgroup.com
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, October 09, 2011
The Pirates Of Ponsance
I blame Robert Newton. Did he ever actually utter the line - "belay there, Jim lad"? Probably not. You can go further back - to J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan and Captain Hook - but Newton's portrayal of Long John Silver was what propelled the pirate into the common Sunday-afternoon-black-and-white-film-on-telly consciousness, thus setting off a trail that has passed through the likes of Dustin Hoffman and Johnny Depp to now a hotel in Santa Ponsa.
Mallorca has long done pirates. Many of its old fortifications were designed with them in mind, not as entertainment but as a means of defence. Actual pirates, rather than pretend ones, remained on the scene until alarmingly recently. There is the marvellous story of the Jolly Roger bar in Puerto Alcúdia which, when it first opened in the early 1970s, was told to take down its skull-and-crossbones flag. Presumably, passing post-Newtonian Silvers (and there were some then) might have mistaken it as an invitation for a spot of pirating.
The island's culture is wrapped up in tales of derring-do involving pirates and their being repelled. The grand entertainment that is the annual street theatre of the Moors and Christians battle during Pollensa's Patrona fiesta is a pirate adventure without the entrance fee. Dragut (Turgut) is often portrayed as a sixteenth-century chancer, a pirate in other words. He was far from being so; he was in fact the commander of the Ottoman navy. But the pirate myth has come to suit.
Santa Ponsa has its own Moors and Christians thrash. But it is not one that has been subjected to piratical revisionism. It's the real clash-of-the-religions thing, in that it celebrates the taking of Mallorca by Jaume I and the defeat of the Moors in the thirteenth century as part of the re-conquest of Spain.
A short journey down the Calvia coast, to Magalluf, and there is the Pirates Adventure, the contemporisation for stage of an island history rich in pirate legend.
Santa Ponsa, without a pirate theme as such, now wants to get in on the pirates' act. It is to be the site for more of this stuff of legend and for its commercialisation. The Gran Santa Ponsa Apartments are to become pirate-themed.
"Complementary things" are needed, so says the head of the local hotel association, in order to ward off the competition from other destinations. Like Turkey, for example. Which is where Dragut came from. There's a coals to Newcastle metaphor lurking in this latest piratisation.
Santa Ponsa, it would appear, is to undergo a thematic transformation. The Gran Santa Ponsa will be followed by other theme hotels, thus, according to the hotel association, securing the support of tour operators in guaranteeing flights in March and November. The pirate ships will fly for longer than they currently do. Will they really? Are the pirates not more for the kiddies? How many school holidays are there in November? Or will there be an out-of-season pirates uncut in Santa Ponsa?
The pirates of Ponsance follow in the wake of the Magalluf tourism-reinvention mothership. One of the hotels in line for the Magalluf makeover is already themed; the modern stone-age family hotel, the Antillas Barbados, where you meet The Flintstones - Pedro, Vilma, Pablo and Betty, as they are usually not known.
From the rubble of prehistoric Mallorcan tourism rises the modern stone work of its new age, and it is one full of pirates. The Euro, fast disappearing into the Mediterranean, locked in chests of buried un-treasure, will be replaced by pieces of eight, always assuming they are required and that the pirates are not all-inclusive.
Theming is all well and good, but doesn't it run the risk of becoming a bit out of date? The pirates thing has been done to death. Or maybe it hasn't been. The Flintstones really do now seem like they're from the stone age.
Where next for the theme hotel, then? Bearing in mind a need for internationalism, it would need to make sense to more than just the Brits (or the Irish in Santa Ponsa). A Big Brother-themed hotel perhaps. An X Factor theme maybe, a sort of Eurovision Song Contest hotel; every night is karaoke night with text voting. Dinosaurs and planets of the apes must surely already be being lined up for hotels across Mallorca.
But for now, the pirates have it, so if you go to the Gran Santa Ponsa and see some bloke with one leg and a parrot on his shoulder, be sure to introduce yourself. "I'm Jim Hawkins." "Belay there, Jim lad."
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Mallorca has long done pirates. Many of its old fortifications were designed with them in mind, not as entertainment but as a means of defence. Actual pirates, rather than pretend ones, remained on the scene until alarmingly recently. There is the marvellous story of the Jolly Roger bar in Puerto Alcúdia which, when it first opened in the early 1970s, was told to take down its skull-and-crossbones flag. Presumably, passing post-Newtonian Silvers (and there were some then) might have mistaken it as an invitation for a spot of pirating.
The island's culture is wrapped up in tales of derring-do involving pirates and their being repelled. The grand entertainment that is the annual street theatre of the Moors and Christians battle during Pollensa's Patrona fiesta is a pirate adventure without the entrance fee. Dragut (Turgut) is often portrayed as a sixteenth-century chancer, a pirate in other words. He was far from being so; he was in fact the commander of the Ottoman navy. But the pirate myth has come to suit.
Santa Ponsa has its own Moors and Christians thrash. But it is not one that has been subjected to piratical revisionism. It's the real clash-of-the-religions thing, in that it celebrates the taking of Mallorca by Jaume I and the defeat of the Moors in the thirteenth century as part of the re-conquest of Spain.
A short journey down the Calvia coast, to Magalluf, and there is the Pirates Adventure, the contemporisation for stage of an island history rich in pirate legend.
Santa Ponsa, without a pirate theme as such, now wants to get in on the pirates' act. It is to be the site for more of this stuff of legend and for its commercialisation. The Gran Santa Ponsa Apartments are to become pirate-themed.
"Complementary things" are needed, so says the head of the local hotel association, in order to ward off the competition from other destinations. Like Turkey, for example. Which is where Dragut came from. There's a coals to Newcastle metaphor lurking in this latest piratisation.
Santa Ponsa, it would appear, is to undergo a thematic transformation. The Gran Santa Ponsa will be followed by other theme hotels, thus, according to the hotel association, securing the support of tour operators in guaranteeing flights in March and November. The pirate ships will fly for longer than they currently do. Will they really? Are the pirates not more for the kiddies? How many school holidays are there in November? Or will there be an out-of-season pirates uncut in Santa Ponsa?
The pirates of Ponsance follow in the wake of the Magalluf tourism-reinvention mothership. One of the hotels in line for the Magalluf makeover is already themed; the modern stone-age family hotel, the Antillas Barbados, where you meet The Flintstones - Pedro, Vilma, Pablo and Betty, as they are usually not known.
From the rubble of prehistoric Mallorcan tourism rises the modern stone work of its new age, and it is one full of pirates. The Euro, fast disappearing into the Mediterranean, locked in chests of buried un-treasure, will be replaced by pieces of eight, always assuming they are required and that the pirates are not all-inclusive.
Theming is all well and good, but doesn't it run the risk of becoming a bit out of date? The pirates thing has been done to death. Or maybe it hasn't been. The Flintstones really do now seem like they're from the stone age.
Where next for the theme hotel, then? Bearing in mind a need for internationalism, it would need to make sense to more than just the Brits (or the Irish in Santa Ponsa). A Big Brother-themed hotel perhaps. An X Factor theme maybe, a sort of Eurovision Song Contest hotel; every night is karaoke night with text voting. Dinosaurs and planets of the apes must surely already be being lined up for hotels across Mallorca.
But for now, the pirates have it, so if you go to the Gran Santa Ponsa and see some bloke with one leg and a parrot on his shoulder, be sure to introduce yourself. "I'm Jim Hawkins." "Belay there, Jim lad."
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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