A couple of years ago, a friend of mine posted a little story on Facebook. I should point out that this friend has a stature not too dissimilar to that of a rugby prop forward. His story concerned an unfortunate tourist (young, male, British, drunk), who for some reason had clambered over the wall into his yard. This was at night. My friend, who has a wife and four children, didn't take too kindly to this intrusion. No questions were asked. The tourist had chosen the wrong yard and the wrong occupant. His photo accompanied the story. Matey boy didn't appear to be too happy. He would have been less happy when the police arrived.
The moral of the story is, of course, not to go invading people's property. Whatever his intention had been, the tourist discovered to his cost that it isn't wise to enter someone's yard without permission. Maybe he had needed to go to the toilet. Maybe so. There was obviously still no excuse.
There's another little story. Unlike the above tale, which was in Alcudia, this one concerns Magalluf. A photo with this second story shows a tourist having a leak on some garden at an apartments' building in the resort. This was not a tourist apartments' building (though these days you can never be sure), it was a residential block. Chummy in the photo is just one who has apparently been availing himself of toilet facilities at the apartments. At least he was urinating outside.
In Arenal, those in need of relief are tending to be civilised enough to use the beach, though pavements, doorways and what have you can also come in useful. The nightly peeing is the tinkling that is the accompaniment to the crescendos of noise, to the piles of abandoned bottles which are left scattered on the beach and to the cries of the nighttime drunks. Never let it be said that education has anything to do with decent behaviour. These drunks are the spring breakers, the students, in Arenal at present, from the UK and Germany. The local residents, sick to the back teeth of this in past years, sick to the back teeth of the mess, the lack of police, the lack of town hall action, have had enough. The beach and the front line may not directly be their backyard, but they live there.
These three stories point to an inherent tension and conflict in tourism. There have always been drunk tourists. There have always been loud, messy, disrespectful, poorly behaved tourists. But the greater the overall number of tourists, the greater the number of the badly behaved. Magalluf may claim to be transforming itself, but hell may well freeze over before individuals cease using someone's backyard for peeing in. The drive towards a more up-market tourist should eradicate problems, as the mayor of Calvia believes. Yet even the up-market is known to take the odd drink too many.
Apologists will argue that one chooses to live where there are great numbers of tourists. There should therefore not be complaints of nimbyism. Tourists can come but they can't urinate in my backyard. Such an argument is absurd. If there is residential property where there are tourists, then people will live in that property. They are entitled to feel that there should be some respect for their rights and for their own peace and quiet.
The relationship between resident and tourist is uneasy because of the very nature of resorts. There is perhaps an argument that when resorts were being planned (and there was precious little coherence in the planning), there should have been a form of real-estate apartheid. Here is an area for tourists, here is one for residents. Ne'er the twain would the two need to intermingle, so ne'er would a tourist wee in a backyard.
But in sociological terms, tourism was long ago predicated on the notion of cultural exchange and experience. Separation of the local population from tourists would not have facilitated this. It would in any event have been implausible from an urban planning point of view to have realised such separation. There are specific instances of it, less so in Europe, more so in other parts of the world, but tourism planning has generally adhered to the principle of cultural exchange through side-by-side accommodation, mainly because it would have been impractical to try and avoid it.
The overwhelming majority of tourists are of course respectful. The problem lies with those who are not, and it is at its greatest when there is mass invasion of one's backyard, as is the case in Arenal (which is not alone). Vladimir Raitz, one of the fathers of mass tourism, believed in cultural exchange. He was later responsible for Club 18-30, though not as it was to become. Before he died, he said he was appalled. He had inadvertently bequeathed the backyard.
Showing posts with label Resorts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Resorts. Show all posts
Friday, June 02, 2017
Saturday, November 28, 2015
The Zoning Of Holiday Lets
Pilar Carbonell is the director-general of Balearic tourism. She's the one who gets things done rather than talk about getting things done, which is minister Barceló's job. But she did talk recently. In a wide-ranging interview, she spoke about the tourist tax, all-inclusives, holiday lets, Aena and lower tariffs at the airport in winter. Hers is a wide brief.
I met her recently when she came to Alcudia to talk to local businesses who were wanting something done about all-inclusives. She seemed eminently charming. Highly attentive and respectful to what was being said at the meeting, there was nevertheless an impression that she was somewhat divorced from the day-to-day realities of life in the resorts. In a way this was surprising. She is steeped in the industry from the point of view of non-hotel businesses, having run restaurants and having been the president of the restaurants' association. In Alcudia, she seemed not to know of the sheer scale of the massive Bellevue complex and the enormous influence this has on the local tourism economy. She seemed surprised when told of the practice of wristbands being sold on the beach to tourists who can get day rates to drink as much as they want inside an all-inclusive.
Perhaps it's too much to ask that any politician with a tourism brief can be familiar with issues in each and every resort on the island, but if so, one wonders about what she said in this recent interview about the application of rules regarding holiday lets.
The law on this, or at least a process for deciding the regulation of accommodation, will be coming in some time in January, she intimated. And as part of this regulation, properties (apartments for the most part, therefore) will be subject to regulated and legal commercialisation as holiday accommodation in defined areas of resorts. The town halls, she said, would be the ones to decide on which areas.
This breaking down by area has already been given some discussion in Palma. But Palma is a big place. It has discernible areas, be they the old centre, the resort areas and other seaside parts which are less of a resort nature. Other resorts aren't anything like as big, and there is a clue in how they are referred to. They are resorts, full stop. Puerto Alcudia is, and this covers the port area and the main tourism centre a couple of kilometres away and stretches to the border with another resort - Playa de Muro: one continuous resort. There are various other such examples in Majorca.
Will this selection by town halls mean, for instance, that the "pueblos" are excluded? And if so, why? In Alcudia old town's case, as is the same with certain other old towns, it is part of the overall tourist offer in the municipality. Why should it not be included?
A concern may be that town halls end up being guided by the current land regulation known as POOT, which basically refers to a quota system of municipal territory dedicated to touristic development. But POOT doesn't presuppose a continuity of territory: it is broken up into parts. Hopefully, this will not be adopted as the guideline, but even under an alternative system, will the plan for town halls to decide not simply add to the confusion which exists regarding private accommodation for holiday let rather than lessen it? And what of municipalities not currently considered to be tourist centres, those in the interior? There is no current tourist development quota in most of them, while if they have ambitions to develop tourism - Sa Pobla is a case in point - they need flexibility where private properties are concerned because of an absence of hotels. Pilar Carbonell has her work cut out getting all this right.
I met her recently when she came to Alcudia to talk to local businesses who were wanting something done about all-inclusives. She seemed eminently charming. Highly attentive and respectful to what was being said at the meeting, there was nevertheless an impression that she was somewhat divorced from the day-to-day realities of life in the resorts. In a way this was surprising. She is steeped in the industry from the point of view of non-hotel businesses, having run restaurants and having been the president of the restaurants' association. In Alcudia, she seemed not to know of the sheer scale of the massive Bellevue complex and the enormous influence this has on the local tourism economy. She seemed surprised when told of the practice of wristbands being sold on the beach to tourists who can get day rates to drink as much as they want inside an all-inclusive.
Perhaps it's too much to ask that any politician with a tourism brief can be familiar with issues in each and every resort on the island, but if so, one wonders about what she said in this recent interview about the application of rules regarding holiday lets.
The law on this, or at least a process for deciding the regulation of accommodation, will be coming in some time in January, she intimated. And as part of this regulation, properties (apartments for the most part, therefore) will be subject to regulated and legal commercialisation as holiday accommodation in defined areas of resorts. The town halls, she said, would be the ones to decide on which areas.
This breaking down by area has already been given some discussion in Palma. But Palma is a big place. It has discernible areas, be they the old centre, the resort areas and other seaside parts which are less of a resort nature. Other resorts aren't anything like as big, and there is a clue in how they are referred to. They are resorts, full stop. Puerto Alcudia is, and this covers the port area and the main tourism centre a couple of kilometres away and stretches to the border with another resort - Playa de Muro: one continuous resort. There are various other such examples in Majorca.
Will this selection by town halls mean, for instance, that the "pueblos" are excluded? And if so, why? In Alcudia old town's case, as is the same with certain other old towns, it is part of the overall tourist offer in the municipality. Why should it not be included?
A concern may be that town halls end up being guided by the current land regulation known as POOT, which basically refers to a quota system of municipal territory dedicated to touristic development. But POOT doesn't presuppose a continuity of territory: it is broken up into parts. Hopefully, this will not be adopted as the guideline, but even under an alternative system, will the plan for town halls to decide not simply add to the confusion which exists regarding private accommodation for holiday let rather than lessen it? And what of municipalities not currently considered to be tourist centres, those in the interior? There is no current tourist development quota in most of them, while if they have ambitions to develop tourism - Sa Pobla is a case in point - they need flexibility where private properties are concerned because of an absence of hotels. Pilar Carbonell has her work cut out getting all this right.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
How Urban Green Is Mallorca?
If you take a look at a map of Palma, what do you see? Or rather, what do you see comparatively little of?
The other day I wrote a piece about the Feixina park monument in which I referred also to the Parc de la Mar that was created in the mid-1970s. Neither of these is a large park. There is other parkland and green space in the city, but it is this - the relative absence of green space - which is noticeable.
Not all cities are the same and nor should they be, but fine cities, despite their densities of population and construction, tend to have great parklands. A friend of mine, in London for the first time in years, commented recently on Facebook about the remarkable parks of that city: Regent's Park, Hyde Park. There are other vast green areas in London of course. There again, London is enormous by comparison with Palma.
But one can think of other European cities. Two of personal fond memory are Amsterdam and Munich. In years gone by, I spent many an hour in Amsterdam's Vondelpark and in Munich's astonishing Englischer Garten, so damn big that it even has a cricket ground on one extremity. Both cities are bigger than Palma. In population terms, Amsterdam is closer - approximately twice the size. Throw in its canals, and I'm guessing that Amsterdam could claim to be one of Europe's greenest cities.
This diversity of urban content in different cities is the consequence of divergent urban plans, legacies, donations and foresight. Back in the day there wouldn't have been attention paid to the climatic benefits of green land, but there was an appreciation of the aesthetic of a park, of its contribution to general well-being, to landscaping principles. In Palma, there seems to have never been such consideration. Greenery has been contrived, such as with the Parc de la Mar, rather than having been the result of distant conservation and landscape ideals.
Palma is a fine city. The more I go there, the more I appreciate its worth. Architecturally, it is splendid. Its attractiveness is varied. I was even able to admire the Palacio the other day. Highly contemporary, but nothing wrong with that, and arguably in the wrong place, it nonetheless has a pleasingly intriguing angular presence. But as the town hall embarks upon wishing the city to become the Mediterranean's tourism capital, it is the lack of green land which diminishes such a desire: the lack, in particular, of a great park.
But in terms of urban layout in Mallorca, Palma is not unusual. Or maybe it is unusual in that it does actually have some parkland. Of the larger towns on the island, only Calvia has detectable green areas, partly the result of the proximity of the Tramuntana mountains but not totally. Inca, Llucmajor, Manacor, Marratxi: green land is minimal.
It is of course the case that green land is close by. From Inca, for instance, one can soon be in open countryside and on the way to the mountains, but this cannot overlook the fact that within these larger towns the residents and visitors are deprived of a softening of the urban environment that comes with parkland. Urban Mallorca is, as a result, somewhat brutalist.
Go to other towns, smaller ones, and there is a similar theme. For some, there is the compensation of blue rather than green, the presence of the sea and the beach. This is the case in Alcudia, for instance. While the town has its natural areas away from the centre, such as La Victoria, within the town and resort, green areas are all but absent. But not completely. On a glorious Sunday afternoon this weekend, parts of the Bellevue hotel complex were quite busy. Not because of tourists, as they have all gone, but because of local people and local families. Bellevue, despite its rotten reputation, has green elements. They form a mini-park. With access totally unrestricted, people can come and use this greenery as though it were a public park, when it is in fact private.
Historical urban development explains a great deal as to why there is an absence of green space. Again, if you look at maps and at the shapes of towns, you can see how this would have occurred. Towns grew on a principle of the huddling of the local populace, not least for defensive purposes. Living space was at a premium, and so green space was all but eliminated. The resorts, though, were different. Some of them were originally conceived as garden cities, but the philosophy of urban green land contained in British and German concepts for new towns from the late nineteenth century was lost in the eventual scramble for touristic construction.
Tourism determined how the resorts are, but not Palma and the towns. Only belatedly has green space became a consideration.
The other day I wrote a piece about the Feixina park monument in which I referred also to the Parc de la Mar that was created in the mid-1970s. Neither of these is a large park. There is other parkland and green space in the city, but it is this - the relative absence of green space - which is noticeable.
Not all cities are the same and nor should they be, but fine cities, despite their densities of population and construction, tend to have great parklands. A friend of mine, in London for the first time in years, commented recently on Facebook about the remarkable parks of that city: Regent's Park, Hyde Park. There are other vast green areas in London of course. There again, London is enormous by comparison with Palma.
But one can think of other European cities. Two of personal fond memory are Amsterdam and Munich. In years gone by, I spent many an hour in Amsterdam's Vondelpark and in Munich's astonishing Englischer Garten, so damn big that it even has a cricket ground on one extremity. Both cities are bigger than Palma. In population terms, Amsterdam is closer - approximately twice the size. Throw in its canals, and I'm guessing that Amsterdam could claim to be one of Europe's greenest cities.
This diversity of urban content in different cities is the consequence of divergent urban plans, legacies, donations and foresight. Back in the day there wouldn't have been attention paid to the climatic benefits of green land, but there was an appreciation of the aesthetic of a park, of its contribution to general well-being, to landscaping principles. In Palma, there seems to have never been such consideration. Greenery has been contrived, such as with the Parc de la Mar, rather than having been the result of distant conservation and landscape ideals.
Palma is a fine city. The more I go there, the more I appreciate its worth. Architecturally, it is splendid. Its attractiveness is varied. I was even able to admire the Palacio the other day. Highly contemporary, but nothing wrong with that, and arguably in the wrong place, it nonetheless has a pleasingly intriguing angular presence. But as the town hall embarks upon wishing the city to become the Mediterranean's tourism capital, it is the lack of green land which diminishes such a desire: the lack, in particular, of a great park.
But in terms of urban layout in Mallorca, Palma is not unusual. Or maybe it is unusual in that it does actually have some parkland. Of the larger towns on the island, only Calvia has detectable green areas, partly the result of the proximity of the Tramuntana mountains but not totally. Inca, Llucmajor, Manacor, Marratxi: green land is minimal.
It is of course the case that green land is close by. From Inca, for instance, one can soon be in open countryside and on the way to the mountains, but this cannot overlook the fact that within these larger towns the residents and visitors are deprived of a softening of the urban environment that comes with parkland. Urban Mallorca is, as a result, somewhat brutalist.
Go to other towns, smaller ones, and there is a similar theme. For some, there is the compensation of blue rather than green, the presence of the sea and the beach. This is the case in Alcudia, for instance. While the town has its natural areas away from the centre, such as La Victoria, within the town and resort, green areas are all but absent. But not completely. On a glorious Sunday afternoon this weekend, parts of the Bellevue hotel complex were quite busy. Not because of tourists, as they have all gone, but because of local people and local families. Bellevue, despite its rotten reputation, has green elements. They form a mini-park. With access totally unrestricted, people can come and use this greenery as though it were a public park, when it is in fact private.
Historical urban development explains a great deal as to why there is an absence of green space. Again, if you look at maps and at the shapes of towns, you can see how this would have occurred. Towns grew on a principle of the huddling of the local populace, not least for defensive purposes. Living space was at a premium, and so green space was all but eliminated. The resorts, though, were different. Some of them were originally conceived as garden cities, but the philosophy of urban green land contained in British and German concepts for new towns from the late nineteenth century was lost in the eventual scramble for touristic construction.
Tourism determined how the resorts are, but not Palma and the towns. Only belatedly has green space became a consideration.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Hey! Remember Us?: Other resorts
Manacor town hall was proud to have announced that it had presented "relevant information" to the World Travel Market last week. Prior to the fair, it was able to say that the "capital of the Llevant" had "very important" projects in hand, such as for cycling and sports tourism, one of the big Balearic themes at the fair. No one from Manacor actually attended, partly one suspects because the town hall was in the process of change: the vote of no confidence had ushered in a totally different ruling administration. But the town hall had probably, in any event, not planned on sending anyone. Unless I'm mistaken, there were only four town halls with official representation at the fair, two of which needed no introduction: Calvia and Palma. The other two were Alcudia and Pollensa.
In Manacor there is a resort that has been badly neglected for years. Calas de Mallorca has, however, been attempting to up its image, and an innovative website has been part of the process. It isn't the only resort to have been active web-wise, so have Cala Millor and Pollensa, for example.
Pollensa is very British, but it's not as though Cala Millor and Calas de Mallorca don't get British tourists. So should these resorts, and others, have been in attendance? Ultimately, it's a financial consideration. If the regional government is tight when it comes to spending money on tourism promotion, then the town halls are decidedly Scrooge-like. It's hoped that others assist them with promotion at events like London's travel fair - the Balearic Tourism Agency and the hoteliers - but what hope did most of Mallorca's resorts have last week? Alcudia and Pollensa were doing their best, but the only games in old London town were Calvia's and Palma's.
In Palma's case, this was principally to promote the city as a weekend-break destination. Where Calvia was concerned, it was clear why the town hall was keen to be in London. This was a fair which, from a Mallorcan perspective, had one message and one message alone: Magalluf.
This was clearly a message that needed getting across, but one does have to wonder what the rest of Mallorca makes of the apparent monopoly (or duopoly, if Palma is included) of the island's marketing. Fair play to Calvia (and Meliá) for the public relations exercise, but where do other resorts fit in? And among them are others only a short distance from Magalluf. Like Santa Ponsa. It's not just resorts to the north, west or east which are overlooked, it's others in Calvia as well.
The hoo-ha over the missing 63 million euros investment for Playa de Palma was a useful ploy by the regional government. They did, after all, know about this the week before the fair but only revealed the news once they were there. Diversionary tactic for dealing with the tourist tax? Possibly it was, but the argument over this investment merely went to reinforce what has been recognised for too long: the obsession of governmental bodies and of the media with two resorts and only two resorts. Everywhere else appears inconsequential.
And a consequence of this is that you never hear about investments in other resorts, if indeed there are any. Nigh on 200 million of Meliá investors' cash in Magalluf, plus that of others. 63 million that the government is desperate to retrieve from Madrid for Playa de Palma. Vast sums of money that are constantly mentioned, held up as achievements or as examples of central government "aggression" towards Mallorca and the Balearics. Yes, there is investment elsewhere, but it is not of a fundamental character as it is in Magalluf and Playa de Palma: a re-invention of old and tired resorts.
Perhaps the government hopes that it can convince tourists and tour operators that the tourist tax is the means for making Mallorca less of a two-resort island, that the revenue will go to other parts destined to also become like Miami Beach. It's unlikely to convince anyone, and the case for the tax was arguably made less convincing by all the Calvia-Palma puffery in London. If there is investment of the levels spoken about for Magalluf and Playa de Palma - investment without the aid of a tourist tax - why should a tax be necessary?
The point is though that very little of the Magalluf investment has thus far been public money. Meliá, because of its strong interests in the resort and its access to investment, was able to circumvent the type of delays that have dogged the more publicly funded Playa de Palma. Other resorts don't have a sugar daddy hotel chain. They thus rely far more on public funds to bring about change. In a couple of years time, will the World Travel Market be learning about the changing faces of Cala Millor, Alcudia and Calas de Mallorca?
In Manacor there is a resort that has been badly neglected for years. Calas de Mallorca has, however, been attempting to up its image, and an innovative website has been part of the process. It isn't the only resort to have been active web-wise, so have Cala Millor and Pollensa, for example.
Pollensa is very British, but it's not as though Cala Millor and Calas de Mallorca don't get British tourists. So should these resorts, and others, have been in attendance? Ultimately, it's a financial consideration. If the regional government is tight when it comes to spending money on tourism promotion, then the town halls are decidedly Scrooge-like. It's hoped that others assist them with promotion at events like London's travel fair - the Balearic Tourism Agency and the hoteliers - but what hope did most of Mallorca's resorts have last week? Alcudia and Pollensa were doing their best, but the only games in old London town were Calvia's and Palma's.
In Palma's case, this was principally to promote the city as a weekend-break destination. Where Calvia was concerned, it was clear why the town hall was keen to be in London. This was a fair which, from a Mallorcan perspective, had one message and one message alone: Magalluf.
This was clearly a message that needed getting across, but one does have to wonder what the rest of Mallorca makes of the apparent monopoly (or duopoly, if Palma is included) of the island's marketing. Fair play to Calvia (and Meliá) for the public relations exercise, but where do other resorts fit in? And among them are others only a short distance from Magalluf. Like Santa Ponsa. It's not just resorts to the north, west or east which are overlooked, it's others in Calvia as well.
The hoo-ha over the missing 63 million euros investment for Playa de Palma was a useful ploy by the regional government. They did, after all, know about this the week before the fair but only revealed the news once they were there. Diversionary tactic for dealing with the tourist tax? Possibly it was, but the argument over this investment merely went to reinforce what has been recognised for too long: the obsession of governmental bodies and of the media with two resorts and only two resorts. Everywhere else appears inconsequential.
And a consequence of this is that you never hear about investments in other resorts, if indeed there are any. Nigh on 200 million of Meliá investors' cash in Magalluf, plus that of others. 63 million that the government is desperate to retrieve from Madrid for Playa de Palma. Vast sums of money that are constantly mentioned, held up as achievements or as examples of central government "aggression" towards Mallorca and the Balearics. Yes, there is investment elsewhere, but it is not of a fundamental character as it is in Magalluf and Playa de Palma: a re-invention of old and tired resorts.
Perhaps the government hopes that it can convince tourists and tour operators that the tourist tax is the means for making Mallorca less of a two-resort island, that the revenue will go to other parts destined to also become like Miami Beach. It's unlikely to convince anyone, and the case for the tax was arguably made less convincing by all the Calvia-Palma puffery in London. If there is investment of the levels spoken about for Magalluf and Playa de Palma - investment without the aid of a tourist tax - why should a tax be necessary?
The point is though that very little of the Magalluf investment has thus far been public money. Meliá, because of its strong interests in the resort and its access to investment, was able to circumvent the type of delays that have dogged the more publicly funded Playa de Palma. Other resorts don't have a sugar daddy hotel chain. They thus rely far more on public funds to bring about change. In a couple of years time, will the World Travel Market be learning about the changing faces of Cala Millor, Alcudia and Calas de Mallorca?
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Resort Obsolescence: Financing mature zones
Amidst recent talk of Magalluf and its changing face, something quite important has slipped under the radar that is highly relevant to this face-changing. It applies also to Palmanova, Santa Ponsa and Paguera, where facelifts or other cosmetic surgery are spoken of less. That's the power of Magalluf, one supposes. Mention Calvia, and the assumption is that Magalluf is what is meant, but other resorts in the town have just as much of a need for makeovers as Magalluf: more in a way, as they have not gone under the operating scalpel of Meliá.
Businesses, small ones for the most part, met with town hall representatives last week to talk about concerns they have. While they raised once more the prostitutes and lookies' issues - ones that for all the triumphal talk are not getting any better - and also called for greater police presence in Santa Ponsa's Ramon Moncada (a street every bit as bedevilled as Punta Ballena has been), top of their list were "mature zones".
To remind you, these are areas of resorts deemed to be obsolete and outdated. Rundown might also be a description. The zones' levels of maturity reveal their age - fifty plus years - and there are legacies that date back to the first years of development, as is the case with other resorts on the island. The tourism law that the Bauzá government introduced contained provision for resorts (or parts of them) to be declared mature zones. Making such declarations is largely the responsibility of town halls, and if and when these are approved, the process is set in motion for eradicating the outdated and replacing it with the up to date, or possibly even futuristic.
The carrot, where the law is concerned, is that bureaucratic procedures will be relaxed. Financial assistance should also be available. The carrot is for the stick which demands that mature zones and business premises within them are redeveloped, and done so within a set period of time. In Magalluf, Palmanvoa, Santa Ponsa and Paguera, businesses such as bars, restaurants, shops and clubs have three years to get their modernisation act together: approximately a thousand premises across the four resorts are affected.
These businesses had until Monday to submit the initial documentation in order to get the ball rolling and to qualify for the plan. There was talk of extending this deadline, but at the heart of the concerns, one fancies, is the question of money. Where will the financial assistance come from? Will it be forthcoming?
A mature zone declaration brings with it an obligation on behalf of the local authority and businesses. It isn't a jargonistic term but an item of law, the first application of which - to Playa de Palma - is set out in suitably legalistic fashion. It is also a concept which doesn't only apply to Mallorca. It was adopted by the last regional government (and the new one would have no reason to abandon it) as part of a national scheme for modernisation, and nationally there is a fund for the modernisation of touristic infrastructure. This totals 200 million euros but only one eighth of it is targeted at mature zones: 25 million for the Balearics, the Costas and the Canaries.
The rules of engagement suggest that 30% of finance for business modernisation has to be private. Some would argue that it should all be private, as these are not public-sector businesses, but the scale of the task of modernisation in resorts demands government intervention and government cash. The problem is that there seems so little of it.
The Balearics of course have a fundamental issue with national government over investment funding, but even were Madrid (of whatever political colour) to up this investment for tourism infrastructure, would it go to businesses? There's no guarantee that it would, as the resorts themselves need improvement and modernisation, while with Podemos in the equation, public funding going to the private sector would probably be a no-no: they've said that the tourist tax benefiting the hoteliers would be unacceptable, and they might well have the same attitude towards restaurants and clubs.
There are other funds, such as the Balearic tourism "bolsa" that was created from levies paid by hoteliers to legalise all the places in their hotels that hadn't been legal. This is used for resort improvements, but of a general nature. And then there will be the tourist tax, but it won't go into private hands.
There are other funds in the form of generous lines of credit from certain banks, but a key problem, as identified by Meliá's Mark Hoddinott in Magalluf is that bars and restaurants don't operate in the long-term. It's why convincing them of the merits of Magalluf's transformation and changing market profile is not easy. And that means that it isn't easy to convince them that there will be profitable returns on borrowing.
Businesses, small ones for the most part, met with town hall representatives last week to talk about concerns they have. While they raised once more the prostitutes and lookies' issues - ones that for all the triumphal talk are not getting any better - and also called for greater police presence in Santa Ponsa's Ramon Moncada (a street every bit as bedevilled as Punta Ballena has been), top of their list were "mature zones".
To remind you, these are areas of resorts deemed to be obsolete and outdated. Rundown might also be a description. The zones' levels of maturity reveal their age - fifty plus years - and there are legacies that date back to the first years of development, as is the case with other resorts on the island. The tourism law that the Bauzá government introduced contained provision for resorts (or parts of them) to be declared mature zones. Making such declarations is largely the responsibility of town halls, and if and when these are approved, the process is set in motion for eradicating the outdated and replacing it with the up to date, or possibly even futuristic.
The carrot, where the law is concerned, is that bureaucratic procedures will be relaxed. Financial assistance should also be available. The carrot is for the stick which demands that mature zones and business premises within them are redeveloped, and done so within a set period of time. In Magalluf, Palmanvoa, Santa Ponsa and Paguera, businesses such as bars, restaurants, shops and clubs have three years to get their modernisation act together: approximately a thousand premises across the four resorts are affected.
These businesses had until Monday to submit the initial documentation in order to get the ball rolling and to qualify for the plan. There was talk of extending this deadline, but at the heart of the concerns, one fancies, is the question of money. Where will the financial assistance come from? Will it be forthcoming?
A mature zone declaration brings with it an obligation on behalf of the local authority and businesses. It isn't a jargonistic term but an item of law, the first application of which - to Playa de Palma - is set out in suitably legalistic fashion. It is also a concept which doesn't only apply to Mallorca. It was adopted by the last regional government (and the new one would have no reason to abandon it) as part of a national scheme for modernisation, and nationally there is a fund for the modernisation of touristic infrastructure. This totals 200 million euros but only one eighth of it is targeted at mature zones: 25 million for the Balearics, the Costas and the Canaries.
The rules of engagement suggest that 30% of finance for business modernisation has to be private. Some would argue that it should all be private, as these are not public-sector businesses, but the scale of the task of modernisation in resorts demands government intervention and government cash. The problem is that there seems so little of it.
The Balearics of course have a fundamental issue with national government over investment funding, but even were Madrid (of whatever political colour) to up this investment for tourism infrastructure, would it go to businesses? There's no guarantee that it would, as the resorts themselves need improvement and modernisation, while with Podemos in the equation, public funding going to the private sector would probably be a no-no: they've said that the tourist tax benefiting the hoteliers would be unacceptable, and they might well have the same attitude towards restaurants and clubs.
There are other funds, such as the Balearic tourism "bolsa" that was created from levies paid by hoteliers to legalise all the places in their hotels that hadn't been legal. This is used for resort improvements, but of a general nature. And then there will be the tourist tax, but it won't go into private hands.
There are other funds in the form of generous lines of credit from certain banks, but a key problem, as identified by Meliá's Mark Hoddinott in Magalluf is that bars and restaurants don't operate in the long-term. It's why convincing them of the merits of Magalluf's transformation and changing market profile is not easy. And that means that it isn't easy to convince them that there will be profitable returns on borrowing.
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Barceló's Cook's Tour
Biel Barceló, the vice-presidential minister for Balearic tourism, certainly knows how to fill the column inches of the local press. You can't miss him as he's all over the media. Is this pure publicity-grabbing? It doesn't seem so. Bear in mind that we are in August, a time when Mallorcan politicians traditionally take to their holiday fincas and disappear into the sultry heat (and occasional rain) of late summer. Barceló has not long been in his post. He hasn't necessarily done anything to deserve a holiday yet, but he has avoided the temptation to relax by doing what all tourism ministers should do - he has been getting around the resorts of Mallorca at the peak period in order to see for himself.
He won't of course see everything, but thus far his Cook's tour of the island has found him in resorts on the east coast and in the south-west. Think what you will of Barceló - and much of the thinking will revolve around the eco-tax - but he appears determined to take his portfolio seriously, to be seen to be taking a genuine interest in the concerns of the resorts which constitute the principal motor of not just the tourism economy but the economy of the whole of Mallorca. He should be applauded.
The contrast with his immediate predecessors is great. Neither Carlos Delgado nor Jaime Martínez went out on such fact-finding missions. Martínez in particular was more at home drawing up legislation, a task that befitted his bureaucratic background: he was hardly a man of the tourism people. Barceló does seem genuinely different, though all the glad-handing with local mayors and others will seem simply like a PR stunt unless it turns into meaningful actions. If badly needed investments for certain resorts result, however, then he will be able to take some of the credit.
Down Calvia way he heard of a desire for an amplification of the British police project, but this is something he should be wary of. He faces a colossal PR challenge with the eco-tax, the consequence of the negative publicity it will be bound to attract in the foreign press - the British, for instance. If, allied to this, greater negativity in the British media is heaped upon Mallorca because of greater numbers of "bobbies", then he could have a double-whammy of poor PR to contend with. Nevertheless, at present he's showing himself to be willing to take close interest in the resorts. We wish him well.
The uncertainty over the timing of the eco-tax is beginning to look less uncertain. A schedule for its introduction, which would seem to now have general agreement, will see its approval by the cabinet in January. This will be followed by its passage through parliament during 2016 with the objective of its being implemented in 2017, albeit a precise time in 2017 has yet to be identified. But if the legislative channel seems less clogged, there remains the fundamental of how the tax will be collected. The option for doing so through ports and airports requires state approval and the practicalities of such an option may leave it dead in the water.
As part of the PR battle to convince everyone of the need and fairness of the eco-tax, a member of Barceló's party, Més, has added his voice to the argument. The deputy mayor of Palma, Antoni Noguera, who will become mayor in mid-term under the pact agreement for governing the city, has attacked hoteliers' portrayal of themselves as "victims" of the tax by alluding to the non-harmful impact of tourist taxes elsewhere. With Berlin, as an example, he is on solid ground, but London? There has been talk of a tax there but by individual councils - both Westminster and Camden have been looking at it. A misunderstanding may arise because of the VAT applied to hotel bills, but Noguera needs to be careful in making comparisons which aren't valid. More appropriate to Mallorca, in any event, are the experiences of the likes of Catalonia, Croatia, Bulgaria and France, though even these are unlikely to cut much ice with many travellers. They are interested in Mallorca alone, not what happens on the Costa Brava or in the Black Sea resorts.
He won't of course see everything, but thus far his Cook's tour of the island has found him in resorts on the east coast and in the south-west. Think what you will of Barceló - and much of the thinking will revolve around the eco-tax - but he appears determined to take his portfolio seriously, to be seen to be taking a genuine interest in the concerns of the resorts which constitute the principal motor of not just the tourism economy but the economy of the whole of Mallorca. He should be applauded.
The contrast with his immediate predecessors is great. Neither Carlos Delgado nor Jaime Martínez went out on such fact-finding missions. Martínez in particular was more at home drawing up legislation, a task that befitted his bureaucratic background: he was hardly a man of the tourism people. Barceló does seem genuinely different, though all the glad-handing with local mayors and others will seem simply like a PR stunt unless it turns into meaningful actions. If badly needed investments for certain resorts result, however, then he will be able to take some of the credit.
Down Calvia way he heard of a desire for an amplification of the British police project, but this is something he should be wary of. He faces a colossal PR challenge with the eco-tax, the consequence of the negative publicity it will be bound to attract in the foreign press - the British, for instance. If, allied to this, greater negativity in the British media is heaped upon Mallorca because of greater numbers of "bobbies", then he could have a double-whammy of poor PR to contend with. Nevertheless, at present he's showing himself to be willing to take close interest in the resorts. We wish him well.
The uncertainty over the timing of the eco-tax is beginning to look less uncertain. A schedule for its introduction, which would seem to now have general agreement, will see its approval by the cabinet in January. This will be followed by its passage through parliament during 2016 with the objective of its being implemented in 2017, albeit a precise time in 2017 has yet to be identified. But if the legislative channel seems less clogged, there remains the fundamental of how the tax will be collected. The option for doing so through ports and airports requires state approval and the practicalities of such an option may leave it dead in the water.
As part of the PR battle to convince everyone of the need and fairness of the eco-tax, a member of Barceló's party, Més, has added his voice to the argument. The deputy mayor of Palma, Antoni Noguera, who will become mayor in mid-term under the pact agreement for governing the city, has attacked hoteliers' portrayal of themselves as "victims" of the tax by alluding to the non-harmful impact of tourist taxes elsewhere. With Berlin, as an example, he is on solid ground, but London? There has been talk of a tax there but by individual councils - both Westminster and Camden have been looking at it. A misunderstanding may arise because of the VAT applied to hotel bills, but Noguera needs to be careful in making comparisons which aren't valid. More appropriate to Mallorca, in any event, are the experiences of the likes of Catalonia, Croatia, Bulgaria and France, though even these are unlikely to cut much ice with many travellers. They are interested in Mallorca alone, not what happens on the Costa Brava or in the Black Sea resorts.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Rethinking Architecture: Mallorca's resorts
They're holding a workshop tomorrow at the headquarters of the Balearic College of Architects, the professional institute for the islands' architects. Among those taking part will be the president of the Mallorcan hoteliers' federation, Inma de Benito, and the town hall architect from Calvia as well as a number of architectural students. The workshop's theme is Magalluf and its future. There is to be "critical reflection" on the relationship between architecture and urban planning and the living conditions of both tourists and residents in a tourism environment. Because of Magalluf's issues, it has been chosen as a suitable subject for student analysis.
If, as non-architects, you were to be asked for your architectural prescription for Magalluf's future, it might not get much further than calling in the wrecking crews, but this would be unfair in light of changes already undertaken or in progress in the resort. Indeed, because of these changes, one has to ask if Magalluf is a suitable subject. But your response would probably be one based on something other than architecture, i.e. the resort's poor reputation. Architecture and urban planning can and do determine social behaviour, but Magalluf is not so different, in architectural terms, to other resorts: in fact, because of the recent developments, it is somewhat better than many.
Magalluf was the last of Calvia's main tourism centres to receive the green light for development: it wasn't definitively given until 1959. By then Santa Ponsa and Palmanova were already under development, Paguera's plan had been approved, while Illetes had undergone limited hotel construction (or re-construction) from the late 1940s. Illetes is, in this regard, instructive. When the Maricel was originally built, replacing the previous Cas Català, it conformed to an architectural design, conceived by the Mallorcan Francisco Casas, which owed much to the Mallorcan manor house and it was in line with design thinking of the time. It is one of the great ironies of tourism in Mallorca that, as the island attempts a reinvention of resorts, the model of the 1950s prior to the economic necessity of mass tourism was a hotel like the Maricel and a tranquil spot such as Illetes. This style of hotel was itself a successor to the likes of the Formentor and, much earlier, Palma's Gran Hotel. Architecture was, therefore, conceived with a certain social behaviour in mind: that of the wealthy, the more refined and sophisticated.
The tourism boom shattered all this and introduced a tourism that was neither refined nor sophisticated. The resorts and their hotels complemented their guests. Architecturally, this meant a form of touristic Brutalism. Urban layouts, while many adhered to blueprints from the 1930s of a garden-city nature (like in Santa Ponsa), were compromised by the need for construction which overwhelmed design principles for greater environmental and human co-existence harmony. Tourists, innocents abroad and mostly unfamiliar with alternatives, accepted this Brutalism, as did residents, many of them incomers: the resort workers.
It is interesting to note that tourist and resident co-existence is a factor in the workshop's considerations, because little attention was paid to such a thing when the resorts were springing up. Had there been, there might have been alternative urban planning, as was the case with French resorts that were specifically for tourists. These enclaves can be criticised for being tourist ghettoes, removed from the local community, but they have certain advantages in reducing the potential for resident-tourist conflict. Nevertheless, resorts, in an ideal world, should be places where tourist and resident mingle together in cultural interplay, and some do conform to this ideal better than others, as might be said to be the case with Puerto Pollensa, for instance. But then Puerto Pollensa wasn't an artificial resort. It grew organically rather than out of nothing or very little, and its architecture, even today, for the most part reflects this.
The ideal of cultural interplay, the bringing together of peoples from different nations in peace through tourism, was one that tourism visionaries had: Horizon's Vladimir Raitz, for example. But this didn't happen because of the artificial nature of resorts such as Magalluf and because of the demand for the British bar or the German kneipe. Subsequently, this ideal has been made even more untenable thanks to the all-inclusive.
Though Magalluf has experienced its improvements, the negative legacy of architectural and urban planning, exacerbated by Calvia's 1971 general urban plan and expansion which followed, most definitely remains. But so it does in other resorts. As a case study, the architectural students might come up with some solutions, but it is not just Magalluf which needs one. There again, we have been here before. In 2000, the then government embarked upon a three-year cycle of activities to bring forth architectural ideas for Mallorca's future, its image and its tourism reality. Serious names in the architectural world were asked to participate. What happened? Nothing.
If, as non-architects, you were to be asked for your architectural prescription for Magalluf's future, it might not get much further than calling in the wrecking crews, but this would be unfair in light of changes already undertaken or in progress in the resort. Indeed, because of these changes, one has to ask if Magalluf is a suitable subject. But your response would probably be one based on something other than architecture, i.e. the resort's poor reputation. Architecture and urban planning can and do determine social behaviour, but Magalluf is not so different, in architectural terms, to other resorts: in fact, because of the recent developments, it is somewhat better than many.
Magalluf was the last of Calvia's main tourism centres to receive the green light for development: it wasn't definitively given until 1959. By then Santa Ponsa and Palmanova were already under development, Paguera's plan had been approved, while Illetes had undergone limited hotel construction (or re-construction) from the late 1940s. Illetes is, in this regard, instructive. When the Maricel was originally built, replacing the previous Cas Català, it conformed to an architectural design, conceived by the Mallorcan Francisco Casas, which owed much to the Mallorcan manor house and it was in line with design thinking of the time. It is one of the great ironies of tourism in Mallorca that, as the island attempts a reinvention of resorts, the model of the 1950s prior to the economic necessity of mass tourism was a hotel like the Maricel and a tranquil spot such as Illetes. This style of hotel was itself a successor to the likes of the Formentor and, much earlier, Palma's Gran Hotel. Architecture was, therefore, conceived with a certain social behaviour in mind: that of the wealthy, the more refined and sophisticated.
The tourism boom shattered all this and introduced a tourism that was neither refined nor sophisticated. The resorts and their hotels complemented their guests. Architecturally, this meant a form of touristic Brutalism. Urban layouts, while many adhered to blueprints from the 1930s of a garden-city nature (like in Santa Ponsa), were compromised by the need for construction which overwhelmed design principles for greater environmental and human co-existence harmony. Tourists, innocents abroad and mostly unfamiliar with alternatives, accepted this Brutalism, as did residents, many of them incomers: the resort workers.
It is interesting to note that tourist and resident co-existence is a factor in the workshop's considerations, because little attention was paid to such a thing when the resorts were springing up. Had there been, there might have been alternative urban planning, as was the case with French resorts that were specifically for tourists. These enclaves can be criticised for being tourist ghettoes, removed from the local community, but they have certain advantages in reducing the potential for resident-tourist conflict. Nevertheless, resorts, in an ideal world, should be places where tourist and resident mingle together in cultural interplay, and some do conform to this ideal better than others, as might be said to be the case with Puerto Pollensa, for instance. But then Puerto Pollensa wasn't an artificial resort. It grew organically rather than out of nothing or very little, and its architecture, even today, for the most part reflects this.
The ideal of cultural interplay, the bringing together of peoples from different nations in peace through tourism, was one that tourism visionaries had: Horizon's Vladimir Raitz, for example. But this didn't happen because of the artificial nature of resorts such as Magalluf and because of the demand for the British bar or the German kneipe. Subsequently, this ideal has been made even more untenable thanks to the all-inclusive.
Though Magalluf has experienced its improvements, the negative legacy of architectural and urban planning, exacerbated by Calvia's 1971 general urban plan and expansion which followed, most definitely remains. But so it does in other resorts. As a case study, the architectural students might come up with some solutions, but it is not just Magalluf which needs one. There again, we have been here before. In 2000, the then government embarked upon a three-year cycle of activities to bring forth architectural ideas for Mallorca's future, its image and its tourism reality. Serious names in the architectural world were asked to participate. What happened? Nothing.
Monday, January 19, 2015
The Tarnished Gold Of Cala D'Or
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The "positioning" of Cala d'Or was being discussed last week. Representatives of the Cala d'Or hotel association and the vice-president of the Mallorcan hoteliers federation, Inma de Benito, met with the mayor of Santanyí, Llorenç Galmés, to consider ways of improving its positioning, a broad term that one takes to refer to its image, its branding and so to its tourist profile and how and where the resort is marketed. The meeting discussed the launch of an improved and more attractive tourism website, participation in upcoming travel fairs, means of lengthening the season through diversification of the tourism offer and public-private co-operation. As such, therefore, it was a meeting that could have been discussing any of the island's resorts.
At the end of May 2012, there was a post on the "Caladorxlibre" blog*. It ended thus: "Im sure that the dream of Josep Costa Ferrer was not going to end in such a sad way." The article spoke of the "plight" of Cala d'Or, of a resort once the envy of the rest of Mallorca where now the "law of the strongest" applied, where, if there was no remedy, it would be a place "sunk in misery", abandoned by governments and politicians who think only of "bread for today" and not the "hunger of tomorrow" which might follow. Examples of degeneration were offered, and yet in one way this criticism was surprising. In November 2010, various buildings in Cala d'Or had been officially catalogued as being of special interest and so therefore needing protection. These were buildings representative of the era from 1933, when Don Pep bought the land, until the late 1960s, during which the essence of what Don Pep had envisaged had been maintained. But following the approval of an urban plan in 1967, things started to change. The consequence was the gradual loss of original buildings and of the architectural characteristics which had defined Cala d'Or.
Cataloguing and protecting certain buildings is, however, only one act of preservation. There are the very much wider issues of resort preservation, maintenance and improvement and of the nature of a resort and its "positioning". Belatedly, it would appear, the hoteliers and town hall have realised that they need to address these issues, the town hall's Partido Popular administration having previously been stung by opposition criticisms in 2013 by announcing a project of improvement which is ongoing.
Welcome though this embellishment is, the story of Cala d'Or is one that is sadly far from unique in Mallorca. The current regional government has laid the groundwork for resort improvement but it has its twin obsessions - those of Magalluf and Playa de Palma. Other resorts are for the most part merely lumped together in the anticipation of investment (mainly by the private sector) that will somehow lead to their transformation. But this is conceptually deficient, as it neglects a need for individual resort assessment and treatment. The resorts are not all the same, though the government gives the impression of believing that they are. Cala d'Or most certainly isn't the same. Or shouldn't be.
There needs to be a co-ordinated plan that appreciates the characteristics of resorts; what they have been and what they might be and so therefore what their "positioning" should be. Cala d'Or has clearly definable characteristics which need to be rediscovered and celebrated. The years of governmental indifference have made this difficult but not impossible. Likewise and as another example, Alcúdia, with its lakes and canals, needs to be subject to specific treatment for rediscovery and not be treated with the scandalous neglect of these attributes, as is currently the case.
Are efforts by town halls and local hotel associations sufficient? No. They go some way in effecting improvements, but the resorts - all of them - need to be part of an island-wide plan dedicated to an appreciation of what marks them out. It is a plan, one fancies, that would be beyond the comprehension of the regional government.
* http://caladorxlibre.blogspot.com.es/2012/05/cala-dor-de-muy-pocos-quilates.html
Photo: Josep Costa Ferrer, Don Pep.
Friday, May 25, 2012
What If? Tourism after the wars
1936 and all that. But what might have happened to tourism had things after 1936 been rather different? What-ifs are pure hypothesis but they are still intriguing, and when one considers how Mallorca's tourism was disrupted by 1936, it is intriguing to wonder whether the island's tourism would be like it is today.
Mallorca's tourism can be traced back to the Archduke Luis Salvador, who invited a collection of intellectual and creative friends to Ramon Llull's Miramar in Valldemossa. This was in the nineteenth century, though, and it was a very specific and high-brow type of tourism. Mallorca's first tourism era as such began in the 1920s. There have been two tourism eras, because of what got in the way to cause there to be two.
Of articles I have written previously, there have been those about the old golf course in Alcúdia, about the first tourism seaplane flights from France to Alcúdia, about the first passenger flights from Italy to Puerto Pollensa, about the abandonment of plans for the rail extension to Alcúdia. These are all linked to 1936 which meant that the golf course was built on, the French flights ceased, the Italian ones started and the railway wasn't to be given serious further attention for 70 years.
War obviously has an impact on economic life, and tourism was an economic victim in that it was killed stone dead in 1936. It didn't help that the Civil War was followed immediately by the World War, but, and notwithstanding the relatively small amount of tourism in the 1950s, there was a hiatus of some 25 years between the two tourism eras. War can explain or excuse only so much, though; the rest of the explanation was political and economic.
Accepting the fact of both the Civil and World Wars and their intervention in the first and nascent Mallorcan tourism era, what if the political regime had been more benign, less inward-looking and less economically parochial from the end of World War Two?
A different type of regime wouldn't have brought about the earlier creation of mass tourism, as this was only possible once air transport and general living standards in northern Europe were sufficiently advanced to allow it, but had it been progressive from the late 1940s, more outward-looking and embraced what had started to be shaped before 1936, a different tourism would in all likelihood have been developed.
From the examples above, take golf. This only truly reappeared on the Mallorcan agenda under a tourism plan of the 1980s. Arguably, this was too late, as competitors, such as Portugal, were already far more advanced. Yet had it been given genuine attention much earlier, Mallorca's winter tourism might now not suffer to the extent that it does.
Then take the railway and the flights: infrastructure on Mallorca was neglected; Air France didn't come back; the Italian flights ceased in 1943 and there weren't more (British) until the second half of the 1950s. Had, however, there been a resumption of flights into Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa and had the northern rail line been established, the accessibility of the north of Mallorca would have been considerably greater than it was and would have altered the balance between north and south in tourism development.
But perhaps most important of all would have been how tourism as a whole would have developed. Mass tourism to Mallorca, the second era, came about through economic necessity, once Franco's technocrats had convinced him that autarky and parochialism were not the way forward. And it led to wholesale environmental destruction in the mad dash to create an economy worthy of the name. Had, though, general economic management not been the total disaster it was until the change of tack in the late '50s and had tourism development been smoother and more along French lines, might the massive resorts have ever been created?
The French model of tourism differs to that of Mallorca and to parts of Spain. Its relatively few purpose-built resorts, such as Cap d'Agde, primarily came into being only as a response to the challenge posed by the Costas. Otherwise, it is more diverse and less ruled by interests of hoteliers.
Mallorca may have ended up with exactly the same tourism it did in the 1960s, regardless of the style of political regime, but it might not have. Had the development been more on a straight line of a continuous tourism era (save for the interruption of war) and had there not been the economic need for the suddenness of what occurred in the 1960s, Mallorca's tourism and indeed whole economy might now be very different.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Mallorca's tourism can be traced back to the Archduke Luis Salvador, who invited a collection of intellectual and creative friends to Ramon Llull's Miramar in Valldemossa. This was in the nineteenth century, though, and it was a very specific and high-brow type of tourism. Mallorca's first tourism era as such began in the 1920s. There have been two tourism eras, because of what got in the way to cause there to be two.
Of articles I have written previously, there have been those about the old golf course in Alcúdia, about the first tourism seaplane flights from France to Alcúdia, about the first passenger flights from Italy to Puerto Pollensa, about the abandonment of plans for the rail extension to Alcúdia. These are all linked to 1936 which meant that the golf course was built on, the French flights ceased, the Italian ones started and the railway wasn't to be given serious further attention for 70 years.
War obviously has an impact on economic life, and tourism was an economic victim in that it was killed stone dead in 1936. It didn't help that the Civil War was followed immediately by the World War, but, and notwithstanding the relatively small amount of tourism in the 1950s, there was a hiatus of some 25 years between the two tourism eras. War can explain or excuse only so much, though; the rest of the explanation was political and economic.
Accepting the fact of both the Civil and World Wars and their intervention in the first and nascent Mallorcan tourism era, what if the political regime had been more benign, less inward-looking and less economically parochial from the end of World War Two?
A different type of regime wouldn't have brought about the earlier creation of mass tourism, as this was only possible once air transport and general living standards in northern Europe were sufficiently advanced to allow it, but had it been progressive from the late 1940s, more outward-looking and embraced what had started to be shaped before 1936, a different tourism would in all likelihood have been developed.
From the examples above, take golf. This only truly reappeared on the Mallorcan agenda under a tourism plan of the 1980s. Arguably, this was too late, as competitors, such as Portugal, were already far more advanced. Yet had it been given genuine attention much earlier, Mallorca's winter tourism might now not suffer to the extent that it does.
Then take the railway and the flights: infrastructure on Mallorca was neglected; Air France didn't come back; the Italian flights ceased in 1943 and there weren't more (British) until the second half of the 1950s. Had, however, there been a resumption of flights into Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa and had the northern rail line been established, the accessibility of the north of Mallorca would have been considerably greater than it was and would have altered the balance between north and south in tourism development.
But perhaps most important of all would have been how tourism as a whole would have developed. Mass tourism to Mallorca, the second era, came about through economic necessity, once Franco's technocrats had convinced him that autarky and parochialism were not the way forward. And it led to wholesale environmental destruction in the mad dash to create an economy worthy of the name. Had, though, general economic management not been the total disaster it was until the change of tack in the late '50s and had tourism development been smoother and more along French lines, might the massive resorts have ever been created?
The French model of tourism differs to that of Mallorca and to parts of Spain. Its relatively few purpose-built resorts, such as Cap d'Agde, primarily came into being only as a response to the challenge posed by the Costas. Otherwise, it is more diverse and less ruled by interests of hoteliers.
Mallorca may have ended up with exactly the same tourism it did in the 1960s, regardless of the style of political regime, but it might not have. Had the development been more on a straight line of a continuous tourism era (save for the interruption of war) and had there not been the economic need for the suddenness of what occurred in the 1960s, Mallorca's tourism and indeed whole economy might now be very different.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Brainless In Plaza
You know those photos you get of solitary beaches, the turquoise sea lapping against the velvety white sands, a rare fluffy cloud in a sky of deep blue partially hidden by palm trees gently bent by the prevailing wind. These beaches don't really exist, or rather they do exist in adverts for luxury holidays in Sunday colour supplements. No one goes to such beaches, unless they happen to have been washed up on them following the sinking of a cruise ship, and they find, to their horror, that the idyll is disturbed by a marauding bunch of English public schoolboys roaring around with pigs' heads and claiming speaking rights when one of them grabs the conch.
Were anyone to actually find such a beach by regular means, they would be able to indulge themselves in what one is supposed to indulge oneself in on such beaches and in the holiday resorts that accompany them. For these resorts would be of the hut under the palms variety. Smiling natives would serenade guests with the accompaniment of some primitive string instrument as the sun dips towards the horizon and everyone drinks fruit cocktails out of a coconut shell. And nowhere would there be a road, a pavement or any mess; just miles upon miles of velvety white sands on which the holidaymaker can walk - without shoes.
Barefoot on holiday is one thing if you are indeed at an isolated beach or resort. It is quite another when you aren't. I'm sorry to have to say this but, for all the paradise island stuff, Mallorca doesn't actually have resorts like this. True, there may be small seaside enclaves that haven't been invaded by concrete, buildings, roads, traffic and enormous numbers of people, but for the most part the resorts have been invaded thus. Yet despite this, you will still find people walking around without shoes. Walking around as though they were in a second life of Sunday colour supplementing.
What on earth are they thinking of? Why, for example, would you knowingly walk through a square such as Puerto Pollensa's plaza or cross a main road like that which runs parallel to the bay of Alcúdia without anything on your feet? One can understand it if drink has been taken and flip-flops have been carelessly mislaid, but to consciously undertake the walk back from the beach, minus footwear, requires that the barefooted have never been made aware of all those complaints regarding the movement of Rover's bowels. Or blindness as to the presence of a shattered Saint Mick bottle, a volume of vomit and the remnants of what the bin men managed to scatter around.
There is a simple enough answer to this bizarre practice. It lies with those photos of solitary beaches. Solitary the beaches in Mallorca may not be, huts under palms there may also not be, but the holiday mind assumes they are there. The holiday mind manages to make a leap of imagination - and faith, when it comes to walking barefoot - in perceiving the urbanised resorts of Mallorca as though they were stuck in the middle of the Pacific with development confined to no more than Robinson Crusoe's karaoke bar.
Brainless in plaza it is to bare the soles to a potentially tetanoid tread, but then brainlessness equates to holiday. It's fair enough, I suppose. For the same reason as the trainers may be discarded en route back to the hotel (" 'cos I'm on 'oliday"), so the shirt is left behind when planning a trip to the supermarket. You can't or wouldn't go to the Tesco in Watford stripped to the waist, but on holiday you can. Not that there is a Tesco, which may be part of the problem. Were there, then one suspects that great acres of exposed white flesh gone pink wouldn't be lumbering about the local supermarkets gathering bags of crisps.
What you have in the resorts is a reconciliation that has never been made. What came first, the resort or the non-resort? Regardless of the answer, the collision between working and residential urbanisation and holidaymaking has always created a tension of mutual living space. The two are basically incompatible. Not because there is disharmony, but because of the co-existence of two opposing cultures - one on holiday and one that isn't.
It is fully understandable that there is brainless in plaza. The holidaymaker makes of the urbanised resorts what he or she can. Ideally and idyllically, he or she would be on that solitary beach. But this isn't possible. The local culture may look upon holidaymakers as though they were mad, but when this local culture heads off for its holidays it does the same and has to try and reconcile its colliding with someone else's urbanisation. And it does so flip-flop-less.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Were anyone to actually find such a beach by regular means, they would be able to indulge themselves in what one is supposed to indulge oneself in on such beaches and in the holiday resorts that accompany them. For these resorts would be of the hut under the palms variety. Smiling natives would serenade guests with the accompaniment of some primitive string instrument as the sun dips towards the horizon and everyone drinks fruit cocktails out of a coconut shell. And nowhere would there be a road, a pavement or any mess; just miles upon miles of velvety white sands on which the holidaymaker can walk - without shoes.
Barefoot on holiday is one thing if you are indeed at an isolated beach or resort. It is quite another when you aren't. I'm sorry to have to say this but, for all the paradise island stuff, Mallorca doesn't actually have resorts like this. True, there may be small seaside enclaves that haven't been invaded by concrete, buildings, roads, traffic and enormous numbers of people, but for the most part the resorts have been invaded thus. Yet despite this, you will still find people walking around without shoes. Walking around as though they were in a second life of Sunday colour supplementing.
What on earth are they thinking of? Why, for example, would you knowingly walk through a square such as Puerto Pollensa's plaza or cross a main road like that which runs parallel to the bay of Alcúdia without anything on your feet? One can understand it if drink has been taken and flip-flops have been carelessly mislaid, but to consciously undertake the walk back from the beach, minus footwear, requires that the barefooted have never been made aware of all those complaints regarding the movement of Rover's bowels. Or blindness as to the presence of a shattered Saint Mick bottle, a volume of vomit and the remnants of what the bin men managed to scatter around.
There is a simple enough answer to this bizarre practice. It lies with those photos of solitary beaches. Solitary the beaches in Mallorca may not be, huts under palms there may also not be, but the holiday mind assumes they are there. The holiday mind manages to make a leap of imagination - and faith, when it comes to walking barefoot - in perceiving the urbanised resorts of Mallorca as though they were stuck in the middle of the Pacific with development confined to no more than Robinson Crusoe's karaoke bar.
Brainless in plaza it is to bare the soles to a potentially tetanoid tread, but then brainlessness equates to holiday. It's fair enough, I suppose. For the same reason as the trainers may be discarded en route back to the hotel (" 'cos I'm on 'oliday"), so the shirt is left behind when planning a trip to the supermarket. You can't or wouldn't go to the Tesco in Watford stripped to the waist, but on holiday you can. Not that there is a Tesco, which may be part of the problem. Were there, then one suspects that great acres of exposed white flesh gone pink wouldn't be lumbering about the local supermarkets gathering bags of crisps.
What you have in the resorts is a reconciliation that has never been made. What came first, the resort or the non-resort? Regardless of the answer, the collision between working and residential urbanisation and holidaymaking has always created a tension of mutual living space. The two are basically incompatible. Not because there is disharmony, but because of the co-existence of two opposing cultures - one on holiday and one that isn't.
It is fully understandable that there is brainless in plaza. The holidaymaker makes of the urbanised resorts what he or she can. Ideally and idyllically, he or she would be on that solitary beach. But this isn't possible. The local culture may look upon holidaymakers as though they were mad, but when this local culture heads off for its holidays it does the same and has to try and reconcile its colliding with someone else's urbanisation. And it does so flip-flop-less.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Balearics' resorts most profitable
According to the organisation Exceltur, Capdepera (e.g. Cala Ratjada) and Santanyí (e.g. Cala d'Or) registered two of the strongest increases in tourism profitability and employment in Spain during 2011. Muro and Santanyí have had the best yield of resorts over the past three years, thanks to a renewal of the type of tourism offer.
See more: El Mundo
(These findings are confirmation of ones made by Exceltur in November last year in which Muro and Santanyí were identified as being the two towns in Mallorca to be at national levels of profit generated and employment created.)
See more: El Mundo
(These findings are confirmation of ones made by Exceltur in November last year in which Muro and Santanyí were identified as being the two towns in Mallorca to be at national levels of profit generated and employment created.)
Monday, June 27, 2011
Our Man In ... : Resorts' delegates
Puerto Alcúdia has now got itself a delegate. Lucky old Puerto Alcúdia. The post-election re-organisation at Alcúdia town hall has deemed a delegate to be necessary, when previously it hadn't been. Does the port need a delegate? Maybe it does, but it has done well enough up until now without one.
Having delegates for towns' coastal resorts hasn't exactly been a great success elsewhere. They have been viewed as being toothless or simply lackeys of the mayor. This was the case in Can Picafort, for example, while in Puerto Pollensa the ex-delegate was considered, not to put too fine a point on it, to be a joke. The lack of respect that Francisca Ramon commanded came to a head when she addressed demonstrators in June last year. The volley of abuse that came back made it clear that she was thought to be "stupid".
The delegates for the resorts are at least a recognition by town halls that their resorts do have specific needs. Unfortunately, what has happened is that the very existence of delegates has raised expectations that they might actually do something, when they are hamstrung by having no real authority or responsibility. In Puerto Pollensa the call has long been made for responsibility and also for a separate budget.
The logic of such a call is that the resorts should become their own administrative units. Because of the specific needs, there would be some sense to this, but any sense soon evaporates when you consider the added bureaucracy, costs and potential for duplication.
Were the electoral system to be such that councillors were voted in on the basis of wards, then there would automatically be voices for different parts of a municipality, but this is not how it works. The creation of delegates for the main resorts reflects the absence of such a mechanism, but it is also discriminatory. In Alcúdia, for example, what about Barcarès, Alcanada and Bonaire? Don't they count?
The lack of geographical representation exacerbates discontent, such as that in Santa Margalida. Son Serra de Marina lies some seven kilometres away from Can Picafort and even further away from the town. Residents have complained that the village has been all but abandoned, and there have been examples - inadequate police presence, the deplorable state of the sports centre - which don't help to refute their complaints.
At a more general level, there is an issue as to what councillors are responsible for. Depending on its size of population, each town hall is obliged to take care of certain services. These obligations are not mirrored by what councillors are charged with.
Up to a point this is reasonable enough. The towns have a wider responsibility for general welfare than those stipulated by law. There is no legal requirement, for instance, to take responsibility for tourism, but it would be distinctly odd if they didn't.
Responsibilities such as those for public works and maintenance are clear enough, but some are less so, while the way in which these other responsibilities are jumbled together to form an individual councillor's portfolio leads you to wonder what process is ever used for arriving at what can seem contradictory.
In Muro, for instance, there is a councillor in charge of education and culture and the town's music band. Another looks after environment, youth activities, radio and television (what television!?) and transport. Yet another oversees sport, the police and traffic, and relations with the church. Go through this little lot, and there isn't always a pattern. Is radio and television not culture? Might sport be a youth activity?Would traffic and transport not have some common ground? Indeed, what is meant by transport anyway? School buses? Public transport is not a responsibility of small authorities such as Muro.
It is not as if the responsibilities mirror those higher up the political administration food chain. Regional government has combined agriculture with environment. In Muro agriculture is lumped in with tourism. In Alcudia there is still responsibility for language policy, the regional government having scrapped a specific directorate for it. But what is most evident from the Muro portfolios is what isn't evident. Unless the mayor has taken on personal responsibility for just about everything the town is really meant to look after - services, building works, finance etc. - and has a particularly hard-working governing commission, then no one appears to be in charge.
You are left with an impression, therefore, that town halls find things for councillors to do. Some are important, some aren't. But where they all fall down is in the fact that their chief generators of income and employment, the resorts, get, at best, a delegate and not a councillor with real clout.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Having delegates for towns' coastal resorts hasn't exactly been a great success elsewhere. They have been viewed as being toothless or simply lackeys of the mayor. This was the case in Can Picafort, for example, while in Puerto Pollensa the ex-delegate was considered, not to put too fine a point on it, to be a joke. The lack of respect that Francisca Ramon commanded came to a head when she addressed demonstrators in June last year. The volley of abuse that came back made it clear that she was thought to be "stupid".
The delegates for the resorts are at least a recognition by town halls that their resorts do have specific needs. Unfortunately, what has happened is that the very existence of delegates has raised expectations that they might actually do something, when they are hamstrung by having no real authority or responsibility. In Puerto Pollensa the call has long been made for responsibility and also for a separate budget.
The logic of such a call is that the resorts should become their own administrative units. Because of the specific needs, there would be some sense to this, but any sense soon evaporates when you consider the added bureaucracy, costs and potential for duplication.
Were the electoral system to be such that councillors were voted in on the basis of wards, then there would automatically be voices for different parts of a municipality, but this is not how it works. The creation of delegates for the main resorts reflects the absence of such a mechanism, but it is also discriminatory. In Alcúdia, for example, what about Barcarès, Alcanada and Bonaire? Don't they count?
The lack of geographical representation exacerbates discontent, such as that in Santa Margalida. Son Serra de Marina lies some seven kilometres away from Can Picafort and even further away from the town. Residents have complained that the village has been all but abandoned, and there have been examples - inadequate police presence, the deplorable state of the sports centre - which don't help to refute their complaints.
At a more general level, there is an issue as to what councillors are responsible for. Depending on its size of population, each town hall is obliged to take care of certain services. These obligations are not mirrored by what councillors are charged with.
Up to a point this is reasonable enough. The towns have a wider responsibility for general welfare than those stipulated by law. There is no legal requirement, for instance, to take responsibility for tourism, but it would be distinctly odd if they didn't.
Responsibilities such as those for public works and maintenance are clear enough, but some are less so, while the way in which these other responsibilities are jumbled together to form an individual councillor's portfolio leads you to wonder what process is ever used for arriving at what can seem contradictory.
In Muro, for instance, there is a councillor in charge of education and culture and the town's music band. Another looks after environment, youth activities, radio and television (what television!?) and transport. Yet another oversees sport, the police and traffic, and relations with the church. Go through this little lot, and there isn't always a pattern. Is radio and television not culture? Might sport be a youth activity?Would traffic and transport not have some common ground? Indeed, what is meant by transport anyway? School buses? Public transport is not a responsibility of small authorities such as Muro.
It is not as if the responsibilities mirror those higher up the political administration food chain. Regional government has combined agriculture with environment. In Muro agriculture is lumped in with tourism. In Alcudia there is still responsibility for language policy, the regional government having scrapped a specific directorate for it. But what is most evident from the Muro portfolios is what isn't evident. Unless the mayor has taken on personal responsibility for just about everything the town is really meant to look after - services, building works, finance etc. - and has a particularly hard-working governing commission, then no one appears to be in charge.
You are left with an impression, therefore, that town halls find things for councillors to do. Some are important, some aren't. But where they all fall down is in the fact that their chief generators of income and employment, the resorts, get, at best, a delegate and not a councillor with real clout.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
In Praise Of Naffness
If you are going to build a new gallery and arts centre, where would you put it? On a shortlist of towns in England, you would probably not have Margate at the top of it. Yet this is where the Turner Contemporary has pitched up.
The fact that Joseph Mallord William Turner spent a couple of years at school in Margate has been enough to have the town honoured by his heritage. There is something of the clutching of straw paint brushes when it comes to the connections between ancients of the arts and where they once had a garret or watered for the season. The Turner connection is like the clutching of author's pen that has been dallied with in Puerto Pollensa. Simply because Agatha Christie stayed there and wrote a thrillerette has been enough to suggest the old trout as the "face" of the resort, an idea that mercifully seems to have been forgotten about. More spectacularly spurious has of course been Chopin, despite his short-lived, tubercular vituperation of Valldemossa.
I confess that it is many years since I have been to Margate. But I can remind myself as to what it was like at the time that I did go there. In Paul Theroux's at-times savage "The Kingdom By The Sea", written in the early 1980s, he said of Margate that it "had never been fashionable; it had never even been nice". Like many an English seaside town which has always been either totally or partially naff, Margate was always one of the finer examples.
This is not, however, to seek to defame Margate or naffness as a whole. Quite the opposite.
Naffness comes in different forms. In general, it can be considered as lacking in taste or as unfashionable, uncool or unlovely. Mallorca, for years, cultivated a reputation for naffness. If you wanted a synonym for the touristic naff, then you sought no further than the M-island word: Madge-orca. Yet, it was also always the obverse; it was fashionable, cool and lovely: My-orca.
Nevertheless, the prevailing image was summed up by Madge-orca. At some point, however, it was as if the island suddenly developed a Turner Contemporary and My-orca assumed a position of cool dominance. Yet nothing fundamentally changed. To put the transformation down purely to marketing would be too simple, and the curiosity as to quite how it happened remains, because Mallorca remains an island of contradiction.
While Margate may now acquire for itself a makeover of artiness, it will retain its essential naffness, and there's no reason why it shouldn't or indeed should seek to dispense with it. The reason why it shouldn't is that naffness is engrained into its very being. Its culture, like other English seaside towns, is what gives it its appeal.
Mallorca, despite its own makeover, retains its enclaves of naffness. They are the contradiction with the sophistication and tradition that reside elsewhere. We all know where they are to be found. Alcúdia's Mile, parts of Magalluf, Arenal and elsewhere. They are all museum pieces to an extent, but such a description disguises their enduring vitality, and their naffness is one that is due, in no small part, to an importing of culture, akin to but not the same as that which has long found expression in a seaside town. While Mallorca seeks to proclaim a distant cultural heritage, it also has a more modern one, that of Del Boy import-export, with bars that reverberate with the endless exclamations of "you plonker, Rodney" or with the Schlagermusik of the Biergarten.
And to deny this would be a huge mistake. Calling somewhere naff may sound derogatory, but, and this may come as a surprise, naff is what a lot of people like. The unfashionableness of old-style entertainment, the lack of taste of the karaoke or the pub, the sheer silliness of being on holiday are what you get from some resorts. And this is just how people want them to be.
Mallorca might wish to go further in turning itself into one giant Turner Contemporary and one Turner Contemporary alone, but it shouldn't. The contradiction of the island should remain, and thank goodness for this, for otherwise it would be a case of forgetting what put Madge into Majorca rather than the Mallord into Mallorca.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The fact that Joseph Mallord William Turner spent a couple of years at school in Margate has been enough to have the town honoured by his heritage. There is something of the clutching of straw paint brushes when it comes to the connections between ancients of the arts and where they once had a garret or watered for the season. The Turner connection is like the clutching of author's pen that has been dallied with in Puerto Pollensa. Simply because Agatha Christie stayed there and wrote a thrillerette has been enough to suggest the old trout as the "face" of the resort, an idea that mercifully seems to have been forgotten about. More spectacularly spurious has of course been Chopin, despite his short-lived, tubercular vituperation of Valldemossa.
I confess that it is many years since I have been to Margate. But I can remind myself as to what it was like at the time that I did go there. In Paul Theroux's at-times savage "The Kingdom By The Sea", written in the early 1980s, he said of Margate that it "had never been fashionable; it had never even been nice". Like many an English seaside town which has always been either totally or partially naff, Margate was always one of the finer examples.
This is not, however, to seek to defame Margate or naffness as a whole. Quite the opposite.
Naffness comes in different forms. In general, it can be considered as lacking in taste or as unfashionable, uncool or unlovely. Mallorca, for years, cultivated a reputation for naffness. If you wanted a synonym for the touristic naff, then you sought no further than the M-island word: Madge-orca. Yet, it was also always the obverse; it was fashionable, cool and lovely: My-orca.
Nevertheless, the prevailing image was summed up by Madge-orca. At some point, however, it was as if the island suddenly developed a Turner Contemporary and My-orca assumed a position of cool dominance. Yet nothing fundamentally changed. To put the transformation down purely to marketing would be too simple, and the curiosity as to quite how it happened remains, because Mallorca remains an island of contradiction.
While Margate may now acquire for itself a makeover of artiness, it will retain its essential naffness, and there's no reason why it shouldn't or indeed should seek to dispense with it. The reason why it shouldn't is that naffness is engrained into its very being. Its culture, like other English seaside towns, is what gives it its appeal.
Mallorca, despite its own makeover, retains its enclaves of naffness. They are the contradiction with the sophistication and tradition that reside elsewhere. We all know where they are to be found. Alcúdia's Mile, parts of Magalluf, Arenal and elsewhere. They are all museum pieces to an extent, but such a description disguises their enduring vitality, and their naffness is one that is due, in no small part, to an importing of culture, akin to but not the same as that which has long found expression in a seaside town. While Mallorca seeks to proclaim a distant cultural heritage, it also has a more modern one, that of Del Boy import-export, with bars that reverberate with the endless exclamations of "you plonker, Rodney" or with the Schlagermusik of the Biergarten.
And to deny this would be a huge mistake. Calling somewhere naff may sound derogatory, but, and this may come as a surprise, naff is what a lot of people like. The unfashionableness of old-style entertainment, the lack of taste of the karaoke or the pub, the sheer silliness of being on holiday are what you get from some resorts. And this is just how people want them to be.
Mallorca might wish to go further in turning itself into one giant Turner Contemporary and one Turner Contemporary alone, but it shouldn't. The contradiction of the island should remain, and thank goodness for this, for otherwise it would be a case of forgetting what put Madge into Majorca rather than the Mallord into Mallorca.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Anywhere In The World: Mallorcan identity
The failure of the Playa de Palma regeneration plan has brought with it much soul-searching and navel-gazing. One of those who has been scrutinising her belly has been the president of the Council of Mallorca, Francina Armengol. While she believed that much of the plan was "excellent", she also felt that it had to be one which maintained a Mallorcan identity and was not therefore one that could have been a project anywhere in the world.
While the consortium overseeing the plan disputed her suggestion that it would not have had at least a "Mediterranean" flavour, the very mention of a Mallorcan identity highlights an issue which dogs much of the thinking surrounding Mallorca's tourism and its future. It is an issue for which there is clear blue water in the seas off the Playa de Palma and a clear line in the sand of the beach itself - those between the idealists and the pragmatists. It is an issue also that means little to most of Mallorca's tourists for whom Mallorca means, at best, a largely undefined and nebulous concept of Spain or for whom it means nothing other than a place of sun and beach - anywhere in the world, if you like.
What is this identity to which Armengol refers? If it is architectural, then it should not be beyond the wit of architects to conceive a resort in a Mallorcan style, whatever this actually is. But the architects have not always had a sympathetic Mallorcan design to the forefront of their plans when coming up with much recent construction of whatever sort - housing, hotels or commercial. Anywhere in the world? Yes, it might well be.
In the sixties, Mallorca and Spain willingly took the shilling of foreign exchange that was necessary to propel the country out of backwardness. It came in the form of mass tourism and of course at a cost. The rag-bag construction of many resorts that followed destroyed whatever identity there might once have been. Playa de Palma, much of Calvia and other resorts, such as Alcúdia and Can Picafort, were built for purpose rather than for the comfort of a mythical Mallorcan identity, one that hardly impinged upon the thought processes of planners and even less on those of tourists who were off to sunny Spain; it mattered not the slightest that they were going to an island off the mainland. And for most tourists, nothing has really changed.
A couple of years ago I wrote a series of articles on "Spanishness" as it applies to Mallorca. The starting-point for doing so was the type of question it is not uncommon to come across on the internet; the type which goes along the lines of is such-or-such a resort "Spanish". And note that it is "Spanish"; it is never "Mallorcan".
The question is hard to answer as it is most unlikely that the ones asking the question really have a conception themselves as to what "Spanish" entails, let alone Mallorcan. Few resorts can lay claim to Spanishness; they could indeed be anywhere in the world. There are exceptions, but even these are questionable. Take Puerto Pollensa for example. It hasn't suffered the same brutalism as other resorts and has maintained, so it is said, some of that Mallorcan identity. But what actually is it? Its most talked-about visual feature is the pinewalk. Are we saying that a Mallorcan identity can be symbolised by a pine tree? Perhaps we are.
In the same way as tourists might struggle to describe a Mallorcan identity, so also, I would suggest, would the idealists such as Sra. Armengol. My guess is that what she and others have in mind is the re-creation of the "pueblos" by the sea. But it is only a guess, because it is not elucidated.
Less unclear is the idealist retreat into other aspects of this identity. Gastronomy, for instance. In an ideal Mallorcan tourism world, all tourists would be tucking into tumbet or arroz brut. But they don't. Not in the major resorts at any rate. Take a walk along Alcúdia's Mile and you'll be hard-pressed to find anything that isn't pizza or grill. International. Anywhere in the world.
The pragmatic alternative is the one that has grown up since the '60s. Errors there most certainly were when the resorts were put together, but resorts, fundamentally, are places built for purpose and which have to be fit for purpose to serve their masters from overseas. Identity, even were it to be defined, is secondary, as it always has been. There is a standardisation in resorts, one that conforms to a more internationalist identity. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding more recent architectual abominations, a revision for resorts, given current-day appreciation of greater design sympathy, need not preclude something that is more discernibly Mallorcan or Spanish. Which is why Playa de Palma is likely to be a huge missed opportunity and which is why it should have spawned regeneration in other resorts. Or am I just being idealistic?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
While the consortium overseeing the plan disputed her suggestion that it would not have had at least a "Mediterranean" flavour, the very mention of a Mallorcan identity highlights an issue which dogs much of the thinking surrounding Mallorca's tourism and its future. It is an issue for which there is clear blue water in the seas off the Playa de Palma and a clear line in the sand of the beach itself - those between the idealists and the pragmatists. It is an issue also that means little to most of Mallorca's tourists for whom Mallorca means, at best, a largely undefined and nebulous concept of Spain or for whom it means nothing other than a place of sun and beach - anywhere in the world, if you like.
What is this identity to which Armengol refers? If it is architectural, then it should not be beyond the wit of architects to conceive a resort in a Mallorcan style, whatever this actually is. But the architects have not always had a sympathetic Mallorcan design to the forefront of their plans when coming up with much recent construction of whatever sort - housing, hotels or commercial. Anywhere in the world? Yes, it might well be.
In the sixties, Mallorca and Spain willingly took the shilling of foreign exchange that was necessary to propel the country out of backwardness. It came in the form of mass tourism and of course at a cost. The rag-bag construction of many resorts that followed destroyed whatever identity there might once have been. Playa de Palma, much of Calvia and other resorts, such as Alcúdia and Can Picafort, were built for purpose rather than for the comfort of a mythical Mallorcan identity, one that hardly impinged upon the thought processes of planners and even less on those of tourists who were off to sunny Spain; it mattered not the slightest that they were going to an island off the mainland. And for most tourists, nothing has really changed.
A couple of years ago I wrote a series of articles on "Spanishness" as it applies to Mallorca. The starting-point for doing so was the type of question it is not uncommon to come across on the internet; the type which goes along the lines of is such-or-such a resort "Spanish". And note that it is "Spanish"; it is never "Mallorcan".
The question is hard to answer as it is most unlikely that the ones asking the question really have a conception themselves as to what "Spanish" entails, let alone Mallorcan. Few resorts can lay claim to Spanishness; they could indeed be anywhere in the world. There are exceptions, but even these are questionable. Take Puerto Pollensa for example. It hasn't suffered the same brutalism as other resorts and has maintained, so it is said, some of that Mallorcan identity. But what actually is it? Its most talked-about visual feature is the pinewalk. Are we saying that a Mallorcan identity can be symbolised by a pine tree? Perhaps we are.
In the same way as tourists might struggle to describe a Mallorcan identity, so also, I would suggest, would the idealists such as Sra. Armengol. My guess is that what she and others have in mind is the re-creation of the "pueblos" by the sea. But it is only a guess, because it is not elucidated.
Less unclear is the idealist retreat into other aspects of this identity. Gastronomy, for instance. In an ideal Mallorcan tourism world, all tourists would be tucking into tumbet or arroz brut. But they don't. Not in the major resorts at any rate. Take a walk along Alcúdia's Mile and you'll be hard-pressed to find anything that isn't pizza or grill. International. Anywhere in the world.
The pragmatic alternative is the one that has grown up since the '60s. Errors there most certainly were when the resorts were put together, but resorts, fundamentally, are places built for purpose and which have to be fit for purpose to serve their masters from overseas. Identity, even were it to be defined, is secondary, as it always has been. There is a standardisation in resorts, one that conforms to a more internationalist identity. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding more recent architectual abominations, a revision for resorts, given current-day appreciation of greater design sympathy, need not preclude something that is more discernibly Mallorcan or Spanish. Which is why Playa de Palma is likely to be a huge missed opportunity and which is why it should have spawned regeneration in other resorts. Or am I just being idealistic?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, October 09, 2010
The October Paradox
October is a paradoxical month. Lacking quite the same "fall" as Britain or the same striking changes in colours of the landscape, it is easy - when the sun shines on a Mallorcan October - to believe that it is still summer. But its heat has a ghostly presence. The increasing dampness makes it morbidly vaporous: nature's equivalent of the spectres escaping from a butane-fired burner or from a paraffin heater of distant memory. If heat can be allocated a colour, that of a Mallorcan October is a pinky-blue.
October is a month of apparitions on the beach, the ghosts of summer fading into the memory. If September is the sad month, one of the winding-down of summer, it is, nevertheless, and from the middle of the month certainly, far enough away from the season's end for a period the length of a school summer holiday to still stretch ahead and console us with the knowledge that summer has life left in it. But in October, there is the incongruity of the dawn and twilight of finality. There is nothing beyond October.
Before the season proper starts in May, April is the month of the phoney season, the warm-up for what is to come. October is the warm-down. It is the month of the forsaking season, the giving-up month, in more than one sense. It is the giving-up on summer and, for some, the giving-up on everything - the abandonment month. The final weekend sees the clocks going back, but there is no turning the clock back on a business fading as surely as the sun does. Ever more for sale and for rent signs appear. These signs conspire, together with the gradual covering-up of glass frontages with whitewash or newspaper and the wrapping-up in plastic of lamps and lights, in making the resorts slowly wither away for another year, taking some businesses with them - for all time.
The remains, as October proceeds and gradually imposes its cruel decomposition, are skeletal resorts. They are shaking bones and skulls with rictus grins which mock tourists with a sinisterness of closure as ominous as the gathering clouds that bring the fierce storms of late summer. And on All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day at the start of November, the days of the dead represent the final passing of summer into its afterlife and the resorts into their clichéd state of the ghost town.
October is the cruel month, but not completely. Though its storms can bring turmoil, it can also bring tranquility. The end of the season comes ever closer, the days are counted down. A growing sense or anticipation of relaxation takes hold. It can be a cruel month, but it can also be sublime through the elated spirits of knowing that the sentence of summer's hard labour has been served. Sublime also in a stillness, when the storms don't blow. If the landscape doesn't alter that greatly, the seascape can. Hovering above the calmness of a bay, let's say Pollensa's, is a haze that is the product of the vapour of October warmth. It forms an eerie range of colorific monotones, a blanket and shroud of greys and silvers for the sea and hills. If it is appropriately deathly, it is benignly so, the kindly smothering of our last few days. It has the comfort of strangeness.
For this is what October is. A strange month that is between states. From life to no life. And from summer to winter, because of the strange division of the Mallorcan seasons into two semesters, one that denies October its right to be what it is - autumn. The paradox month; not really one thing and not really another.
QUIZ -
Yesterday: The Beautiful South
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
October is a month of apparitions on the beach, the ghosts of summer fading into the memory. If September is the sad month, one of the winding-down of summer, it is, nevertheless, and from the middle of the month certainly, far enough away from the season's end for a period the length of a school summer holiday to still stretch ahead and console us with the knowledge that summer has life left in it. But in October, there is the incongruity of the dawn and twilight of finality. There is nothing beyond October.
Before the season proper starts in May, April is the month of the phoney season, the warm-up for what is to come. October is the warm-down. It is the month of the forsaking season, the giving-up month, in more than one sense. It is the giving-up on summer and, for some, the giving-up on everything - the abandonment month. The final weekend sees the clocks going back, but there is no turning the clock back on a business fading as surely as the sun does. Ever more for sale and for rent signs appear. These signs conspire, together with the gradual covering-up of glass frontages with whitewash or newspaper and the wrapping-up in plastic of lamps and lights, in making the resorts slowly wither away for another year, taking some businesses with them - for all time.
The remains, as October proceeds and gradually imposes its cruel decomposition, are skeletal resorts. They are shaking bones and skulls with rictus grins which mock tourists with a sinisterness of closure as ominous as the gathering clouds that bring the fierce storms of late summer. And on All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day at the start of November, the days of the dead represent the final passing of summer into its afterlife and the resorts into their clichéd state of the ghost town.
October is the cruel month, but not completely. Though its storms can bring turmoil, it can also bring tranquility. The end of the season comes ever closer, the days are counted down. A growing sense or anticipation of relaxation takes hold. It can be a cruel month, but it can also be sublime through the elated spirits of knowing that the sentence of summer's hard labour has been served. Sublime also in a stillness, when the storms don't blow. If the landscape doesn't alter that greatly, the seascape can. Hovering above the calmness of a bay, let's say Pollensa's, is a haze that is the product of the vapour of October warmth. It forms an eerie range of colorific monotones, a blanket and shroud of greys and silvers for the sea and hills. If it is appropriately deathly, it is benignly so, the kindly smothering of our last few days. It has the comfort of strangeness.
For this is what October is. A strange month that is between states. From life to no life. And from summer to winter, because of the strange division of the Mallorcan seasons into two semesters, one that denies October its right to be what it is - autumn. The paradox month; not really one thing and not really another.
QUIZ -
Yesterday: The Beautiful South
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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