Morning high (7.22am): 8.4C
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 6 February - Cloud, 14C; 7 February - Cloud, 13C; 8 February - Cloud, sun, 13C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South 4 to 5.
Cloudy day, risk of showers, a southerly keeping things reasonably mild.
Evening update (20.00): Held up moderately, a high of 15.9C, before the temperature plummeted and it rained.
Monday, February 05, 2018
What's The Loss From The Tourist Tax?
The Balearics attracted 13,790,968 foreign tourists last year, the highest number ever. The increase was in the order of six per cent over 2016. The exactness of the figure makes one marvel at the statistics-gathering approach. One trusts that it is accurate. On top of this 13.8 million there were the Spanish tourists. They are treated separately. In 2016 there were just shy of 2.4 million mainlander tourists. That figure will have gone up. The overall tourist total last year will have topped the 16 million mark; in 2016 it was 15.4 million.
The increase last year was against the background of the first full year of the tourist tax. Its implementation had no effect. Or if it did, the effect was mitigated by a continuing "borrowing" of holidaymakers from other destinations. This borrowing, so we understand, is over; the Balearics are returning tourists that had been out on loan. The 2018 tourism dynamic has an additional element to this returning: the tourist tax is to double between May and October.
Last November in London, we did of course learn from Mallorca's hoteliers that the tax rise will mean the loss of one million tourists. What did they base their figure on? They said that it was an extrapolation from what happened when the ecotax of 2002 was introduced. Ok, but then was it not logical to have expected a loss of tourists last year? The borrowing clouded the issue and the logic.
Basing an assessment on the effect of the 2002 tax was in any event misleading. There was a loss of half a million tourists in 2002: a 7.6% decline. The loss was predominantly due to the German market. It fell by 16%. The British market went down by just over one per cent. There were other factors that are conveniently ignored to explain the big drop in German tourism that year. In 2003, prior to the tax being scrapped, the losses were all but recouped.
Jaume Rosselló and Andreu Sansó are researchers at the University of the Balearic Islands department of applied economics. They have published an article entitled Taxing Tourism: The effects of an accommodation tax on tourism demand in the Balearic Islands. It has appeared in the journal Cuadernos Económicos. The latest edition is a special look at 'sustainable tourism', and some of it - including Rosselló and Sansó's research - is in English.
Highly academic, it is for most of us pretty impenetrable. It does, nevertheless, seek to provide an evaluation of the loss of tourism because of the tourist tax. Rosselló and Sansó refer to the 2002 ecotax but don't use it or its impact in their study. They stick to more recent evidence. The upshot of this research is that there is increased price elasticity, i.e. the effect of a price change on demand, and that a decrease of between 0.4% and 0.9% of total tourism demand can be anticipated. If the higher percentage were to be applied to last year's foreign tourism, this would represent the loss of more than 120,000 tourists.
The point about the study, however, is that it used data for 2016 and none at all for 2017, when there was that six per cent increase in tourism. Does last year's experience invalidate their findings? Up to a point perhaps it does, but they supply caveats in their conclusions. For example: "Tourism, as a social activity, is influenced by many factors, such as advertising, news and other issues that undoubtedly affect demand behaviour in many ways. Possible media coverage of the tax’s introduction in the countries of origin and how revenue from it is reinvested are examples of factors that are not considered in this study." A specific factor in 2017 was that tourist borrowing. It might be argued, therefore, that 2017's 'record season' was a blip.
The real test will be this year. Yet we have had the hoteliers also talking about another record season, seemingly therefore contradicting what was said in London (which was probably a form of headline-grabber for effect). To suggest that there will be another record season sounds counter-intuitive and also contrary to indications from Rosselló and Sansó's study. There again, perhaps the hoteliers are expecting a new form of borrowing in 2018 - from that section of the holiday rentals market that has been closed off.
We don't of course know what the loss will be (if any). Research can place an estimate, but theoretical models do not always reflect practice. If there were a loss of 120,000 tourists, this would hardly represent much of a crisis. But this was a figure that took into account the rates of the tourist tax as they were, not as they now are. All that's certain is that we will be paying a great deal more attention to those monthly tourist statistics than ever before. Assuming, that is, that we believe them.
The increase last year was against the background of the first full year of the tourist tax. Its implementation had no effect. Or if it did, the effect was mitigated by a continuing "borrowing" of holidaymakers from other destinations. This borrowing, so we understand, is over; the Balearics are returning tourists that had been out on loan. The 2018 tourism dynamic has an additional element to this returning: the tourist tax is to double between May and October.
Last November in London, we did of course learn from Mallorca's hoteliers that the tax rise will mean the loss of one million tourists. What did they base their figure on? They said that it was an extrapolation from what happened when the ecotax of 2002 was introduced. Ok, but then was it not logical to have expected a loss of tourists last year? The borrowing clouded the issue and the logic.
Basing an assessment on the effect of the 2002 tax was in any event misleading. There was a loss of half a million tourists in 2002: a 7.6% decline. The loss was predominantly due to the German market. It fell by 16%. The British market went down by just over one per cent. There were other factors that are conveniently ignored to explain the big drop in German tourism that year. In 2003, prior to the tax being scrapped, the losses were all but recouped.
Jaume Rosselló and Andreu Sansó are researchers at the University of the Balearic Islands department of applied economics. They have published an article entitled Taxing Tourism: The effects of an accommodation tax on tourism demand in the Balearic Islands. It has appeared in the journal Cuadernos Económicos. The latest edition is a special look at 'sustainable tourism', and some of it - including Rosselló and Sansó's research - is in English.
Highly academic, it is for most of us pretty impenetrable. It does, nevertheless, seek to provide an evaluation of the loss of tourism because of the tourist tax. Rosselló and Sansó refer to the 2002 ecotax but don't use it or its impact in their study. They stick to more recent evidence. The upshot of this research is that there is increased price elasticity, i.e. the effect of a price change on demand, and that a decrease of between 0.4% and 0.9% of total tourism demand can be anticipated. If the higher percentage were to be applied to last year's foreign tourism, this would represent the loss of more than 120,000 tourists.
The point about the study, however, is that it used data for 2016 and none at all for 2017, when there was that six per cent increase in tourism. Does last year's experience invalidate their findings? Up to a point perhaps it does, but they supply caveats in their conclusions. For example: "Tourism, as a social activity, is influenced by many factors, such as advertising, news and other issues that undoubtedly affect demand behaviour in many ways. Possible media coverage of the tax’s introduction in the countries of origin and how revenue from it is reinvested are examples of factors that are not considered in this study." A specific factor in 2017 was that tourist borrowing. It might be argued, therefore, that 2017's 'record season' was a blip.
The real test will be this year. Yet we have had the hoteliers also talking about another record season, seemingly therefore contradicting what was said in London (which was probably a form of headline-grabber for effect). To suggest that there will be another record season sounds counter-intuitive and also contrary to indications from Rosselló and Sansó's study. There again, perhaps the hoteliers are expecting a new form of borrowing in 2018 - from that section of the holiday rentals market that has been closed off.
We don't of course know what the loss will be (if any). Research can place an estimate, but theoretical models do not always reflect practice. If there were a loss of 120,000 tourists, this would hardly represent much of a crisis. But this was a figure that took into account the rates of the tourist tax as they were, not as they now are. All that's certain is that we will be paying a great deal more attention to those monthly tourist statistics than ever before. Assuming, that is, that we believe them.
Sunday, February 04, 2018
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 4 February 2018
Morning high (8.32am): 6.3C
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 5 February - Cloud, 16C; 6 February - Cloud, 15C; 7 February - Cloud, 13C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South 3 to 4.
Mix of cloud and blue sky early on. Could rain later. Looking ahead to later in the week, the snow line is due to drop to 400 metres.
Evening update (19.30): Wasn't too bad until latish afternoon and some rain and quite cold. High of 17C.
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 5 February - Cloud, 16C; 6 February - Cloud, 15C; 7 February - Cloud, 13C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South 3 to 4.
Mix of cloud and blue sky early on. Could rain later. Looking ahead to later in the week, the snow line is due to drop to 400 metres.
Evening update (19.30): Wasn't too bad until latish afternoon and some rain and quite cold. High of 17C.
The Catalan Thing
Well, it wasn't in truth the best of weeks for the Catalan thing. Francina and the Earth Mother Patricia, who is apparently still the health minister, decided that all this business with insisting on nurses imported from Andalusia being word perfect in Catalan might not just be wholly sensible. It wasn't good for Catalan, and it also wasn't good for Francina and the deconstructing pact. Més, as might have been expected, were hopping mad, though for appearance's sakes they weren't mounting the press conferences and firing off volleys of rebuke.
Francina, doubtless not wishing to appear to have taken over the education ministry despite having done so, despatched Pilar, the minister in charge of Francina's ministry, i.e. the presidency, to have a word with the press. We are working on getting the broadest social and political consensus, she waffled, noting that there wasn't enough of the C-word. The unions were not for consenting.
Not reticent like Més were the Obra Cultural Balear. Unaware that there was not consensus within society, as Pilar had attempted to explain, the OCB announced that "any measure" will be taken to ensure that the bedside manner is pursued with nary a syllable of Castellano being uttered. Any measure, they suggested, will include the mobilisation of civil society, that part of it which presumably does consent.
Meanwhile, Biel Company, the nominal leader of the PP, opined that Francina was more Catalanist than the Catalans because of her health service Catalan imposition. Which was rather odd, given that Francina had just withdrawn the imposition. Still, Biel observed that Francina had taken fright in having done so, as there would otherwise be demonstrations she couldn't afford, and he wasn't referring to the OCB.
Attempting to keep the Catalan thing afloat was the education minister. Marti March, for whom one newspaper headline suggested that education policy was being designed for his own personal glory, had come up with yet another new plan for education (these new plans surface every three to four years). Marti's plan, it would appear, will relegate English and foreign language teaching into virtual non-existence if schools choose to do so. Meanwhile, Catalan will be given pre-eminence. So basically, Marti was going back to the future circa 2008, and was thus paving the way for a new government to reverse his plan.
Educationalists, some of them, were as outraged about this as the OCB were with Catalan being given the health heave-ho. One teachers association, PLIS, which has the motto "educación, por favor", demanded that the government stops plissing all over education and does something sensible for once. Which of course it won't.
Striding confidently into all this Catalan carry-on came the leader of Ciudadanos, Xavier Pericay. Buoyed by the fact that his party could see its parliamentary representation leap to the princely sum of seven seats as opposed to the currently modest two, Xavier has been carrying a torch for what his political critics (i.e. Més) refer to as the "new Bauzaism". In other words, if Xavier and the C's end up in a coalition with the PP, there will be a revival of J.R.'s anti-Catalanism in schools. Therefore, there will be a new educational plan. And so it will go on and on and on.
Marti, meanwhile, had disappeared so far up a tortuous explanation littered with levels of language ability and pedagogical whatever, that he totally failed to remember to mention the C-word. Will there be the broadest social and political consensus for what may end up being almost exclusively Catalan teaching? He didn't let on. This despite the fact that he had been hauled up in front of the press alongside Pilar. Broadest consensus (or something of a charade to demonstrate it) for one thing, but not for another: it all rather depends on what the government is seeking consensus for.
Francina, doubtless not wishing to appear to have taken over the education ministry despite having done so, despatched Pilar, the minister in charge of Francina's ministry, i.e. the presidency, to have a word with the press. We are working on getting the broadest social and political consensus, she waffled, noting that there wasn't enough of the C-word. The unions were not for consenting.
Not reticent like Més were the Obra Cultural Balear. Unaware that there was not consensus within society, as Pilar had attempted to explain, the OCB announced that "any measure" will be taken to ensure that the bedside manner is pursued with nary a syllable of Castellano being uttered. Any measure, they suggested, will include the mobilisation of civil society, that part of it which presumably does consent.
Meanwhile, Biel Company, the nominal leader of the PP, opined that Francina was more Catalanist than the Catalans because of her health service Catalan imposition. Which was rather odd, given that Francina had just withdrawn the imposition. Still, Biel observed that Francina had taken fright in having done so, as there would otherwise be demonstrations she couldn't afford, and he wasn't referring to the OCB.
Attempting to keep the Catalan thing afloat was the education minister. Marti March, for whom one newspaper headline suggested that education policy was being designed for his own personal glory, had come up with yet another new plan for education (these new plans surface every three to four years). Marti's plan, it would appear, will relegate English and foreign language teaching into virtual non-existence if schools choose to do so. Meanwhile, Catalan will be given pre-eminence. So basically, Marti was going back to the future circa 2008, and was thus paving the way for a new government to reverse his plan.
Educationalists, some of them, were as outraged about this as the OCB were with Catalan being given the health heave-ho. One teachers association, PLIS, which has the motto "educación, por favor", demanded that the government stops plissing all over education and does something sensible for once. Which of course it won't.
Striding confidently into all this Catalan carry-on came the leader of Ciudadanos, Xavier Pericay. Buoyed by the fact that his party could see its parliamentary representation leap to the princely sum of seven seats as opposed to the currently modest two, Xavier has been carrying a torch for what his political critics (i.e. Més) refer to as the "new Bauzaism". In other words, if Xavier and the C's end up in a coalition with the PP, there will be a revival of J.R.'s anti-Catalanism in schools. Therefore, there will be a new educational plan. And so it will go on and on and on.
Marti, meanwhile, had disappeared so far up a tortuous explanation littered with levels of language ability and pedagogical whatever, that he totally failed to remember to mention the C-word. Will there be the broadest social and political consensus for what may end up being almost exclusively Catalan teaching? He didn't let on. This despite the fact that he had been hauled up in front of the press alongside Pilar. Broadest consensus (or something of a charade to demonstrate it) for one thing, but not for another: it all rather depends on what the government is seeking consensus for.
Saturday, February 03, 2018
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 3 February 2018
Morning high (7.40am): 8.7C
Forecast high: 14C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 4 February - Cloud, 17C; 5 February - Cloud, 17C; 6 February - Cloud, 14C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): West-Northwest 3 to 4.
Sunny day expected, if not that warm. Outlook from Sunday well into next week is for cloudy stuff and showers.
Evening update (20.00): Nice, but only a high of 13.9C.
Forecast high: 14C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 4 February - Cloud, 17C; 5 February - Cloud, 17C; 6 February - Cloud, 14C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): West-Northwest 3 to 4.
Sunny day expected, if not that warm. Outlook from Sunday well into next week is for cloudy stuff and showers.
Evening update (20.00): Nice, but only a high of 13.9C.
Holiday Rentals And Political Tightropes
Mayors and others trooped off for the meeting with the Council of Mallorca on Wednesday to hear more about the holiday rentals zoning and to make their points. The zoning has become a major issue (something of an understatement), and the Council seems to be doing a little backtracking. Criteria for defining "saturation", and so therefore limiting rentals to sixty days per annum in an owner's main place of residence (i.e. where that owner is registered as living by the town hall), may be modified. There may also be some amendment to the total prohibition of rentals on protected rustic land, something which locally affects outlying areas of municipalities.
The potential backtracking, one suspects, will be only slight. When the Council's PIAT plan for intervention in tourist areas finally sees the light of day - it has acquired almost mythical status - it could be that there is greater restriction. One doubts that there will be less. As previously noted, the same consultancy company which worked on the zoning is coming up with the PIAT. It would be most surprising if the zoning and the PIAT are not very similar.
The Council may, nevertheless, have recognised that the approval of the zoning was only by one vote and also have recognised that certain town halls have expressed strong opposition. There remains, however, a large slice of politics to all this: right versus left. It was, therefore, slightly surprising to hear Pollensa's mayor, Miquel Àngel March, declare on Thursday that Pollensa (the town) is not saturated. He had previously intimated that he was satisfied with this classification. But March, for all his back story as a one-time spokesperson for environmentalists GOB, is doing a reasonable job in being what a mayor should be - a representative for everyone, and so not just of specific ideologies.
March was speaking at another meeting - one at the Club Pollença organised by the Pollensa residents association and led by the holiday rentals association Aptur. He said that, based on objective data, Pollensa is not saturated. These data include water consumption. He also pointed out that 90% of properties currently for holiday rental are legal. These aren't affected by the zoning or indeed by the rentals legislation. They carry on as before.
The mayor added that the town hall will be making its submissions to the Council of Mallorca. One guesses that these will be requests to remove the saturation classification from the town and also La Font and El Vilà. If so, this isn't going to play well in some quarters, not least the Alternativa per Pollença. March is walking a delicate political tightrope. Members of his ruling administration are likely to feel the same as the Alternativa; a couple are from Més, after all, even if the mayor isn't.
March will also have taken note of what the president of Aptur said about elections. The association is making holiday rentals a key election issue. He called on the one hundred or so people attending the meeting to join Aptur, adding that the election results can be influenced.
Hovering in the background, therefore, are ex-mayor Tomeu Cifre's Tots per Pollença. Cifre, it needs reminding, attempted back in 2012 to get the Partido Popular government of José Ramón Bauzá to give Pollensa some special treatment in the tourism law of that year. Cifre understood, as many others did and do, that Pollensa is heavily dependent on rentals. He wanted some adjustment to regulations which might have facilitated more legal renting. He failed, and this was just one reason that he ended up on a collision course with Bauzá that culminated in his leaving the PP and forming Tots.
The reaction of Tots to the Club Pollença meeting was instructive in as much as the party drew attention to March's apparent U-turn in attitude towards saturation. Cifre's group also criticised the town hall administration for not having set up a committee to consider the whole issue of rentals before the Council came out with its zoning plans. Quite what this committee would have achieved is anyone's guess, but Tots are blaming March and the administration for having adopted a "passive attitude".
Tots, in addition to eliminating the saturation classifications, want an increase in the number of rental places available in Puerto Pollensa (and Cala San Vicente). There may of course be an increase, but it is still unclear - regardless of the zoning that enables 365-day-a-year rental in the resorts - what the number will be. The party points that there are, after all, only 30,000 places for the whole island, a number it considers to be "absolutely inadequate". Whatever allocation Puerto Pollensa might end up with, Tots also refer to the fact that these new licences will be subject to renewal after five years. The party suggests that renewals will not necessarily happen, and so therefore there will be "continuous degrowth" of rentals places.
In Alcudia there hasn't been anything like the same amount of noise as that which has emanated from Pollensa. Mayor Toni Mir has said he's not happy with the saturation classification for the town, but he - like March - has his own tightrope to walk. It was perhaps significant that at the Council of Mallorca meeting he was accompanied by Domingo Bonnin, who is from the same party - El Pi, which favours more liberal regulation. Bonnin is the councillor for services. Absent, therefore, were either the deputy mayor, Pere Malondra, or the councillor for tourism and institutional affairs, Joan Vallori. Both of them are from PSOE, and in the case of Vallori, the rentals issue in terms of tourism and dealing with an institution - the Council of Mallorca - would seem to be squarely in his portfolio.
For now, a firm lid is being placed on any discussion in Alcudia.
The potential backtracking, one suspects, will be only slight. When the Council's PIAT plan for intervention in tourist areas finally sees the light of day - it has acquired almost mythical status - it could be that there is greater restriction. One doubts that there will be less. As previously noted, the same consultancy company which worked on the zoning is coming up with the PIAT. It would be most surprising if the zoning and the PIAT are not very similar.
The Council may, nevertheless, have recognised that the approval of the zoning was only by one vote and also have recognised that certain town halls have expressed strong opposition. There remains, however, a large slice of politics to all this: right versus left. It was, therefore, slightly surprising to hear Pollensa's mayor, Miquel Àngel March, declare on Thursday that Pollensa (the town) is not saturated. He had previously intimated that he was satisfied with this classification. But March, for all his back story as a one-time spokesperson for environmentalists GOB, is doing a reasonable job in being what a mayor should be - a representative for everyone, and so not just of specific ideologies.
March was speaking at another meeting - one at the Club Pollença organised by the Pollensa residents association and led by the holiday rentals association Aptur. He said that, based on objective data, Pollensa is not saturated. These data include water consumption. He also pointed out that 90% of properties currently for holiday rental are legal. These aren't affected by the zoning or indeed by the rentals legislation. They carry on as before.
The mayor added that the town hall will be making its submissions to the Council of Mallorca. One guesses that these will be requests to remove the saturation classification from the town and also La Font and El Vilà. If so, this isn't going to play well in some quarters, not least the Alternativa per Pollença. March is walking a delicate political tightrope. Members of his ruling administration are likely to feel the same as the Alternativa; a couple are from Més, after all, even if the mayor isn't.
March will also have taken note of what the president of Aptur said about elections. The association is making holiday rentals a key election issue. He called on the one hundred or so people attending the meeting to join Aptur, adding that the election results can be influenced.
Hovering in the background, therefore, are ex-mayor Tomeu Cifre's Tots per Pollença. Cifre, it needs reminding, attempted back in 2012 to get the Partido Popular government of José Ramón Bauzá to give Pollensa some special treatment in the tourism law of that year. Cifre understood, as many others did and do, that Pollensa is heavily dependent on rentals. He wanted some adjustment to regulations which might have facilitated more legal renting. He failed, and this was just one reason that he ended up on a collision course with Bauzá that culminated in his leaving the PP and forming Tots.
The reaction of Tots to the Club Pollença meeting was instructive in as much as the party drew attention to March's apparent U-turn in attitude towards saturation. Cifre's group also criticised the town hall administration for not having set up a committee to consider the whole issue of rentals before the Council came out with its zoning plans. Quite what this committee would have achieved is anyone's guess, but Tots are blaming March and the administration for having adopted a "passive attitude".
Tots, in addition to eliminating the saturation classifications, want an increase in the number of rental places available in Puerto Pollensa (and Cala San Vicente). There may of course be an increase, but it is still unclear - regardless of the zoning that enables 365-day-a-year rental in the resorts - what the number will be. The party points that there are, after all, only 30,000 places for the whole island, a number it considers to be "absolutely inadequate". Whatever allocation Puerto Pollensa might end up with, Tots also refer to the fact that these new licences will be subject to renewal after five years. The party suggests that renewals will not necessarily happen, and so therefore there will be "continuous degrowth" of rentals places.
In Alcudia there hasn't been anything like the same amount of noise as that which has emanated from Pollensa. Mayor Toni Mir has said he's not happy with the saturation classification for the town, but he - like March - has his own tightrope to walk. It was perhaps significant that at the Council of Mallorca meeting he was accompanied by Domingo Bonnin, who is from the same party - El Pi, which favours more liberal regulation. Bonnin is the councillor for services. Absent, therefore, were either the deputy mayor, Pere Malondra, or the councillor for tourism and institutional affairs, Joan Vallori. Both of them are from PSOE, and in the case of Vallori, the rentals issue in terms of tourism and dealing with an institution - the Council of Mallorca - would seem to be squarely in his portfolio.
For now, a firm lid is being placed on any discussion in Alcudia.
Friday, February 02, 2018
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 2 February 2018
Morning high (7.30am): 8.6C
Forecast high: 14C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 3 February - Cloud, sun, 15C; 4 February - Cloud, sun, 17C; 5 February - Rain, 17C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North 7.
Fairly wild out there. A yellow alert for coastal conditions, wind easing by the later afternoon. Rain possible at any time.
Evening update (22.00): That wasn't much good. High of 10.5C.
Forecast high: 14C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 3 February - Cloud, sun, 15C; 4 February - Cloud, sun, 17C; 5 February - Rain, 17C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North 7.
Fairly wild out there. A yellow alert for coastal conditions, wind easing by the later afternoon. Rain possible at any time.
Evening update (22.00): That wasn't much good. High of 10.5C.
A For Fake
When Orson Welles made F for Fake, he came to the Balearics. The film focused on Elmyr de Hory and his art forgery. The writer Clifford Irving also featured. He had published a biography of De Hory as well as a fabricated biography of Howard Hughes.
Welles went to Ibiza. He was to later say that he had gone in search of a forger and found himself surrounded by them. This was in the 1970s. It might not be that different now. And nor might Mallorca have been different either then or now. Welles knew Mallorca. He was one of those who went to Robert Graves' place in Deia. Or did he? There are doubts as to whether the two ever met.
If Welles were alive today, he would be intrigued by contemporary fakery. His career had been bookended by fakery. F for Fake was the last film he actually completed. The radio adaptation of War of the Worlds wasn't his first success but it was what brought him major fame. The news reporting style of the 1938 production seemed so authentic that it caused a major panic. Welles was famous for a form of fake news.
Everything about F for Fake, he was to also say, was a trick, even down to his role as an unreliable narrator. It is possible to interpret the film in various ways. One is that it was Welles questioning the point at which the authentic ceases to be authentic. When that stage is reached, everything that follows is fake or can be suspected of being fake.
There is a square in Palma named after Welles. It is, somewhat inauspiciously, in the Son Gotleu neighbourhood. Welles certainly stayed in Palma, but his association with the city and the island is not strong. Why a square in his name? Maybe it was more a case of his association with Spain rather than Mallorca specifically. But as there is a square, there is also a chance that at some point it might form part of some cultural route. (They like routes in Palma and Mallorca.) Enjoy Palma's cinematic heritage; something like that.
The route wouldn't, however, be authentic. That's because of Welles being represented by name rather than a deed relevant to the city. Authenticity in tourism has become an issue in its own right. Researchers Jane Lovell and Chris Bull write: "With the rise of post-truth and fake news, a thorough examination of authenticity has never been so relevant." Their book, Authentic and Inauthentic Places in Tourism (subtitle From Heritage Sites to Theme Parks), sets out to provide such an examination.
An academic work, it nevertheless raises important issues in terms of what is real and what is fake. "Real-real authenticity" comes, for example, from somewhere or something being genuinely recognised for its heritage. It requires no "staging". The opposite is "fake-fake": inauthentic, too "staged". In other words, the heritage is made up. Welles as part of a hypothetical cinema heritage would certainly not be "real-real". It would be highly staged.
Authenticity, craved by certain tourists in search of real experience, can be difficult to discern because of all the "fake news" flying around which claims that there is authenticity when there isn't. In this context, the authors also consider the virtually real, that of social media, and how this feeds into perceptions of authenticity (or not). People will take to the likes of TripAdvisor or their blogs and give chapter and verse about authenticity without necessarily having the remotest idea what they are talking about.
And it isn't only social media. The established media can play the game just as well (or just as badly). There was, I well recall, Louise Redknapp, who once informed her readers about the authentic nature of Puerto Portals. Authentic of what?
Mallorca is in fact blessed with a great deal of authenticity, much of it restored, revived and revered. The Tramuntana Mountains are genuinely authentic. They are "real-real" with no need for there to be any "staging". It is the mountains' cultural heritage which is authentic; hence the attempts to ensure that it is not altered, such as by having holiday rentals over the protected areas. Then there are some of the fiesta events. There may be an element of the "staged" with them, but that's because much has been revived. They aren't exactly as they were, but they are as near as damn it.
There is plenty which is inauthentic as well. No resort, for instance, can be deemed authentic. It is an impossibility, yet this doesn't prevent social media commentators (and others) insisting that certain ones are, often because they supposedly have a "genuine Mallorcan feel". Meaning what precisely?
This is the authentic as fake - A for fake. If Welles were still with us, he would no doubt find appealing his fake cultural heritage. It was all a trick, after all.
Welles went to Ibiza. He was to later say that he had gone in search of a forger and found himself surrounded by them. This was in the 1970s. It might not be that different now. And nor might Mallorca have been different either then or now. Welles knew Mallorca. He was one of those who went to Robert Graves' place in Deia. Or did he? There are doubts as to whether the two ever met.
If Welles were alive today, he would be intrigued by contemporary fakery. His career had been bookended by fakery. F for Fake was the last film he actually completed. The radio adaptation of War of the Worlds wasn't his first success but it was what brought him major fame. The news reporting style of the 1938 production seemed so authentic that it caused a major panic. Welles was famous for a form of fake news.
Everything about F for Fake, he was to also say, was a trick, even down to his role as an unreliable narrator. It is possible to interpret the film in various ways. One is that it was Welles questioning the point at which the authentic ceases to be authentic. When that stage is reached, everything that follows is fake or can be suspected of being fake.
There is a square in Palma named after Welles. It is, somewhat inauspiciously, in the Son Gotleu neighbourhood. Welles certainly stayed in Palma, but his association with the city and the island is not strong. Why a square in his name? Maybe it was more a case of his association with Spain rather than Mallorca specifically. But as there is a square, there is also a chance that at some point it might form part of some cultural route. (They like routes in Palma and Mallorca.) Enjoy Palma's cinematic heritage; something like that.
The route wouldn't, however, be authentic. That's because of Welles being represented by name rather than a deed relevant to the city. Authenticity in tourism has become an issue in its own right. Researchers Jane Lovell and Chris Bull write: "With the rise of post-truth and fake news, a thorough examination of authenticity has never been so relevant." Their book, Authentic and Inauthentic Places in Tourism (subtitle From Heritage Sites to Theme Parks), sets out to provide such an examination.
An academic work, it nevertheless raises important issues in terms of what is real and what is fake. "Real-real authenticity" comes, for example, from somewhere or something being genuinely recognised for its heritage. It requires no "staging". The opposite is "fake-fake": inauthentic, too "staged". In other words, the heritage is made up. Welles as part of a hypothetical cinema heritage would certainly not be "real-real". It would be highly staged.
Authenticity, craved by certain tourists in search of real experience, can be difficult to discern because of all the "fake news" flying around which claims that there is authenticity when there isn't. In this context, the authors also consider the virtually real, that of social media, and how this feeds into perceptions of authenticity (or not). People will take to the likes of TripAdvisor or their blogs and give chapter and verse about authenticity without necessarily having the remotest idea what they are talking about.
And it isn't only social media. The established media can play the game just as well (or just as badly). There was, I well recall, Louise Redknapp, who once informed her readers about the authentic nature of Puerto Portals. Authentic of what?
Mallorca is in fact blessed with a great deal of authenticity, much of it restored, revived and revered. The Tramuntana Mountains are genuinely authentic. They are "real-real" with no need for there to be any "staging". It is the mountains' cultural heritage which is authentic; hence the attempts to ensure that it is not altered, such as by having holiday rentals over the protected areas. Then there are some of the fiesta events. There may be an element of the "staged" with them, but that's because much has been revived. They aren't exactly as they were, but they are as near as damn it.
There is plenty which is inauthentic as well. No resort, for instance, can be deemed authentic. It is an impossibility, yet this doesn't prevent social media commentators (and others) insisting that certain ones are, often because they supposedly have a "genuine Mallorcan feel". Meaning what precisely?
This is the authentic as fake - A for fake. If Welles were still with us, he would no doubt find appealing his fake cultural heritage. It was all a trick, after all.
Thursday, February 01, 2018
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 1 February 2018
Morning high (7.40am): 6C
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 2 February - Rain, wind, 14C; 3 February - Cloud, sun, 15C; 4 February - Cloud, 15C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South 3 to 4 veering Northeast during the afternoon.
Starting out reasonably but going downhill later. Rain expected this afternoon and evening. Wind picking up as well.
Evening update (20.30): High of 15.7C. It did go downhill. Some rain, a huge clap of thunder and the thermometer dived.
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 2 February - Rain, wind, 14C; 3 February - Cloud, sun, 15C; 4 February - Cloud, 15C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South 3 to 4 veering Northeast during the afternoon.
Starting out reasonably but going downhill later. Rain expected this afternoon and evening. Wind picking up as well.
Evening update (20.30): High of 15.7C. It did go downhill. Some rain, a huge clap of thunder and the thermometer dived.
Your Own Personal Sunbed
"Vorsprung durch Technik, as they say in Germany." Geoffrey Palmer's droll delivery told the story of the Schmitz, the Reinhards and the Müllers, who were driving to Spain on holiday. The moral of the story, or rather the punchline, was: "If you want to get on the beach before the Germans, you'd better buy an Audi 100."
Those were the days, eh: back in the 1980s when John Hegarty's agency BBH came up with the Audi ads. People used to go to the beach then. And they certainly took the trouble to get prime beach spots. I witnessed them in those distant days of actually having holidays. Six in the morning (I might have been coming in), and there they were, trooping off to the water's edge with their sun loungers. They may have been Germans. Sunbedsraum is not, however, and never has been a solely German form of holiday annexation. Still, it's all made for a good stereotype, and it made for a great advert.
People do still go to the beach, but it can seem a dreadfully passé thing to do when the hotel palace is awash with pools of various kinds and different attractions. Why bother heading out to sea for one of those offshore waterpark things, when there is an in-hotel version. Slides galore. Splash and more splash. It's small wonder that there is such a feverishly high demand and premium placed on the sun lounger, especially if this is a sun lounger that requires occupation by someone with an all-inclusive wristband. How awful. You've forked out for everything, only to discover that there is no sun lounger space. It's enough to make anyone lodge a claim for compensation: holiday totally ruined by Germans (or others) commandeering the sun loungers before dawn.
Of course, or so I'm led to believe, there are some rules on this at certain hotels. Or there is the official opening time for the great stampede. It's a few years ago now that someone posted a video that showed the great stampede in its frightening frenzy and, more importantly, how to avoid it. Chummy was staying at the Lagotel in Playa de Muro. He'd discovered a way into the pool area from the perimeter road. If you want to get a sun lounger by the pool before the Germans (or any other nationality), you'd better find a gap in the fence.
I'm not one of the I don't like hotels so therefore I want Airbnb brigade. I quite like hotels. But there are limits. Such as the pool. It has not been my fate to actually stay in a local all-inclusive, but work has demanded observation. Hell, sheer hell. Why anyone wishes to shoehorn him or herself (plus wristband) into a confined space next to others smelling of sweat and coconut is beyond me. Worse still is the mere act of entering the water. More sweat and coconut plus urine and God knows what else. Give me the beach and sea any day. I'm willing to chance my luck with the jellyfish. Unfortunately of course, the beach hasn't become so passé that it isn't subject to the similar need for shoehorning. That'll be saturation for you.
Holidays, some of them, are, when you think about it, distinctly odd. Social beings we humans may be, but we spend most of our existences craving and pursuing privacy and peace and quiet. What happens on holiday? Precisely the opposite. A sharing experience with a mass of humanity, some of it cavorting in the water while the pool aerobics instructor bellows orders and the PA blasts out The Merrymen and their Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot 1988 masterwork. Why?
Well, the answer to why is that an awful lot of people appear to enjoy this. But their enjoyment can be ruined because of the sun lounger shortage or pre-dawn raid. So, what have those nice people at Thomas Cook come up with? The sun lounger (aka sunbed) reservation system. Why had no one thought of this before? What a brilliant way to add a few more pounds or euros to the bottom line. For a mere 25 euros a week, you can "choose you favourite sunbed". Three hotels in the Canaries are to form part of a pilot project. If it works, then Thomas Cook will roll out the scheme to thirty hotels this summer.
Thomas Cook insist that this is all to do with the traditional holiday package being a thing of the past. "Tourists want customised products that better define their needs and lifestyles," says Thomas Cook's Chris Mottershead. Nonsense, they want to make sure they get a sunbed. It's part of the traditional holiday package.
So there you are. For a price similar to the tourist tax for seven nights in a four star, you can get a sunbed with your name on it. Holidays. Don't you just love 'em.
Those were the days, eh: back in the 1980s when John Hegarty's agency BBH came up with the Audi ads. People used to go to the beach then. And they certainly took the trouble to get prime beach spots. I witnessed them in those distant days of actually having holidays. Six in the morning (I might have been coming in), and there they were, trooping off to the water's edge with their sun loungers. They may have been Germans. Sunbedsraum is not, however, and never has been a solely German form of holiday annexation. Still, it's all made for a good stereotype, and it made for a great advert.
People do still go to the beach, but it can seem a dreadfully passé thing to do when the hotel palace is awash with pools of various kinds and different attractions. Why bother heading out to sea for one of those offshore waterpark things, when there is an in-hotel version. Slides galore. Splash and more splash. It's small wonder that there is such a feverishly high demand and premium placed on the sun lounger, especially if this is a sun lounger that requires occupation by someone with an all-inclusive wristband. How awful. You've forked out for everything, only to discover that there is no sun lounger space. It's enough to make anyone lodge a claim for compensation: holiday totally ruined by Germans (or others) commandeering the sun loungers before dawn.
Of course, or so I'm led to believe, there are some rules on this at certain hotels. Or there is the official opening time for the great stampede. It's a few years ago now that someone posted a video that showed the great stampede in its frightening frenzy and, more importantly, how to avoid it. Chummy was staying at the Lagotel in Playa de Muro. He'd discovered a way into the pool area from the perimeter road. If you want to get a sun lounger by the pool before the Germans (or any other nationality), you'd better find a gap in the fence.
I'm not one of the I don't like hotels so therefore I want Airbnb brigade. I quite like hotels. But there are limits. Such as the pool. It has not been my fate to actually stay in a local all-inclusive, but work has demanded observation. Hell, sheer hell. Why anyone wishes to shoehorn him or herself (plus wristband) into a confined space next to others smelling of sweat and coconut is beyond me. Worse still is the mere act of entering the water. More sweat and coconut plus urine and God knows what else. Give me the beach and sea any day. I'm willing to chance my luck with the jellyfish. Unfortunately of course, the beach hasn't become so passé that it isn't subject to the similar need for shoehorning. That'll be saturation for you.
Holidays, some of them, are, when you think about it, distinctly odd. Social beings we humans may be, but we spend most of our existences craving and pursuing privacy and peace and quiet. What happens on holiday? Precisely the opposite. A sharing experience with a mass of humanity, some of it cavorting in the water while the pool aerobics instructor bellows orders and the PA blasts out The Merrymen and their Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot 1988 masterwork. Why?
Well, the answer to why is that an awful lot of people appear to enjoy this. But their enjoyment can be ruined because of the sun lounger shortage or pre-dawn raid. So, what have those nice people at Thomas Cook come up with? The sun lounger (aka sunbed) reservation system. Why had no one thought of this before? What a brilliant way to add a few more pounds or euros to the bottom line. For a mere 25 euros a week, you can "choose you favourite sunbed". Three hotels in the Canaries are to form part of a pilot project. If it works, then Thomas Cook will roll out the scheme to thirty hotels this summer.
Thomas Cook insist that this is all to do with the traditional holiday package being a thing of the past. "Tourists want customised products that better define their needs and lifestyles," says Thomas Cook's Chris Mottershead. Nonsense, they want to make sure they get a sunbed. It's part of the traditional holiday package.
So there you are. For a price similar to the tourist tax for seven nights in a four star, you can get a sunbed with your name on it. Holidays. Don't you just love 'em.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 31 January 2018
Morning high (6.24am): 4.5C
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 1 February - Cloud, rain, 16C; 2 February - Rain, wind, 13C; 3 February - Cloud, sun, 15C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South 1 to 3.
Make the most of today. Tomorrow is due to get increasingly windy, with showers likely, and continuing into Friday.
Evening update (20.15): High of 20.1C.
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 1 February - Cloud, rain, 16C; 2 February - Rain, wind, 13C; 3 February - Cloud, sun, 15C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): South 1 to 3.
Make the most of today. Tomorrow is due to get increasingly windy, with showers likely, and continuing into Friday.
Evening update (20.15): High of 20.1C.
A Failure To Connect
It is staggering in a way that an opinion poll sixteen months before an election takes place can have created as much reaction as it has. It is less staggering when one appreciates that the similarities of the poll with one several months before. If the polls don't lie, then there is a clear pattern, and Balearic political parties know what it is. They are all potential winners and all potential losers. Everything is up for grabs.
The reactions from the left have been predictable enough. They have focused on the weakness of the Partido Popular and their need to break bread with Ciudadanos. It is, however, a sign of one's own weakness that one should divert the attention to the weaknesses of others. At least David Abril of Més was prepared to admit that the potential loss of three seats is a concern, even if he appeared to believe that there will be a different outcome in May 2019. He may not really be as bothered as he once was; he's said that he will be leaving politics after the next party congress.
Two others who had their say were Jaume Font of El Pi and Laura Camargo of Podemos. They represented a very clear difference, not just because of their politics but also because of how they come across. Camargo, and she is not alone in Podemos ranks, can appear aloof, as if she is talking down while at the same time hectoring. Podemos are littered with her sort, those who approach their task with an academic disassociation. In other words, people don't warm to them. (I'll make an exception with Pablo Iglesias. He can be charming, funny and likable.)
For a party which is supposedly meant to be the saviour of the common man and woman, Podemos can convey precisely the opposite impression. Camargo, when she was not describing a potential PP and C's alliance as a "disgrace", referred to restoring confidence of society in a "progressive majority" and to "reaching agreements on the roadmap for transformation and opening consultations in the citizens' assemblies". The words were understandable, but what was she really saying? That's part of the problem with Podemos. They speak Podemos-speak, and those doing the speaking can give the impression of being ever so slightly objectionable and supercilious. Alberto Jarabo is another.
Is a failure to connect with people as much a reason why Podemos have gone backwards (three fewer seats, according to the poll) as anything to do with the party's policies and occasional brinkmanship? Possibly. In Mallorca (and it should of course be the same anywhere) there is a need for politicians to connect with different constituencies. With Podemos, one can feel that they appeal to an elite rather than to the ordinary man or woman in the street, especially if this man or woman happens to be out in the sticks of the "part forana".
Here is where one can observe the great contrast between a Camargo and a Jaume Font. He is a veteran Mallorcan politician, a one-time mayor of Sa Pobla. It doesn't get any more solidly Mallorcan than a native of Sa Pobla. It isn't altogether surprising that Font should have a better approval rating than anyone else, including President Armengol who, for all her faults with talking in consensus and dialogue riddles, is not unlikable. Font is a man for the occasional quip. He is only really matched in this regard by Miquel Ensenyat, the Més president of the Council of Mallorca (another likable person). But he is also capable of making very cutting observations. He has done so with the holiday rentals zoning. Decisions for this should not be made from Palma.
This remark was not a throwaway. One could understand exactly where Font was coming from. As a former minister (when he was with the PP under Matas), he has been part of the Palma elite, but he remains the product of the part forana, an advocate for the ordinary Mallorcan. He knows how to connect, and he can do so in a manner that is genuine when compared with, say, a Podemos artificiality. Moreover, he needs no lessons from the left about the Catalan thing. He's a member of the Obra Cultural Balear.
The apparent impasse that the poll indicates is crying out for a leader who can really make a connection. The PP don't have one in Biel Company; Armengol is Armengol; Podemos have Mae de la Concha lurking in the background, about whom no one knows anything; Xavier Pericay of the C's is stuffy and professorial; Font can do it, but El Pi won't; Més seem to have no idea where they're going - how much they'd love Ensenyat to say yes, but he wants to stay at the Council of Mallorca. The connection cupboard is hardly full.
The reactions from the left have been predictable enough. They have focused on the weakness of the Partido Popular and their need to break bread with Ciudadanos. It is, however, a sign of one's own weakness that one should divert the attention to the weaknesses of others. At least David Abril of Més was prepared to admit that the potential loss of three seats is a concern, even if he appeared to believe that there will be a different outcome in May 2019. He may not really be as bothered as he once was; he's said that he will be leaving politics after the next party congress.
Two others who had their say were Jaume Font of El Pi and Laura Camargo of Podemos. They represented a very clear difference, not just because of their politics but also because of how they come across. Camargo, and she is not alone in Podemos ranks, can appear aloof, as if she is talking down while at the same time hectoring. Podemos are littered with her sort, those who approach their task with an academic disassociation. In other words, people don't warm to them. (I'll make an exception with Pablo Iglesias. He can be charming, funny and likable.)
For a party which is supposedly meant to be the saviour of the common man and woman, Podemos can convey precisely the opposite impression. Camargo, when she was not describing a potential PP and C's alliance as a "disgrace", referred to restoring confidence of society in a "progressive majority" and to "reaching agreements on the roadmap for transformation and opening consultations in the citizens' assemblies". The words were understandable, but what was she really saying? That's part of the problem with Podemos. They speak Podemos-speak, and those doing the speaking can give the impression of being ever so slightly objectionable and supercilious. Alberto Jarabo is another.
Is a failure to connect with people as much a reason why Podemos have gone backwards (three fewer seats, according to the poll) as anything to do with the party's policies and occasional brinkmanship? Possibly. In Mallorca (and it should of course be the same anywhere) there is a need for politicians to connect with different constituencies. With Podemos, one can feel that they appeal to an elite rather than to the ordinary man or woman in the street, especially if this man or woman happens to be out in the sticks of the "part forana".
Here is where one can observe the great contrast between a Camargo and a Jaume Font. He is a veteran Mallorcan politician, a one-time mayor of Sa Pobla. It doesn't get any more solidly Mallorcan than a native of Sa Pobla. It isn't altogether surprising that Font should have a better approval rating than anyone else, including President Armengol who, for all her faults with talking in consensus and dialogue riddles, is not unlikable. Font is a man for the occasional quip. He is only really matched in this regard by Miquel Ensenyat, the Més president of the Council of Mallorca (another likable person). But he is also capable of making very cutting observations. He has done so with the holiday rentals zoning. Decisions for this should not be made from Palma.
This remark was not a throwaway. One could understand exactly where Font was coming from. As a former minister (when he was with the PP under Matas), he has been part of the Palma elite, but he remains the product of the part forana, an advocate for the ordinary Mallorcan. He knows how to connect, and he can do so in a manner that is genuine when compared with, say, a Podemos artificiality. Moreover, he needs no lessons from the left about the Catalan thing. He's a member of the Obra Cultural Balear.
The apparent impasse that the poll indicates is crying out for a leader who can really make a connection. The PP don't have one in Biel Company; Armengol is Armengol; Podemos have Mae de la Concha lurking in the background, about whom no one knows anything; Xavier Pericay of the C's is stuffy and professorial; Font can do it, but El Pi won't; Més seem to have no idea where they're going - how much they'd love Ensenyat to say yes, but he wants to stay at the Council of Mallorca. The connection cupboard is hardly full.
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 30 January 2018
Morning high (8.03am): 4.6C
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 31 January - Sun, cloud, 17C; 1 February - Rain, 17C; 2 February - Rain, 13C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southeast 2 to 3 occasionally Southwest.
Cold start. Fine and sunny later. Looking ahead ... Thursday and Friday don't seem too clever.
Evening update (21.15): Good. High of 19.1C.
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 31 January - Sun, cloud, 17C; 1 February - Rain, 17C; 2 February - Rain, 13C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Southeast 2 to 3 occasionally Southwest.
Cold start. Fine and sunny later. Looking ahead ... Thursday and Friday don't seem too clever.
Evening update (21.15): Good. High of 19.1C.
The Keys To A Municipal Shield
But why a griffin? Simple. Sa Pobla is the centre of Mallorca's demons. In the Middle Ages the griffin was a representation of the devil. The cult of Sant Antoni, demons and all, was imported to Mallorca in the Middle Ages. Sa Pobla was the focal point for the saint. Hence, the griffin. This explains Sa Pobla's shield. As for Lloseta's ... .
In some instances, the shields of the town halls have very long pasts. Inca's is a case in point. It has of course undergone a considerable transformation in terms of its graphics since the thirteenth century, but the image of a running dog is an original element. Again, the question arises. Why a dog? Is Inca famous for its dogs? No. Was it famous for dogs in the Middle Ages? No. The reason for the dog, according to legend, is linked to the story of the Muslim overlord of Inca. When Jaume I undertook his conquest in the thirteenth century, this lord vowed to be faithful to him. Apparently, it was his dog that was incorporated into the shield as a sign of this faithfulness. There again, it's possible that there is a completely different story.
Many of the symbols are otherwise pretty obvious. Alcudia, Arta, Capdepera, Palma all feature castles. Some are rather peculiar. What does one make, for example, of Binissalem's? It looks as if it should be hanging over a petrol station. A Shell station. It is a shell, the shell of Santiago, the patron saint of Binissalem, better known in Mallorca as Sant Jaume. The shield of Ses Salines, in all honesty, looks downright odd. It's clear what it is, but a pile of salt doesn't give off an especially heraldic image. In fact, there is a complete absence of heraldry in Ses Salines. In its favour, one can say that it isn't pretentious.
Another peculiar one is Bunyola's. They've gone and stuck five doughnuts ("bunyols") on their shield. Well, yes, we get the association, but Bunyola - in terms of its toponymy - doesn't have anything to do with doughnuts (some say fritters). It is seemingly a corruption of words meaning small vineyard.
Then there are the mysterious suns of Andratx and Soller. Why? Doesn't everywhere in Mallorca have sun? They do, but it's all to do with the setting sun, the theory being that in Andratx (or Soller), the last of the sun is to be seen. Hmm, stretching a point perhaps.
I have a personal liking for the shield of Maria de la Salut. It has a dignified, Romanesque M, topped by a crown. The M in question has nothing to do with James Bond, but everything to do with the Virgin Mary and the messengers of health, which is how Maria de la Salut came to be known as Maria de la Salut. I'm also taken by the Petra shield. The cross keys are associated with the parish church of Sant Pere, i.e. Saint Peter. The keys of Saint Peter are the keys to the kingdom of Heaven.
But these keys play a part in what is one of the stranger stories that lurk behind a municipal shield. In the September-October 1983 edition of Ariany (they just named the magazine after the place), the residents of the village were invited to offer their suggestions regarding the design of the municipal shield. Ariany had gained its "independence" from Petra the year before: it is the newest of Mallorca's municipalities.
The article considered elements of other shields, such as the religious connotations in those of Felanitx and Sant Joan, but it wasn't insistent on anything, other than that there should be reference to heraldic insignia for the Cotoner family. So, the shield had a cotton plant. But that wasn't all. Remarkably enough it took the town hall until January 1988 to finally decide, and when they did, there - next to the plant - were two keys, the keys of Saint Peter. And why the keys? It was all a bit of a dig at Petra. Ariany had been after its independence for years, and once independence was gained, Ariany was going to make sure Petra always remembered the fact. They nicked Petra's keys and used them in their own shield.
Ariany's, one of the best shields in Mallorca? As far as having a laugh is concerned perhaps. Otherwise, not really. Sa Pobla's is quite distinguished, but I'm going with Maria and trust that the shield brings good health.
Monday, January 29, 2018
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 29 January 2018
Morning high (7.27am): 9.1C
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 30 January - Sun, 18C; 31 January - Sun, cloud, 18C; 1 February - Cloud, 18C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 2 to 3.
A sunny day today.
Evening update (19.45): Pleasant. High of 18.1C.
Forecast high: 17C; UV: 2
Three-day forecast: 30 January - Sun, 18C; 31 January - Sun, cloud, 18C; 1 February - Cloud, 18C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 2 to 3.
A sunny day today.
Evening update (19.45): Pleasant. High of 18.1C.
Jaume The Kingmaker
The maths are simple, give or take a plus or minus here and there. The latest poll suggests that a coalition of the right/centre-right could come into power after the 2019 election. This poll doesn't show any great movement from one last summer. It merely confirms the fact that the only party making a notable gain in the opinion polls is one of those on the loosely defined centre-right - Ciudadanos. It further verifies that PSOE and the Partido Popular are stuck in neutral and that Podemos and Més are in reverse.
If nothing else, the poll reveals that the "new politics" are very much alive. The pattern in the past with PSOE-led governments has been for the PP to come along and trounce them. There's no chance of that happening in 2019, and the PP know it. The party's spokesperson, Marga Prohens, has alluded to the fact that the PP will need a pact in order to form a government.
Unless there is some form of political earthquake between now and May next year, it is clear that there will be a coalition of one form or another. Polls, as we know, are not always accurate, but as the latest shows little movement compared with the previous, it is probably a fair reflection of wider voter sentiment.
A conclusion that the right/centre-right would automatically make an alliance, assuming they together reach the thirty seat majority threshold, is too simplistic. There are issues which bind them and those which do not. El Pi, forecast to increase by one its seats in parliament (from the current three to four), is already being cast in the role of kingmaker. Potentially, El Pi could go either way.
One of the principal differences between the PP, the C's and El Pi is the Catalan question, in particular the language and culture. El Pi was formed in a circuitous fashion. It is the amalgamation of the Convergencia, which was the remnant of the defunct and discredited Unió Mallorquina, and the Lliga Regionalista. This latter party was formed by Jaume Font, now the president of El Pi, after he left the PP. A reason for him having done so was that he was under investigation by a court (the case was later closed). The PP ethics, newly introduced by José Ramón Bauzá, barred election candidacy to anyone being investigated. Font disagreed with this, but he also disagreed with Bauzá's increasingly anti-Catalan stance prior to the 2011 election.
The PP, under new leader Biel Company, have moderated their views. The party has returned to what it once was in the Balearics: accepting of Catalan and also of regionalism. In this regard, the PP aren't distant from El Pi, which also clings to the sort of soft-nationalism that Maria Munar advocated with the UM. There is more of an issue with the C's.
One has to assume that the gains made by the C's (six or seven seats, according to the poll, compared with the current two) owe at least something to the party's stance on Catalonia and to educational matters in the Balearics. The leader of the C's, Xavier Pericay, has been a constant critic of Catalanism in education and of alleged political indoctrination (in favour of Catalan independence and republicanism) in schools. The PP might be prepared to swallow this, but El Pi might not.
For the parties of the government pact, the poll indicates a best-case scenario of them just crossing the finishing line. They would need the one seat of Gent per Formentera (pretty much assured) in order to get to the thirty majority, but this hardly represents a ringing endorsement of the government. Més and Podemos have both slipped, by a combined six seats at most in the poll. Both have their internal issues and both, so it would seem, are being penalised for a radicalism, the counterpoint to which is the rise of the C's.
PSOE, says the poll, might gain one seat and be bumped up to fifteen, but as with the PP, it is a party that finds itself suffering because of the new politics and the past errors. PSOE would be most unlikely to wish to abandon the so-called "progressive" politics enshrined in its agreements with Més and Podemos, but one still feels that it only has these agreements because it has no other choice.
If the pact parties failed to gain a majority, might El Pi be persuaded to ally with them? One can't rule anything out, but it would be hard to see how such an alliance could ever work. To take but one example, there are holiday rentals. El Pi sees things very differently.
As things stand, it is just possible that the election will lead to a minority government. El Pi would be the kingmaker. All the parties need to be nice to Jaume Font.
If nothing else, the poll reveals that the "new politics" are very much alive. The pattern in the past with PSOE-led governments has been for the PP to come along and trounce them. There's no chance of that happening in 2019, and the PP know it. The party's spokesperson, Marga Prohens, has alluded to the fact that the PP will need a pact in order to form a government.
Unless there is some form of political earthquake between now and May next year, it is clear that there will be a coalition of one form or another. Polls, as we know, are not always accurate, but as the latest shows little movement compared with the previous, it is probably a fair reflection of wider voter sentiment.
A conclusion that the right/centre-right would automatically make an alliance, assuming they together reach the thirty seat majority threshold, is too simplistic. There are issues which bind them and those which do not. El Pi, forecast to increase by one its seats in parliament (from the current three to four), is already being cast in the role of kingmaker. Potentially, El Pi could go either way.
One of the principal differences between the PP, the C's and El Pi is the Catalan question, in particular the language and culture. El Pi was formed in a circuitous fashion. It is the amalgamation of the Convergencia, which was the remnant of the defunct and discredited Unió Mallorquina, and the Lliga Regionalista. This latter party was formed by Jaume Font, now the president of El Pi, after he left the PP. A reason for him having done so was that he was under investigation by a court (the case was later closed). The PP ethics, newly introduced by José Ramón Bauzá, barred election candidacy to anyone being investigated. Font disagreed with this, but he also disagreed with Bauzá's increasingly anti-Catalan stance prior to the 2011 election.
The PP, under new leader Biel Company, have moderated their views. The party has returned to what it once was in the Balearics: accepting of Catalan and also of regionalism. In this regard, the PP aren't distant from El Pi, which also clings to the sort of soft-nationalism that Maria Munar advocated with the UM. There is more of an issue with the C's.
One has to assume that the gains made by the C's (six or seven seats, according to the poll, compared with the current two) owe at least something to the party's stance on Catalonia and to educational matters in the Balearics. The leader of the C's, Xavier Pericay, has been a constant critic of Catalanism in education and of alleged political indoctrination (in favour of Catalan independence and republicanism) in schools. The PP might be prepared to swallow this, but El Pi might not.
For the parties of the government pact, the poll indicates a best-case scenario of them just crossing the finishing line. They would need the one seat of Gent per Formentera (pretty much assured) in order to get to the thirty majority, but this hardly represents a ringing endorsement of the government. Més and Podemos have both slipped, by a combined six seats at most in the poll. Both have their internal issues and both, so it would seem, are being penalised for a radicalism, the counterpoint to which is the rise of the C's.
PSOE, says the poll, might gain one seat and be bumped up to fifteen, but as with the PP, it is a party that finds itself suffering because of the new politics and the past errors. PSOE would be most unlikely to wish to abandon the so-called "progressive" politics enshrined in its agreements with Més and Podemos, but one still feels that it only has these agreements because it has no other choice.
If the pact parties failed to gain a majority, might El Pi be persuaded to ally with them? One can't rule anything out, but it would be hard to see how such an alliance could ever work. To take but one example, there are holiday rentals. El Pi sees things very differently.
As things stand, it is just possible that the election will lead to a minority government. El Pi would be the kingmaker. All the parties need to be nice to Jaume Font.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 28 January 2018
Morning high (8.10am): 14.1C
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 29 January - Sun, cloud, 17C; 30 January - Sun, cloud, 17C; 31 January - Cloud, 18C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 4 to 5.
Calmer morning. Mild. Don't anticipate much sun today. Could be some rain.
Evening update (19.00): There was some sun. Not a bad day. High of 16.1C.
Forecast high: 18C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 29 January - Sun, cloud, 17C; 30 January - Sun, cloud, 17C; 31 January - Cloud, 18C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): Northeast 4 to 5.
Calmer morning. Mild. Don't anticipate much sun today. Could be some rain.
Evening update (19.00): There was some sun. Not a bad day. High of 16.1C.
Mallorca's Frankenstein And Dracula
Frankenstein's daughter, we have learned from one quarter, is the Council's Great Map Of Mallorca's Zones. Frankenstein himself, in a Mallorcan touristic style, was invented by Biel Barceló, a minister with a moderate grasp of tourism reality, who has been replaced by a school teacher with no grasp at all. Biel's Frankenstein was cobbled together by Podemos, who managed to initially wreck what was already the considerable wreckage of the holiday rentals legislation.
The daughter of Frankenstein, the Great Map, has yet to be fully activated. In true Mallorcan political style, it has been given "initial" approval by the Council, which means that it has in fact been fully approved but that the Council needs to undertake the charade known as "public consultation". Town halls, Aptur, GOB and all others will make their submissions, will have press conferences at which they condemn the whole process, and at the end of all this, the Great Map will be as it ever was.
In order to fully activate it, however, a grand ceremony will be required. The Great Map will be transported to Lluc Monastery. Mick of the Council, donning something suitably Druidic, will raise his arms, incant the Sibil-la and invoke the spirits of Ramon Llull and the Black Madonna. Lightning will strike the two bolts attached to the Great Map and result in an apocalyptic fire that wipes out most of the protected "rustic" land of Escorca, thus rendering the Partido Popular mayor's wish for holiday rentals on this land redundant.
By Mick's side will be the other Frankenstein's daughter: the daughter of Francina, Mercedes of the Council. Mercedes, in line to inherit the PSOE Earth from Francina, has spent her entire time since being put in charge of Mallorca's land contending with saturation of one form or another. It was Mercedes who came up with the idea for shuttle buses for beaches and other parts of the island. The town halls weren't all impressed with that idea either, and we discovered last week that the shuttle bus that will save Formentor from its fate of being overrun by tourists can't operate until the transport ministry has sorted out the new bus service concessions. Oh well, never mind.
Mercedes' potential elevation to the status of New Frankenstein as leader of PSOE does appear to owe something to the fact that a principal challenger, Iago at employment, can't do the Catalan thing with total fluency. It makes one wonder, given Catalan correctness within the government, how Iago ever came to be a minister when he insists on going around and speaking Castellano. One does, though, appreciate why he wasn't made health minister. It wouldn't really do for him to now be informing nurses that if they don't attain B2 level Catalan, they'll be out of a job. And informing them, moreover, in Castellano.
This slight, how can one put it, lack of linguistic policy consistency is nothing compared with the PP's lack of consistency regarding holiday rentals. A Damascene conversion has been experienced by some within the party, not least its nominal leader, Biel Company. Gone are the days when Jaime "Two Paellas" Martínez would studiously ignore requests for a more liberalised approach. The PP now appear to have nailed their blue colours to the blue mast of the Great Map and wish to make the whole of Mallorca blue, i.e. no restrictions and rentals 365 days a year everywhere. Which helps to explain why Antoni Solivellas, the mayor of Escorca, wishes to turn the protected green of the municipality into a nice PP blue: the part of Escorca remaining habitable, that is, following the Great Fire of the Great Map.
Because of their previous form in having sided one hundred per cent with their hotelier chums, the PP really do have some brass neck in now pursuing opportunistic opposition to the Great Map. They have stuck their own two bolts into their neck and become their own Frankenstein. But while they've been doing this, who should emerge from his own ashes than none other than J.R. Bauzá? Yes, the PP's resident Count Dracula is back for another go. Not content with the humiliations he has suffered since being exiled to Madrid and generally spurned by everyone, including most of the PP, Dracula wants to sink his teeth into the Balearics once again.
"We want Bauzá in the political front line." "We are with Bauzá". "Values in action". These are the messages that J.R. has probably himself come up with in calling the negligible faithful to a gathering at a Palma restaurant.
So, while Dracula jockeys for a renewed position at the head of the PP and Frankenstein's daughter continues her advance to the PSOE leadership, we are left with Més. And what's their problem? Well, neither the school teaching tourism minister, Bel, or Mother Santiago at social services is going to be able to pull the different factions together. A compromise candidate to run for the presidency next year would now appear to be Alaro's mayor, Guillem Balboa. And that candidacy, for once, would be something that the whole of Mallorca could be proud of.
The daughter of Frankenstein, the Great Map, has yet to be fully activated. In true Mallorcan political style, it has been given "initial" approval by the Council, which means that it has in fact been fully approved but that the Council needs to undertake the charade known as "public consultation". Town halls, Aptur, GOB and all others will make their submissions, will have press conferences at which they condemn the whole process, and at the end of all this, the Great Map will be as it ever was.
In order to fully activate it, however, a grand ceremony will be required. The Great Map will be transported to Lluc Monastery. Mick of the Council, donning something suitably Druidic, will raise his arms, incant the Sibil-la and invoke the spirits of Ramon Llull and the Black Madonna. Lightning will strike the two bolts attached to the Great Map and result in an apocalyptic fire that wipes out most of the protected "rustic" land of Escorca, thus rendering the Partido Popular mayor's wish for holiday rentals on this land redundant.
By Mick's side will be the other Frankenstein's daughter: the daughter of Francina, Mercedes of the Council. Mercedes, in line to inherit the PSOE Earth from Francina, has spent her entire time since being put in charge of Mallorca's land contending with saturation of one form or another. It was Mercedes who came up with the idea for shuttle buses for beaches and other parts of the island. The town halls weren't all impressed with that idea either, and we discovered last week that the shuttle bus that will save Formentor from its fate of being overrun by tourists can't operate until the transport ministry has sorted out the new bus service concessions. Oh well, never mind.
Mercedes' potential elevation to the status of New Frankenstein as leader of PSOE does appear to owe something to the fact that a principal challenger, Iago at employment, can't do the Catalan thing with total fluency. It makes one wonder, given Catalan correctness within the government, how Iago ever came to be a minister when he insists on going around and speaking Castellano. One does, though, appreciate why he wasn't made health minister. It wouldn't really do for him to now be informing nurses that if they don't attain B2 level Catalan, they'll be out of a job. And informing them, moreover, in Castellano.
This slight, how can one put it, lack of linguistic policy consistency is nothing compared with the PP's lack of consistency regarding holiday rentals. A Damascene conversion has been experienced by some within the party, not least its nominal leader, Biel Company. Gone are the days when Jaime "Two Paellas" Martínez would studiously ignore requests for a more liberalised approach. The PP now appear to have nailed their blue colours to the blue mast of the Great Map and wish to make the whole of Mallorca blue, i.e. no restrictions and rentals 365 days a year everywhere. Which helps to explain why Antoni Solivellas, the mayor of Escorca, wishes to turn the protected green of the municipality into a nice PP blue: the part of Escorca remaining habitable, that is, following the Great Fire of the Great Map.
Because of their previous form in having sided one hundred per cent with their hotelier chums, the PP really do have some brass neck in now pursuing opportunistic opposition to the Great Map. They have stuck their own two bolts into their neck and become their own Frankenstein. But while they've been doing this, who should emerge from his own ashes than none other than J.R. Bauzá? Yes, the PP's resident Count Dracula is back for another go. Not content with the humiliations he has suffered since being exiled to Madrid and generally spurned by everyone, including most of the PP, Dracula wants to sink his teeth into the Balearics once again.
"We want Bauzá in the political front line." "We are with Bauzá". "Values in action". These are the messages that J.R. has probably himself come up with in calling the negligible faithful to a gathering at a Palma restaurant.
So, while Dracula jockeys for a renewed position at the head of the PP and Frankenstein's daughter continues her advance to the PSOE leadership, we are left with Més. And what's their problem? Well, neither the school teaching tourism minister, Bel, or Mother Santiago at social services is going to be able to pull the different factions together. A compromise candidate to run for the presidency next year would now appear to be Alaro's mayor, Guillem Balboa. And that candidacy, for once, would be something that the whole of Mallorca could be proud of.
Saturday, January 27, 2018
MALLORCA TODAY - Weather Alcúdia and Pollensa 27 January 2018
Morning high (7.28am): 10.1C
Forecast high: 16C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 28 January - Cloud, sun, wind, 19C; 29 January - Cloud, sun, 18C; 30 January - Cloud, sun, 18C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North-Northeast 6 occasionally 7.
Very windy and staying windy, with the risk of showers at any time today. Yellow alert for coastal conditions.
Evening update (20.30): Some rain, no sun. High of 11.7C.
Forecast high: 16C; UV: 1
Three-day forecast: 28 January - Cloud, sun, wind, 19C; 29 January - Cloud, sun, 18C; 30 January - Cloud, sun, 18C
Sea conditions (northern Mallorca; Alcúdia and Pollensa bays to 20.00): North-Northeast 6 occasionally 7.
Very windy and staying windy, with the risk of showers at any time today. Yellow alert for coastal conditions.
Evening update (20.30): Some rain, no sun. High of 11.7C.
Days Of Renting And Sewage
So then, just so everyone is clear ... Alcudia town, Pollensa town, El Vilà, La Font and Ullaró are saturated. Everywhere else isn't: Puerto Alcudia, Alcanada, Playa de Muro, Can Picafort, Son Serra, Muro, Santa Margalida, Sa Pobla, Búger, Campanet, Crestatx, Bonaire, Barcares, Puerto Pollensa, Formentor, Cala San Vicente.
How on earth do they arrive at such conclusions? No one really knows. They just do. And having arrived at these conclusions, the saturated areas can be eligible to no more than sixty days of holiday rental per annum, licences renewable every five years at the mere cost of 5,000 euros per accommodation place, assuming any licences are eventually forthcoming.
Licences being forthcoming is as much of the issue as all this daft zoning business. It isn't clear how they will be divvied out. I have seen a list per municipality of rental places, but as this list comes to over 100,000 places I have to assume that it is one that takes account of what is already legal (there are only some 30,000 new places on offer). If I'm reading this list correctly, in the case of Pollensa, as an example, there would be some 3,000 going spare. How many of these might end up being apartment places would be anyone's guess. There are hurdles to be overcome, such as communities' rights of veto.
Pollensa's mayor, Miquel Àngel March, has said that he's satisfied with the conclusions. Pollensa is saturated, thus there is the sixty-day restriction. But what was it that March said almost two years ago about problems of accommodation in Puerto Pollensa? I don't know that he is entirely satisfied. Alcudia's Toni Mir isn't satisfied, because the town is deemed to be saturated. The town hall will be letting the Council of Mallorca know what it thinks of this saturation. It won't get very far.
Elsewhere, Sa Pobla's Biel Ferragut is doubtless happy. The town hall has been betting on a favourable rentals outcome in order to boost the Sa Pobla tourism economy. Muro's Marti Fornés hasn't said anything; he's probably keeping his head down, given his historical links to the local hotel industry. Joan Monjo in Santa Margalida, an El Pi man like Mir, has no saturation concerns.
For now, though, it is all a bit of a waiting game. The Council of Mallorca still has its plan to tidy up, and the government has its moratorium to finish. Nothing, it seems to me, is likely to alter this summer. There are too many factors to take account of in facilitating licences, and they will take time to deal with.
While Santa Margalida town, Can Picafort and Son Serra have been given the blue or orange colour-coded all-clear for 365 days a year rental, the town hall is in the process of reclassifying land in Can Picafort in order that some new hotels can pop up. The timing of this, what with all the discussion of saturation (or not), might be considered a little unfortunate. And just as unfortunate is the ongoing row over the Son Baulo sewage and water treatment plant.
A reason why a new plant is needed is that the one in Albufera can't cope with all the additional demand placed on it by tourism. Increased numbers of tourists have meant increased strain on a plant that is considered to be obsolete. Adding more hotels in Can Picafort would simply create even greater problems. Yet Santa Margalida town hall continues to defy everyone and anyone when it comes to the Son Baulo plant.
Muro town hall is now taking the matter to court. Specifically, it wants a legal review of the Santa Margalida decision to unilaterally break an agreement for the Son Baulo plant that was signed in 2005. In a statement, Muro makes clear that at the turn of the century it was already understood that capacity at the Albufera plant was being exceeded. That was eighteen years ago, and nothing has happened.
Adding greater weight to the Muro court case is the decision of the government's Abaqua water agency (the successor to Ibasan, which was the agency that signed the 2005 agreement) to instruct the regional attorney to challenge the Santa Margalida decision. The agency points out that the Son Baulo plant was declared to be in the general interest in 2010, meaning that there isn't a legal obstacle blocking its construction. That's the theory anyway. In practice, eight more years have passed, and the courts are now involved.
How on earth do they arrive at such conclusions? No one really knows. They just do. And having arrived at these conclusions, the saturated areas can be eligible to no more than sixty days of holiday rental per annum, licences renewable every five years at the mere cost of 5,000 euros per accommodation place, assuming any licences are eventually forthcoming.
Licences being forthcoming is as much of the issue as all this daft zoning business. It isn't clear how they will be divvied out. I have seen a list per municipality of rental places, but as this list comes to over 100,000 places I have to assume that it is one that takes account of what is already legal (there are only some 30,000 new places on offer). If I'm reading this list correctly, in the case of Pollensa, as an example, there would be some 3,000 going spare. How many of these might end up being apartment places would be anyone's guess. There are hurdles to be overcome, such as communities' rights of veto.
Pollensa's mayor, Miquel Àngel March, has said that he's satisfied with the conclusions. Pollensa is saturated, thus there is the sixty-day restriction. But what was it that March said almost two years ago about problems of accommodation in Puerto Pollensa? I don't know that he is entirely satisfied. Alcudia's Toni Mir isn't satisfied, because the town is deemed to be saturated. The town hall will be letting the Council of Mallorca know what it thinks of this saturation. It won't get very far.
Elsewhere, Sa Pobla's Biel Ferragut is doubtless happy. The town hall has been betting on a favourable rentals outcome in order to boost the Sa Pobla tourism economy. Muro's Marti Fornés hasn't said anything; he's probably keeping his head down, given his historical links to the local hotel industry. Joan Monjo in Santa Margalida, an El Pi man like Mir, has no saturation concerns.
For now, though, it is all a bit of a waiting game. The Council of Mallorca still has its plan to tidy up, and the government has its moratorium to finish. Nothing, it seems to me, is likely to alter this summer. There are too many factors to take account of in facilitating licences, and they will take time to deal with.
While Santa Margalida town, Can Picafort and Son Serra have been given the blue or orange colour-coded all-clear for 365 days a year rental, the town hall is in the process of reclassifying land in Can Picafort in order that some new hotels can pop up. The timing of this, what with all the discussion of saturation (or not), might be considered a little unfortunate. And just as unfortunate is the ongoing row over the Son Baulo sewage and water treatment plant.
A reason why a new plant is needed is that the one in Albufera can't cope with all the additional demand placed on it by tourism. Increased numbers of tourists have meant increased strain on a plant that is considered to be obsolete. Adding more hotels in Can Picafort would simply create even greater problems. Yet Santa Margalida town hall continues to defy everyone and anyone when it comes to the Son Baulo plant.
Muro town hall is now taking the matter to court. Specifically, it wants a legal review of the Santa Margalida decision to unilaterally break an agreement for the Son Baulo plant that was signed in 2005. In a statement, Muro makes clear that at the turn of the century it was already understood that capacity at the Albufera plant was being exceeded. That was eighteen years ago, and nothing has happened.
Adding greater weight to the Muro court case is the decision of the government's Abaqua water agency (the successor to Ibasan, which was the agency that signed the 2005 agreement) to instruct the regional attorney to challenge the Santa Margalida decision. The agency points out that the Son Baulo plant was declared to be in the general interest in 2010, meaning that there isn't a legal obstacle blocking its construction. That's the theory anyway. In practice, eight more years have passed, and the courts are now involved.
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