Chain Reaction: Bankruptcies and non-payments

Spain’s economic woes are receiving plenty of airing, but what about what is happening on the ground? The crisis is such that one has an impression that much economic life in Mallorca is all but grinding to a halt, brought about by a lack of credit, non-payments, negative cash flows and bankruptcies.

Businesses in Mallorca are caught in the chain reaction of the absence of liquidity in both the private and public sectors. Of the latter, those affected are suppliers to town halls and other governmental bodies and those linked directly to government agencies. Take chemists, for instance. Some had started posting notices to the effect that they could not supply prescriptions through the local health system because the health agency, IB-Salut, was not paying them. IB-Salut, and its problems have been known about for months, is another division of regional government, like the tourism ministry, so in debt that the government is having to bail it out. The government has at least sought to reassure the chemists and patients of the health system that prescriptions will be guaranteed.

The town halls, notorious as bad payers even in the good times, can typically take six months or more in honouring invoices. The Council of Mallorca has had to reach into its pockets to give the town halls some cash that they cannot otherwise raise because central government has imposed restrictions on their capacity to borrow and thus get into further debt.

It’s not all bad news. One town hall, Alcúdia’s, is being reimbursed by central government, following a protracted legal battle to get back IVA which was wrongly charged to its services agency, EMSA. The 600,000 or so euros that the court has so far agreed to could rise. In the meantime, the repaid IVA will help to clear debts the town hall has to suppliers.

If only all town halls or businesses could benefit from such windfalls. If only, especially for smaller businesses, there were mechanisms to prevent their bankruptcy when faced with what is an increasingly common occurrence, the protection of voluntary administration by larger businesses which then do not make payments while they buy time to try and sort out their affairs. For the smaller businesses, their suppliers, there simply isn’t the time. And so they try and come to agreements with their own creditors or go bust and then find themselves blacklisted by banks.

The main business sectors affected have been construction, hostelry (in its widest sense, to include hotels as well as restaurants etc.) and transport. And there have been some big names that have got into difficulty. One of these is Marsans, formerly the ultimate owner, through the hotel chain Hotetur, of the Bellevue complex in Alcúdia. The sale of Marsans’ businesses earlier this year looked as though it might have brought salvation. The problems have persisted, though the new owners seem to have arrived at a solution that will see creditors paid and so stave off a court order that was to place Hotetur in voluntary administration, one that creditors had not sought when urging the court to force bankruptcy in pursuit of the money they were owed.

Even if a solution is found, there is also the effect on local business confidence to be taken into account. In the case of the huge Bellevue, any uncertainty sets the rumour mill ablaze, one not helped by staff being paid only 70% of their October salaries (as was being reported in the middle of November). Just the threat of administration for a major employer and purchaser of services, to say nothing of supplier of tourists, is sufficient to drain even more life from the sick body of the local economy.

Lawyers have expressed concerns about the bankruptcy law which came into force in 2004. It was one, they say, drafted at a time when things were good and when bankruptcy was relatively uncommon. Since 2008 the trickle has become an avalanche. While voluntary status has its benefits for the company facing bankruptcy, it does little for suppliers.

One lawyer has described the system as an abuse of the law, and the overwhelming majority of companies that enter administration subsequently fail, some of them emerging later under new names with new owners, for example, a son or daughter, thus getting around the banks’ blacklist. It has been said that the law makes it easy to simply close and disappear but also to get re-established in a different guise. And then perhaps to set the same chain reaction in motion, of smaller businesses, the suppliers, being left unpaid and ending up going to the wall all over again.

The chain reaction is likely to continue, likely to get worse. You can also describe the situation as a vicious circle, and the question is when or if the circle will be broken, because there is no sign of it being so.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Right People, Right Jobs: Tourism ministers

Some heavyweight names have been calling on the Spanish Government to establish a separate tourism ministry and minister, which would mean it taking a U-turn and admitting that a realignment of ministerial posts effected in July was a mistake.

These names include Mallorcan hotel and tourism companies, the former tourism secretary-of-state Joan Mesquida and the president of the Balearics Francesc Antich.

The Mallorcan companies (Globalia, Riu and Sol Melià) made their call during a high-level pow-wow with President Zapatero and his cabinet, designed to bring the great and good of the business world to the talking table and find solutions to Spain’s economic mess. Mesquida made his call some days before, and Antich added weight to the companies’ demand, reinforcing the view of all parties that, as tourism amounts to such a significant part of GDP (12%), a minister is needed.

The decision in July to in effect downgrade tourism by getting rid of the position of secretary-of-state and merging it with the portfolio for national commerce seemed at the time somewhat perverse, but it was all part of a governmental drive to cut costs. It was one that was mirrored in the Balearics where, in a similar cost-saving drive, the tourism ministry was merged with employment.

At national level, tourism has been and is a part of a super ministry that includes also industry and commerce. The position of secretary-of-state for tourism only, scrapped in July, was only some two years old. It was one formed, as one commentator has put it, in the “days of wine and roses”, alongside other new ministerial appointments. Its being dispensed with was far from the tourism snub that it was portrayed and is still being portrayed.

Nevertheless, given that tourism amounts to a sizable chunk of national GDP (and you can always find figures which suggest it is not as high), it might seem sensible to have a dedicated secretary-of-state, especially as tourism is an industry that, one might hope, would be central to economic recovery and also as Spain’s tourism faces the kinds of competitive threats that it does. Sensible. But would it be necessary? Mesquida is still part of the same super ministry, and the very fact that tourism is singled out as one element of the ministerial triad along with industry and commerce gives it the kudos it deserves.

The discussion as to the importance of the post has tended to overlook what has happened since Mesquida was made its first appointee. And to overlook Mesquida’s credentials for the post. Prior to it he was the director-general for the Guardia Civil and then the newly combined National Police and Guardia. Before this he was the Balearics’ treasury minister.

In his time as secretary-of-state, he oversaw the so-called “Q” quality campaign for restaurants and other establishments, one that cost half a million euros and one that has subsequently been allowed to fade away. He also oversaw the launch of the worldwide and bizarrely sloganed “I Need Spain” campaign earlier this year, at the same time defending his government’s decision to impose an increase in IVA on tourist business (his previous treasury experience coming to the fore no doubt).

His appointment in 2008 was loudly praised in Mallorca. As you might expect for someone who is a native of Felanitx. Antich said at the time that here was someone who knew well the needs of the Balearics and who would make the execution of certain projects, notably the regeneration of Playa de Palma, that much easier. So what happened with this, then?

If you track back further to Mesquida’s time at the treasury, it was he, together with the then tourism minister Celestí Alomar, who came up with the ill-fated eco-tax. Alomar bore the brunt of the tourism industry’s opprobrium, but the tax was, after all, a fiscal measure.

Mesquida was unlucky in that his appointment coincided with the crisis, but the point is that having the right person in the job, however it is titled and whatever portfolios it combines, matters as much as the position in the governmental hierarchy. And this brings us to what has occurred in the Balearics.

For President Antich to be pressing for a national tourism minister seems a bit rich when it was he who merged the local tourism minister’s responsibilities with employment. The economic importance of tourism is far greater in the Balearics (80% of GDP is what is normally quoted). And just as important is having the right minister. So what has happened? Under separate Antich administrations, there have been Alomar, vilified by the very industry he was supposed to represent, and since 2007 a series of Unió Mallorquina politicians who became tourism minister thanks to the UM having been divvied up responsibility for tourism under the spoils of coalition.

One after the other they came and went – Buils for exceeding his powers, Nadal and Flaquer for being implicated in scandal. And then came the short-lived Ferrer, appointed partly because it was Buggins’s turn and partly because he was the mayor of a town with a high level of tourism. One also, Alcúdia, that has been ravaged by all-inclusives, over which he as mayor and as tourism minister had not the slightest power to prevent.

What matters is the right person for the job and that politicians “get it” where tourism is concerned. With this in mind, let’s leave the last words to that gift which keeps on giving, the Partido Popular’s José Ramón Bauzá. The Balearics face tourism attack from, he says, Turkey, eastern Europe and … and the Baltics. The Baltics? Maybe he has indeed been influenced by his mate Delgado in Calvia. The stag and hen-do tourism of Tallinn is doing damage to that of Magalluf. Can’t think what else he can be talking about.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Notorious: Graffiti and urban youth culture

If you type “graffiti Mallorca” into Google, the second entry that comes up is for “imágenes de graffiti mallorca” (you do incidentally have to use the double-l version, as it won’t work in the same way with the “j”). Click on the link for images and then scroll down to around the fourteenth line of photos and there is one of mine, a photo that is and not, I hasten to add, the graffiti. It’s not graffiti of an artistic style; it is just written. It is “Mallorca tiene un secreto”, variations on which in both Spanish and English have cropped up all over the place.

I was interested in going hunting for information on graffiti in Mallorca, because two graffiti artists are facing prison sentences of three years each for having put their work onto buildings in Palma as well as on trains that run to Inca and Manacor. For anyone familiar with urban street art in London and pretty much any other city or town in the UK, the graffiti is nothing unusual, but the growth of such art in Mallorca has prompted the police to take action against the two, identified, as with other graffiti artists, by their “tags” or signatures, nearly always seemingly obscure combinations of letters. Not that they are always obscure. “WHERE” is a tag of one artist involved with a graffiti project in Porto Cristo. And you can see the work on YouTube.

It isn’t necessarily difficult to find out who the perpetrators are. The internet is full of not just Facebook artists but also blogs and websites to which they contribute or run. One such, and he is very much more on the “established” end of the scene is Torrelló aka Gun_star who has a site which when you go to it tells you that this is his “fucking website”, “wankas”. The site also has a poster for an event at Son Amar on 11 December – “Big Bang”, one element of which is a percussion spectacular which features one … Gun_star.

The threat of prison for the Palma artists is not the first occasion on which the police have moved against graffiti-ists. A few months ago the mayor of Inca initiated action against some school kids who had been defacing walls on their way home from school, initially suggesting that the parents be fined. There is a difference between some scrawling on walls and some street art, but many would argue that there is no difference – both are acts of vandalism.

A curious aspect of street or urban art, call it as you will, is how one reconciles the very nature of the phenomenon – the daubing of public buildings and transport – and the degree to which it is somehow sanctioned. Continue with the search in Google, and you will find references to courses in graffiti art. Workshops are organized during annual fiestas. These take place in Pollensa, for example, and its port is a place that has been blighted, some might say, by an outbreak of graffiti, some of it clearly “tagged”.

A further curiosity, for those inclined to adopt a blinkered and over-romantic view of Mallorca, is how such seemingly anti-social activity can occur on the “beautiful” island. It isn’t curious at all. Much in the same way as alcohol and drugs are part of Mallorcan youth culture, so also is graffiti. This culture is, furthermore, part of a standardisation across cultures and in which there is also the influence of music. I came across Gun_star via a website hhgroups.com (“hh” standing for hip hop). Graffiti has always been a core element of hip hop, and the website says that “el hip hop es nuestra cultura” (our culture). The YouTube video for the Porto Cristo “project” has a hip-hop soundtrack to accompany it.

The point about much urban art is that it is astonishing in its scale and audacity. Whether it’s right is another matter. But graffiti-ists thrive on the thrill of notoriety; it’s all wrapped up with a culture that could have spawned a rap artist who became notorious partly because of his name – The Notorious B.I.G. A three-year stretch might not be what the graffiti-ists of Palma might have wanted, but by leaving their calling cards, it was only a matter of time if the police were minded to pull them in. The stretch might only help in reinforcing the image and the myth and might even propel them into the “established” graffiti world of a Banksy where there is real fame  to be cultivated and money to be made.

Criminal damage, though, is criminal damage. Reconciling the art, and its promotion, and the vandalism will remain an issue, however. And as far Mallorca and its secret is concerned, getting to the bottom of the enigma of some graffiti is another matter. I’m still no nearer knowing what it all means and what the secret is.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Crazy Golf: Too many courses in the Balearics?

Where do you go in Spain to have a quiet round of golf? The Balearics. Whole courses uninhabited by the one thing they should be inhabited with – golfers. Golfers of a local variety that is. Ignoring overseas players, a survey by the information company 11811, reveals that there are fewer registered golfers on the islands, relative to the number of courses, than any other region of Spain. The finding is slightly misleading as a further discovery of the survey is that the number of registered players per head of population is the sixth highest in the country. But what really gives the game away regarding how unused courses are in the Balearics is the fact that there are more courses for each and every resident of the islands than anywhere else in Spain.

The revelation as to the low numbers of golfers is nothing new. In April 2008 a different survey came to the same conclusion. Golf, far from booming, seems to be standing still. Is the relative unpopularity of the sport among residents, however, important in the wider debate surrounding golf courses? Local golfers are really only a sub-plot to the main story of golf tourism, but the fact that they are spread so thinly across the islands’ courses – 387 registered players per course – represents a weakness in the “home” market and raises the question as to whether Mallorca and the islands need more courses.

A year on from that previous survey, the Balearics business confederation (CAEB) issued its own report which stated that as many as five more courses were needed in Mallorca alone. These were courses, it said, that were necessary for the development of golf tourism, and it received support from the then tourism minister Miguel Nadal. The support was not unexpected; Nadal’s party, the Unió Mallorquina, has been cast, alongside the Partido Popular, as the devil of golf expansion by both the left and environmentalists.

The arguments advanced by CAEB for the islands as a whole are those echoed in the endless row regarding the development of the Muro golf course. These are well-rehearsed arguments: higher-value tourists; diversification of the tourism offer; a means of countering tourism seasonality.

The problem with these arguments is that they are just that – arguments. What invariably seems to be lacking is evidence as to what more courses would actually mean in terms of increased tourism. One would hope that a business confederation could be capable of presenting a sound business case in favour of more courses, just as one would hope that the Muro course developers could do the same. If so, then where is it?

Beyond the claims and the prospects of some employment being created, the pro-golf lobby has failed to win hearts and minds by pointing to serious numbers. Were it to, then it might do better in the propaganda war with the anti-golf lobby, bolstered recently by a report from an international organisation (the Ramsar Convention on wetlands) which recommends that Muro should definitely be scrapped because of the environmental impact. Furthermore, it is the no-to-golf side which attempts to come up with figures that dispute the yes-to-golf’s arguments.

In September the environmental watchdog GOB produced what it reckoned was proof that golf does nothing to increase low-season tourism. Based on hotel occupancy figures, it argued that were there golf tourism demand in the likes of Alcúdia or Pollensa then hotels would be open, which with some exceptions they are not. It wasn’t proof because GOB had overlooked non-hotel accommodation and figures from November to March, but it did nevertheless suggest that the quieter months of April and October did not show any real benefit from golf tourism.

Though tenuous, GOB’s findings do deserve some attention, while more rigorous research for the off season would not go amiss. And to these findings, we have to take into account what appears to be the lack of a bedrock of support for golf in the local market. One wonders to what degree, if at all, the apparent unpopularity of golf is a reflection of the environmental case. It would also be interesting to know how many of the registered golfers in the Balearics are foreign residents.

What do local people think about the development of new courses? Are they ever asked? In Muro a flavour of opinion was evident in October last year when townspeople demonstrated against the possible demolition of the bungalows in Ses Casetes des Capellans. One prominent banner read: “A golf course is for the rich. Capellans is worth much more”.

Local demand for golf is only part of the equation, but it cannot be overlooked. If one takes Muro’s course, what might this demand be? Excluding the population of neighbouring Alcúdia, where a course exists, the combined population of Muro and its other neighbours – Santa Margalida, Sa Pobla, Búger and Llubi (where there are no courses) – is around 35,000. Extrapolating from the figures in the latest survey, this would mean a course that might attract 260 registered players. 260 across five towns. It doesn’t sound like much of an argument for building a golf course. You would need an awful lot of golfing tourists to make it work. An awful lot of golfers that no one seems able to put a figure to. Crazy.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

On My Radio: Siglo 21 and RNE3

“Hola. ¿Qué pasa?”

At midday, six days a week, these are the words which greet you to a radio show. It’s called “Siglo Veintiuno”. Twenty-first century. The words are spoken by Tomás Fernando Flores. The show is on the national station RNE3. Flores, to use an overworked word, is something of a doyen of the Spanish music scene, both on radio and in the press.

His show, one that specializes in electronic, experimental and dance music, is extraordinary in the extent to which it is at the cutting-edge and extraordinary in that it should go out at the time that it does. But it is not so extraordinary when you consider just how unusual, how eclectic and avant-garde and how downright different RNE3 is. There is little to which it can be compared. The BBC’s 6 Music maybe, but that is on the margins of the BBC’s network; it isn’t mainstream. RNE3 is the main music channel on Spain’s national broadcast network, but its output is, for the most part, anything but in the mainstream.

On RNE3 you can hear just about any form of music you care to think of that conforms to “popular” music in its broadest sense. The big exception is classical; RNE has its own classical station. Otherwise the music ranges from rock to jazz to flamenco to world to hip-hop to folk to experimental and dance. And there is even some pop. Nothing that unusual in this coverage, but RNE3’s style is far from usual.

Flores is an institution. Fifty next year, he has been broadcasting with RNE3 since the early ’80s. His style, like others on the station, is reserved mixed with a certain authority. There is little that is flippant about his presenting. He’s deadly serious about his music, and it is the music that matters. One of the most peculiar aspects of his show is that it airs at midday. It is the sort of programme you might expect to occupy a late-evening slot on Radio 1. But this peculiarity tells you all you need to know about RNE3. It doesn’t compromise. Flores’ natural audience might not be listening at midday, mainly because it’s not awake, but it can of course catch up via internet playback.

I caught the RNE3 bug some years ago. One thing that did it was tuning in at eight in the morning and sitting captivated by a track that went on for a good ten minutes. It was electronic, ethereal with a children’s choir. The announcer said it was by Catherine Denby, but I have never managed to find any mention of her subsequently, just emphasizing how left-field RNE3 can be. I hadn’t misheard the name, though mishearing is not difficult. Spanish pronunciations can confuse. Who were “Ire” I once wondered, before realizing they were the French electronic dance duo Air. The former Stone Roses’ singer Ian Brown is no longer Ian on RNE3. He is Iron Brown.

But that ethereal track at the eight in the morning, soothing though it was, was not exactly the sort of thing you’d find Chris Moyles or Chris Evans playing. It is the very weirdness of RNE3 that says much about how it, as a national broadcaster, differs from the BBC. Ratings seem immaterial. If they were, then Flores would be shunted off to midnight, and midday would be packed with something altogether more frothy and lightweight. The station doesn’t seem to wish to compete with all the more “poppy” stations or overtly dance stations, such as Flaix, that are available. One wonders if there isn’t perhaps a lesson for the BBC in this, it being that the Spanish take their culture seriously to the point of being almost perverse.

Flores though is not some remote, professorial type. He has been a DJ for instance at the Benicàssim music festival that is staged annually north of Valencia. The other day he was doing his bit for next year’s festival in 2011, including having Bobby Gillespie, sounding as off his head as he looks on stage, reciting the “Siglo Veintiuno” slogan. Primal Scream will be headlining at Benicàssim along with the Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes this coming July. (A note here perhaps for Mallorca. Why is it that Benicàssim, a town of some 18,000 – the rough equivalent in population terms therefore of the likes of Alcúdia or Pollensa – can stage such a festival, given also that it is some 90 kilometres from the nearest airport?)

I don’t know if RNE3 or indeed Flores have ever won an international award. Looking down the list of gold, silver and bronze winners at the 2010 New York Festivals radio programme and promotion awards, there was no mention. But mentions would be deserved.

“Hola. ¿Qué pasa?” Listening to the radio. “Siglo 21”.

* RNE3 is on 92.3FM (south of the island) and 97.4FM (north). Also at http://www.rtve.es/radio/radio3/. For “Siglo 21”, click “Electrónica” for more information, to download or to play back.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

We Want Our Money Back: Town hall employees in Muro

Along the canal in Playa de Muro that connects Albufera with the sea are moorings for boats. These are not grand boats; they are mainly small fishing craft. The owners have been expressing their concerns regarding security. And have been doing so for nigh on two years. They have wanted a security barrier to be installed, but have also wanted greater vigilance from the police.

The local police in Muro have not had an easy relationship with the town hall. In March there were complaints that they had to go out on patrol wearing their own clothes because the town hall was only issuing uniforms as and when they were necessary. The mayor added that the town hall was aware that there was some moonlighting where uniforms were concerned; boots being worn by some local police when they went hunting.

Prior to the complaints about uniforms, it was revealed that Muro town hall was one of the island’s authorities that had overseen a massive increase in its spending on personnel since the turn of the century. A 152% rise on town hall employees, which include the police. And this rise was set to become higher because of pay increases for staff from the start of this year.

The mayor, Martí Fornés, sought opinion from the regional government as to these increases which had been previously approved by all parties at the town hall, including that of the mayor before he assumed office. This all-party agreement was emphasised by the spokesperson for the opposition socialist group who admitted that the increases of around 5% were illegal in that they contravened a law which was allowing for only 0.3% increases. He pointed out that everyone knew they were illegal, but still approved them for employees who were in any event earning less than their counterparts in neighbouring towns.

The government ruled unsurprisingly that the increases were indeed illegal and so, commencing with salary payments from October, insisted that the money be paid back, be it through monthly deductions, a one-off deduction or through the withholding of at least part of the Christmas bonus. Also unsurprisingly the news didn’t go down well with the opposition and especially the employees.

To make the point that there was dissatisfaction, town hall employees staged a protest during Muro’s fair over the weekend of 13-14 November, confronting the mayor with their grievance. The town hall has now announced that it will look at disciplinary procedures against three employees for abandoning their places of work in order to make the protest.

That no one appears to dispute the illegality of the salary increases might make you wonder what the fuss is about. But try telling that to the employees, faced with lower pay packets in the lead-up to Christmas. It doesn’t do much for morale, and this leads us back to the police and their uniforms and to the boats and their security as well as to security in a resort with high numbers of unattended holiday and second homes and a town which has suffered like others from the noise and mess of the botellón.

Pay increases may have to be in line with government stipulations, but a wider issue lies with priorities in public spending. Sure it’s a different budget, but was it wholly appropriate that in March Muro town hall should have spent getting on for half a million euros in purchasing the town’s bullring from Grup Balaña? This stages one fight a year. The town hall has spoken about other events being held, but what are they and who would be paying for them?

The town hall was also faced, having acquired the bullring, with spending more in order that it should meet health and safety requirements so that the bullfight could be put on. Heritage is one thing, but when money is tight it might be argued that employees such as the police deserve greater priority, to which one might add the contractor for rubbish collection which, as it was being reported in early October, had outstanding invoices for the first eight months of the year.

Town hall finances, not just in Muro, are in a mess. Partly this may be due to staffing levels; Muro’s 152% increase in personnel spend over the last decade is not solely down to salaries. But as important is that what money there is is spent wisely. Yes, Muro’s employees have been paid money they shouldn’t have been, but you can understand their being upset and their being prepared to voice this. Disciplining them is not the answer, as the bigger question should relate to sound financial management and not morale-sapping personnel management.

Chinese Tourism
My thanks to Alastair for pointing out that I missed a bit of a trick where Chinese tourists were concerned, namely … gambling. I should have been more on the ball, roulette or otherwise, in recalling that some while ago there was discussion in Alcúdia as to what Chinese workers do with themselves when not working. The answer was, of course, that they are pumping coins into slot machines. With this in mind, therefore, the opening of several more casinos in Mallorca is what is needed to secure a Chinese tourism future. Or else, they’ll all be off to the multi-casino, multi-theme park “Gran Scala” near Zaragoza.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Chinese Water Torture: Tourism from China

In Palma there is an undistinguished shop which has in its name the words “El” and “Corte”. Not the grand department store of El Corte Inglés, but a Chinese bazaar called El Corte Chino. Had a bit of shopping been on the agenda when Xi Jinping came a-visiting, the former would have been on the itinerary and not the bazaar. One imagines that the vice-president of China has already got shedloads of plastic flowers and tea-towels back home in the official residence.

Xi has been in town, Palma that is. Suddenly Mallorca has become the voguish destination for world leaders and their wives, Mrs. Obama having stopped over for a spot of lunch with the royals back in the summer. Of the two, Xi is considerably more important. For one very good reason: all his fellow countrymen and women. Those on whom Mallorca has its eye as potential tourists and as potential purchasers of local wine and olive oil.

In March this year the first international congress looking at Chinese-Spanish tourism took place in Palma. The background to this was the Chinese Government’s intention, by 2015, to be overseeing the despatch of some 83 million Chinese tourists overseas. Mallorca and Spain are rather keen on getting some of the action. The congress looked not just at the bigger picture of all those millions hacking through Palma airport but also at the detail as to how to treat Chinese guests – what they eat, what they want to see and what they buy. And one presumes that these needs and wants extend beyond a Chinese restaurant all-you-can-scoff-for-eight-euros “buffet libre” and being unable to go shopping at a Chinese bazaar hypermarket because it’s been declared to be illegal.

As importantly, the congress sought to address how to eliminate mental barriers that might impede what otherwise might be a pot of tourism gold at the Far-Eastern end of the rainbow. And these are not just barriers which might exist in the minds of Mallorcans or Spaniards. Spain is still a country largely unknown to most Chinese; there’s a lot of education to be undertaken before they start flocking in. It helps of course if promotion is done with Chinese lettering, though not if it means paying a grand per letter in order to translate the name of the one-time Balearics tourism promotion agency – IBATUR.

But were all these Chinese to one day turn up, what would they want from Mallorca? Local nosebag? Sun and beach? Neither would be at the top of the Chinese tourist’s wish-list. He or she is not a great experimenter when it comes to cuisine, so you can forget much of that gastronomy malarkey, but be grateful that Sa Pobla is expanding its rice output and that Mallorca has its own line in noodles.

As for sun and beach, well the Chinese might like to look at the sea, rather like British pensioners lined up on benches or in deckchairs in Eastbourne and staring out at the Channel, but they’re not wildly keen on all the tanning. White skin is revered, insofar as the Chinese have white skin. The sight of a German roasting into an ever darker shade of mahogany or a Brit radiating like the stop signal on a traffic light suggests that special enclaves would need to be found for the Chinese to prevent them from being offended by all the off-white bodies.

At the risk of racial stereotyping, when a group of Chinese “lads” were on the local beach a couple of summers ago, I found it distinctly odd. I mean, you just don’t see the Chinese on the beach. The sea, for them, seems to be like some sort of Chinese water torture, especially if they are confronted by factored-up sun worshippers.

There are further problems for Mallorca, one a different form of water torture to be overcome – that of cold water, which the Chinese don’t drink. Then there is the fact that earlier this year we discovered that the Chinese rate Greece as their favourite tourist destination. Not, one presumes, because they head off for industrial quantities of industrial alcohol in Zante but because they are all traipsing around the Acropolis. Which means, therefore, culture. Ah yes, culture. Mallorcan culture. Of which there is so much. There is some but it’s not on the scale of a Spanish city such as Santiago de Compostela, earmarked a few years ago as a “recommended” destination for the Chinese tourist and something which puts into context a scheme in Torremolinos to organise Chinese tourist guides. Torremolinos!?

So when, or rather if the Chinese descend on Mallorca, it will be to Bellver Castle or the Tramuntana mountains that they ascend. Which is probably as well in the case of the mountains, for there is one further thing about the Chinese. The smoking. That which they wouldn’t be able to do in bars or restaurants.

Xi’s visit will doubtless be spun as being deeply significant in terms of fostering the development of Chinese tourism to Mallorca, but if what appeals to the Chinese are culture and scenery, there are, unfortunately for Mallorca, any number of places with far more culture and far more scenery. 83 million? Probably have to settle for 83.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Banking Mad: We’re Europeans Whether We Like It Or Not

Some time back in the nineties, I think it was 1995, I was invited to meet a founder of an organisation that was to be some sort of lobby group for European integration. He was looking for someone to be its director of communications. We met in a London club, and I suppose I poured out my good “European” credentials.

I never heard again from him and nor did I ever hear more of the organisation. Perhaps it was all a pipe dream, like much of the European “project” – as it is turning out.

You can get things wrong. You are permitted to change your mind. Even in the mid-90s when the project seemed as exciting as it was, there was a nagging doubt in the back of my mind. How was it all supposed to work?

Around the same time, I met Gerry Malone, the former Conservative MP. It was to discuss a publication in which he had an interest along with Andrew Neil. Once more nothing came of it, but perhaps because of bigger fish to fry – Neil became editor of “The European” and Malone went on to succeed him before the newspaper (by then in magazine format) folded at the end of 1998.

Wind forward to around 2005, and I am inventing the idea of a story that has yet to be written but which is threatening to be played out. The story’s premise was the descent of Europe into war, not a military war but an economic war, the background being the collapse of the economic system. I claim no foresight, it just seemed like a good and imaginary apocalyptic vision to provide the context for a story.

All these things were coming to mind as I listened to Andrew Neil giving Ken Clarke the run around on radio the other evening. Clarke was that rare beast, a Conservative beast of a politician for whom I have had any time. Was. He has come to sound like a parody of himself, not just in how he speaks but also what he speaks. The sheer arrogant insouciance was staggering. At one point, as Ken droned on, I’m sure I detected the sound of someone sarcastically snoring, and it presumably wasn’t the presenter John Pienaar.

This was a discussion about the state of the Euro, the EU and Ireland and its descent into what is now also political turmoil. It’s not an issue about the Euro, so Clarke was saying, but one of out-of-control bankers. Right but also wrong as the Euro was and is the currency.

Sitting in Spain listening to this, you know full well what’s coming next. The fire storm is heading southwards. Perhaps. The Spanish economy slipping back again, more austerity measures to be handed out in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable. Zapatero might yet face his own early elections when the flames start to encroach upon Madrid’s city limits.

You are permitted to admit that you were wrong, to admit that you were sold a pup. Or this at least is how the “project” is panning out: the with-hindsight pretentious notion of being “Europeans”, an entirely specious concept that sought to graft a nationhood onto enduring diversity. Why did “The European” fail? Apart from the original idea of the highly pro-European Robert Maxwell being “barking mad” according to Gerry Malone, it was because it was – as has been said elsewhere – a paper for a nation which didn’t exist; which doesn’t exist and is never likely to exist.

The flaws with the Euro are not for me to go into, but fundamentally a currency unsupported by a harmonised political structure and harmonised institutions and financial and fiscal policies was always going to be a tough call. It was a massive experiment which may now be unravelling along with the political conceit that brought it about but at the same time the laudable political motives behind integration. What was created in order to overcome division is generating it – economic war but also sociopolitical war, one predicated on migration that has inflamed old prejudices and, more seriously, precisely the extremism that it was meant to stamp out.

We know the arguments in favour. Of course we do. Don’t we? And one is to avoid economic war, which is why Ireland will not be allowed to go to the wall, which is only right. But how often can this be repeated and remain politically acceptable if other countries are to be bailed out? Who next? Well, we know who next. Or at least we think we do. An unsettling idea is that one can sit in Spain and listen to Andrew Neil versus Ken Clarke, be uncomfortable with views that have shifted a considerable distance from the days of a meeting in a London club and be further uncomfortable with the ease of movement that brought one to be sitting in Spain. It’s simply not good enough to rail against the Euro and the European Union, because to do so would be hypocritical.

But, but, but … . The dire predictions regarding Spain may not be accurate. For starters, the Spanish banking system is not in the same mess as Ireland’s. This stems from much tighter regulation on lending and the insistence on banks’ securing debts laid down by the Bank of Spain. Yes, there has been much cash flowing into what are now all but worthless property development and speculation, but the level of lending is not at Irish levels.

So maybe Ken Clarke is right. It isn’t about the Euro, but just about banks. Perhaps so, but sentiment goes a long way, and the sentiment against the Euro and countries perceived as weak within the monetary system goes as far, which is why worries about Spain will remain and why the Euro and the whole European project will attract such anxiety.

But hold on, what would be the alternative? Something potentially altogether worse. To borrow from an Irishman, things may be falling apart, the centre may not be holding, but I, for one, hope to God it does hold. We are Europeans whether we like it or not.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Anywhere In The World: Mallorcan identity

The failure of the Playa de Palma regeneration plan has brought with it much soul-searching and navel-gazing. One of those who has been scrutinising her belly has been the president of the Council of Mallorca, Francina Armengol. While she believed that much of the plan was “excellent”, she also felt that it had to be one which maintained a Mallorcan identity and was not therefore one that could have been a project anywhere in the world.

While the consortium overseeing the plan disputed her suggestion that it would not have had at least a “Mediterranean” flavour, the very mention of a Mallorcan identity highlights an issue which dogs much of the thinking surrounding Mallorca’s tourism and its future. It is an issue for which there is clear blue water in the seas off the Playa de Palma and a clear line in the sand of the beach itself – those between the idealists and the pragmatists. It is an issue also that means little to most of Mallorca’s tourists for whom Mallorca means, at best, a largely undefined and nebulous concept of Spain or for whom it means nothing other than a place of sun and beach – anywhere in the world, if you like.

What is this identity to which Armengol refers? If it is architectural, then it should not be beyond the wit of architects to conceive a resort in a Mallorcan style, whatever this actually is. But the architects have not always had a sympathetic Mallorcan design to the forefront of their plans when coming up with much recent construction of whatever sort – housing, hotels or commercial. Anywhere in the world? Yes, it might well be.

In the sixties, Mallorca and Spain willingly took the shilling of foreign exchange that was necessary to propel the country out of backwardness. It came in the form of mass tourism and of course at a cost. The rag-bag construction of many resorts that followed destroyed whatever identity there might once have been. Playa de Palma, much of Calvia and other resorts, such as Alcúdia and Can Picafort, were built for purpose rather than for the comfort of a mythical Mallorcan identity, one that hardly impinged upon the thought processes of planners and even less on those of tourists who were off to sunny Spain; it mattered not the slightest that they were going to an island off the mainland. And for most tourists, nothing has really changed.

A couple of years ago I wrote a series of articles on “Spanishness” as it applies to Mallorca. The starting-point for doing so was the type of question it is not uncommon to come across on the internet; the type which goes along the lines of is such-or-such a resort “Spanish”. And note that it is “Spanish”; it is never “Mallorcan”.

The question is hard to answer as it is most unlikely that the ones asking the question really have a conception themselves as to what “Spanish” entails, let alone Mallorcan. Few resorts can lay claim to Spanishness; they could indeed be anywhere in the world. There are exceptions, but even these are questionable. Take Puerto Pollensa for example. It hasn’t suffered the same brutalism as other resorts and has maintained, so it is said, some of that Mallorcan identity. But what actually is it? Its most talked-about visual feature is the pinewalk. Are we saying that a Mallorcan identity can be symbolised by a pine tree? Perhaps we are.

In the same way as tourists might struggle to describe a Mallorcan identity, so also, I would suggest, would the idealists such as Sra. Armengol. My guess is that what she and others have in mind is the re-creation of the “pueblos” by the sea. But it is only a guess, because it is not elucidated.

Less unclear is the idealist retreat into other aspects of this identity. Gastronomy, for instance. In an ideal Mallorcan tourism world, all tourists would be tucking into tumbet or arroz brut. But they don’t. Not in the major resorts at any rate. Take a walk along Alcúdia’s Mile and you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything that isn’t pizza or grill. International. Anywhere in the world.

The pragmatic alternative is the one that has grown up since the ’60s. Errors there most certainly were when the resorts were put together, but resorts, fundamentally, are places built for purpose and which have to be fit for purpose to serve their masters from overseas. Identity, even were it to be defined, is secondary, as it always has been. There is a standardisation in resorts, one that conforms to a more internationalist identity. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding more recent architectual abominations, a revision for resorts, given current-day appreciation of greater design sympathy, need not preclude something that is more discernibly Mallorcan or Spanish. Which is why Playa de Palma is likely to be a huge missed opportunity and which is why it should have spawned regeneration in other resorts. Or am I just being idealistic?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Incuriosité Tue Le Chat: Local tourists

Pollensa, as with the surrounding area, has a past with France. Some of the first “package” holidaymakers to the area were French; they used to fly in by seaplane from Marseille donkeys years ago. The connection between Pollensa and France may not be as historically strong as that which Sóller can boast through old trading links, but it is strong nonetheless, while a more ancient tie is a linguistic line that applies to the whole of Mallorca – that through Occitan and Catalan – and an even more ancient one which has it that the island was first inhabited by people from what is still sometimes referred to as the Occitania region of southern France.

I was showing a southern French couple around the old town of Pollensa. They had not been before. Imagining seeing the place for the first time, through their eyes, is to be impressed by the elegant chic that has been moulded from within the imposing scale of the town’s churches, brooding mountain and steps for every day of the year to the Calvari oratory. Considering the place for the first time, in their minds, is to be captivated by its cultural overtones. Aptly enough an exhibition is currently taking place in honour of the artist Tito Cittadini, an Argentinian, yet one who further confirms a French lineage – one of having studied in Paris with Anglada Camarasa before the two moved to Pollensa and found the “Pollensa school” with its own ties back to French impressionism and most obviously Manet.

To go to Pollensa in November, even as one who is familiar with the town, is to feel almost like a first-timer, especially if it is you doing the guided tour. In summer, the bustle and the heat make you ignore everything and wish to scurry off for the nearest shade and cooling drink. In November you can actually look for once. Especially as you are undisturbed. But it is this that makes you wonder. Why are you being undisturbed? Where on earth is everyone?

It is a Saturday lunchtime. In the Plaça Major only one bar is open: the Café Espanyol, itself an iconic image of the town, one represented many times by an artist’s brush and on the storage card of a tourist’s digital camera. A short walk away is the Seglars square at the foot of the Calvari from where thousands upon thousands of photos have been taken of the steps which climb to its summit. You can reinvent through your memory the scenes of all the visitors milling, of their cameras being pointed, of their sitting on the banked terraces. But it is necessary to reinvent, because there is barely a soul to be seen.

Familiarity breeds familiarity. You cease to see a place until such a time as you’re made to see it, as in telling a visitor or two about it. It’s extraordinary the degree to which towns like Pollensa come to be taken for granted or are simply neglected even by those who might live close by. There are of course the “events” which attract, the town’s fair having been and gone only a few days ago. But to visit these is to fall into the same summer trap of unseeingness. What is looked at is craftwork or the skill of a wheelwright and not, for example, the vertical immenseness of the parish church which seems to threaten with toppling on top of you or to be aware of its monolithic dominance in the main square or even of the streets which interlink churches or of the bells that resonate from them.

The absence of tourists at just the sort of time when a real appreciation of Pollensa can be gauged is a story too often told and too often debated. But what are also absent are local tourists. Is it just a case of familiarity breeding familiarity? Not necessarily. In fact, it’s probably nothing of the sort. It’s a case of incuriosity breeding incuriosity. You might live not far away, in Alcúdia for instance. But how often is a visit made to Pollensa, its port or its outlying Cala San Vicente? Never, might come the response. And so it is in reverse, be it to the city walls and Roman ruins of Alcúdia, the toy town timewarp of Barcarès or the scary twist and turn up the mountain to La Victoria.

Perhaps it takes visitors, be they from France or wherever to force you to stop and take in the spectacular that is Pollensa or other local towns. Perhaps. But it shouldn’t be. Familiarity does breed familiarity, that of the comfort of the telly or of the telly in the regular bar in regular surroundings. So much time though in winter to go and look, and so much time and effort worrying about winter tourists who don’t come, which means that the forgotten are the tourists much closer to home. Right on the doorstep in fact. We’re all tourists now. Or should be.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.