Hogging The Road: Motorbiking in Mallorca

“This used to be a hell of a good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.” So commented George Hanson. The country, the countryside is different to that of America’s “Easy Rider”. Not so much has gone wrong with it. Especially if you’re on a motorbike. It’s probably the best way to see Mallorca.

Despite the drugs and the violence, “Easy Rider” did more than any cycle grand prix to give the motorbike, and the Harley Davidson in particular, a prominence in popular culture, both good and bad. The descendants of Billy and Wyatt ride the world, and they ride Mallorca every year.

It was the motorbike tour of Mallorca at the weekend. 5,000 bikers, fewer bikes, but still some thousands of noise. You know when the “volta” is taking place, if you are anywhere near its route. For minutes on end, the roar of engines shatters the peace of a warm Sunday afternoon.

The tour is not the only motorbike event. Last October, what was described as the largest concentration of bikes in the history of the island celebrated the Mallorca Hogrock. Riders from mainland Spain, the UK, Germany and elsewhere. Motorbike tourism is popular and it’s getting more popular.

In the endless quest to limit the impact of seasonality, bikers are being welcomed with the same open arms as other riders on two wheels – the cyclists. The president of the association of motorcycling businesses (AEMOT) has said that biking tourism should be considered in the same way as cycling tourism.

And in the same way as biking tourism affords a certain sense of freedom as cycling tourism does, so also it is viewed as a source of not insubstantial revenue generation. If you ride a Harley, chances are that you’ve got a wad or two or several that Mallorca’s businesses will be happy to take off your hands. José Hernández, the AEMOT president, has said as much. Biking tourism attracts a visitor with high spending power.

It is opportune, to say the least, that the Palma-born Jorge Lorenzo is the current Moto GP world champion. In fact, it should be a God-send of good luck. More than Rafa Nadal, here’s a sportsman who is firmly identified with one thing – the bike. Nadal is too diluted, while tennis is not directly a type of tourism that is promoted. Lorenzo is different. He’s not glamorous in a Nadal-on-a-boat way, and he deals in noise.

Lorenzo’s success and the growing interest in biking tourism have prompted President Antich to call for a purpose-built circuit in Mallorca, one that would bring benefits not just to motorcycling but also to the hotel and bar and restaurant sectors in seeking to reduce seasonality. The chances of this happening are probably rather greater than the pie-in-the-sky idea that a Formula 1 circuit might be built.

What all might sound positive has a drawback. Cycling tourists are not welcomed by everyone, in particular by impatient car drivers. A biker does not pose the same dawdling obstacle, but what he or she brings, or rather the bike brings, is something else that might not be welcomed – the sheer racket. The peace of the Sunday afternoon was shattered, torn apart and ripped to shreads. It doesn’t last long of course, but there is something of a double standard here.

Noise pollution is being taken seriously enough for a speed restriction to 80 kph to have been imposed on a stretch of motorway from Palma. Some would have it apply to the whole of the Via Cintura. Motorbikes tend to make more noise than cars. And were there far more of them, then how would the desire for greater biking tourism fit with a wish to reduce noise pollution? It wouldn’t. A typical Harley generates 85 decibels, but it can run at 110 or higher; 110 is twice the level considered acceptable for normal residential living.

Biking is a great way to travel around Mallorca. There’s no question about this. It should be encouraged, but if it grows in the way that it might, then the words of Jack Nicholson’s George Hanson will start to take on fresh meaning. “I can’t understand what’s gone wrong.” It’ll be easily enough understood and it’ll be roaring along a road near you.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Have I Got Videos For You

“This week’s odd-one-out round. Paul and Jon, your four are Harold “Hype” Williams, some happy slappers from West Bromwich, the MKTGONLINEIB and the Iberostar Alcúdia Park hotel, Playa de Muro, Mallorca.”

“Is it the? What did you call it? The Muckt-gon-lee-nee-aye-bee? Is it the only one who looks like a robot which looks like it could do with getting out more?”

“No, actually it’s the Iberostar Alcúdia Park hotel, Playa de Muro, Mallorca. Shall I tell you why?”

“No thanks.”

“Well, I’ll tell you anyway. It’s the only one that doesn’t make videos, but has videos made of it. In fact, there is one about it that appears at the top of the list of other videos to watch on YouTube next to this edition of ‘Have I Got News For You’, assuming you are watching S40E01 extended parts one to three and probably also assuming that you are watching it in Playa de Muro.”

“And why’s that exactly? Just because you’re watching this particular show and because you’re in – where’s that place called again?”

“Playa de Muro. It’s in Mallorca.”

“Is it really. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“I’m not sure why.”

“But you play Sherlock Holmes, you should know why.”

“They didn’t have YouTube in my, erm, in Holmes’s day. I think it’s to do with intelligently figuring out the location of the user or something like that.”

“Intelligent!? But if you’re in this place, whatever it’s called …”

“Playa de Muro. It means the beach of the wall.”

“In the beach of the wall, why would you want to know about a tourist hotel? You’re not going to stay in it, if you’re already there.”

“That’s a very good question.”

“Yea, I know. That’s why I asked it.”

“In fact, the video is in Spanish as well. And I don’t think this show has many Spanish viewers.”

“So it’s not intelligent at all, then.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t.”

“So, why did you say it was, then? And this MKTGONLINEIB, how do we know it’s a robot?”

“We don’t. In fact it’s probably a person.”

“A robot’s a person!? What is this? The return of the Borgs or something?”

“It’s the name that appears under the video. The poster I think you call it. Or him. Or her. Anyway, shall we move on?”

“Yes, let’s.”

The above is of course made up, but is intended to raise a question about promotional videos and the like that are placed on the internet. Why would you, if you were in Playa de Muro, as in I was when I was watching the “Have I Got News For You” video, or anywhere else for that matter, be interested in a tourist hotel that’s just up the road? I assume the video was placed because location was detected. But what’s the good of that?

And this, if you’re interested, is the video in question.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Half A Million Strong: Building Mallorca

Half a million strong. Half a million more. That’s the number of extra inhabitants the Balearics, which currently have a population of 1.1 million, could accommodate under current plans, most of them in Mallorca.

As ever, the headline-grabber, the half a million, is not all that it seems. A goodly sized chunk of what could be built, according to those plans, is designated for tourism purposes. In other words, the inhabitants would be temporary. Nevertheless, the increase in building and population which could occur – stress, could occur – is dramatic.

In 2001, nearly 6,000 hectares were set aside for new urbanisation. Of these, slightly under a fifth have been built on. Some land has since been reclassified, meaning that it cannot be urbanised, but 4,000 hectares remain, enough for over 150,000 properties and the half a million inhabitants.

So what, you might think. Some perspective is needed in order to give an indication as to what this might represent.

On Mallorca, says research from the university, only six per cent of the island’s land is strictly speaking “constructed”. It doesn’t sound much, but when you factor in mountains, other natural features, agricultural needs, as well as restrictions on construction, it may well be right. And because it doesn’t sound much, the capacity for extra building, envisaged under the 2001 plan, becomes all the more striking. Were all the 6,000 hectares built on in Mallorca alone, and as I say it does account for most of the available land, this would equate to an increase in excess of 25% more “constructed” area on the island.

Six thousand hectares approximate to something less than 2% of the entire land mass of Mallorca. Again, it doesn’t sound like much. But the strategy for development (and you cannot also ignore roads and other infrastructure developments that are not included) is one of “compact towns”. Compact can just as easily become overpowering.

When you break all this down by town, you begin to get a clearer picture of what it might all mean. In Palma alone, land which remains unbuilt on but which could be built on would yield over 100,000 more inhabitants. There are currently just over 400,000. In the regions, the potential increases are just as if not more dramatic: Manacor, over 25,000 more people, a rise of 60%; Alcúdia, nearly 10,000, 50% more and of which 2,000 would be tourists. In one instance, Artà, the population would all but double. In Campos, it would rise by over 200%.

These latter two examples are unusual under this plan. Neither town has a particularly strong tourism basis. In Artà, the potential exists for over a half of the designated development to be for tourism. In Campos, which has cried out for more tourism opportunities and been largely spurned, as with its golf development, a quarter of the new build would be for tourism purposes. Both towns would, therefore, stand to benefit significantly. But at what cost?

Building in Artà that has already occurred has, as an example, seen Colonia San Pere grow quite markedly in a short period. Revenue generation for individual town halls notwithstanding, the obvious question arises as to how sustainable or indeed advisable such developments and increases in population are.

The first decade of this century witnessed a massive rise in population. 170,000 more people. Despite a prediction that the population of Mallorca will rise by only 7% during this decade, this doesn’t square with what could be the case under the plan. And with more people come greater demand on services and greater strain on the environment. It is for these reasons that the dramatic rises are unlikely to occur. The regional government just doesn’t have the money to support them, while it is also sensitive to an environmental lobby which would seek to limit a new boom in housing and tourism development, as and when the crisis in the construction industry were to come to an end. The counter to this is that construction is also a powerful lobby.

Half a million strong? Yasker’s Mallorcan farm and finca is in all likelihood safe for now. Half a million more is probably just a way of grabbing attention. Which is not to say, however, that certain towns might not be singled out. In Artà and Campos they would probably welcome it. There again, they might not.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Never Mind The Quantity

They do it in Bali, they do it in Thailand, they do it in Turkey, they even do it in Oman. What do they do? They talk about quality tourists. And of course they talk about them in Mallorca.

Quality. The word used to have meaning. It used also to be something that could be measured. It still can be, but the term has become so widely used and abused that it can mean whatever you like and it can be applied to whatever you like, as can its absence.

In Mallorca, there is a distinction. Tourism quality is not the same as tourist quality. The former refers to services, standards of hotels, resorts and infrastructure. Theoretically, tourism quality begets tourist quality, or doesn’t if the tourism quality is low.

The problem with all of this is terminology and precise meaning. While systems exist which can measure quality in tourism destinations, such as “Qualitest”, developed under the auspices of the European Commission, similar systems are not applied to people – tourists themselves and their perceived quality or lack of. How would you? Get tourists to fill out a questionnaire to determine their socioeconomic grouping or means test them? It’s a nonsense of vagueness and one that leads to accusations of the pejorative and the insult, as has been the case with Pedro Iriondo and his taunt of low-quality tourists coming from the UK.

Nevertheless, and despite the umbrage that has been taken, Iriondo was not totally wrong. He was wrong in his choice of words, but not in his sentiments. Yet, the quality descriptor is used by default and has been for years in Mallorca. Just as it is now used in Thailand, where the prime minister has urged the tourism industry to focus on the quality of tourists. Same concept, same insult.

Iriondo’s outburst has been met differently in the UK (and among some Britons in Mallorca) and in Mallorca by both local people and the local media. This difference is far from unimportant. While the quality insult and the attack on low-cost airlines caused the headlines for the British, it was his criticism of foreign workers in Mallorcan hotels and bars that caused the most fuss locally. The tourist quality argument is one that few would quibble with, including many a British business owner in Mallorca.

Unpalatable though it may be, vague though the word quality may also be, we still know what Iriondo was getting at. Money. And you can probably throw in behaviour as well. Mallorca is not alone. In Bali, they are thinking of introducing standard pricing policies to prevent tourism being too cheap. “In order to obtain quality tourists, one step we must take is to avoid selling Bali too cheaply,” has said the assistant governor. A Dutch restaurateur in Istanbul has criticised governmental policy of placing quantity before quality. “Turkey should get rid of its image (for) cheap vacations with all-inclusive travel packages.”

The Thai prime minister went on to say that the tourism industry should not aim for high numbers, thus placing quality first. The same argument as in Turkey, therefore, and one that has been broached in Mallorca before now, not least by the current regional government president.

Regardless of background, people are entitled to a holiday. It is the seeking to deny this that grates as much as the distasteful term “quality tourist” and its opposite. However, a destination surely has the right to determine what type of tourism it wants. Mallorca, in part, as is the case with other destinations, operates a type of social service. It is one, and the point was proved as long ago as the early 90s by researchers at the university, that leads to a net loss among a percentage of tourists. Then, it was 10%; it would be higher now.

The solution, if this is the right word, lies not just with the quality of the tourism offer but also with a reduction in tourism numbers. This has been spoken about. President Antich once said as much himself. But it would be a minefield of implementation. Mallorca’s tourism is based on volume, as are strategies of airlines, tour operators, hotel chains, the airport, transport providers and the government itself, sensitive to the need to constantly report high tourism numbers and to the creation of employment.

Volume means tourism of all types, of all backgrounds. Iriondo’s insult remains an insult insomuch as Mallorca’s tourism has always been all things to all men. But if Mallorca wants something different, then so be it. If it does, though, it should be aware of what it would mean. Quality, assuming it can be adequately defined, does not always mean quantity.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Bus Passes: Alcúdia’s mayoral candidates

A motley crew. The tall guy, the bloke who looks like a refugee from 70s rock perms, three homely ladies and some geezer who we thought wasn’t going to be there. A motley crew for the motley cobbling-together of justification for existence that is Alcúdia’s Can Ramis building.

They came, they spoke, they concurred (sometimes). The mayoral candidates of Alcúdia. Several species of small and not so small furry and fiery political animals gathered together in the cave of an exhibition room and grooving for the press pictures. At least, at last, here was some point to Can Ramis. It was a burning topic for the citizenry of Alcúdia.

The tall guy, the mayor Jeff Goldblum, also known as Miguel Llompart, said that everything about the building of Can Ramis had been “correcto”. The one among the ranks who had something of the politician “look” about her, if only in a less-terrifying Ann Widdecombe style, was the furry terrier, pawing at the alleged irregularities of the building. But we knew all about Coloma and the Partido Popular’s objections. They were nothing new.

The tall guy, though, let on that Can Ramis had not been intended as a bus station. This was new, as was the admission that the misapprehension the entire town had been under had been a fault of town hall communication. So this explained everything, unlike the plan which had a bus station and the model with the little Dinky buses. Or had I imagined it all? Not that it really matters. It was a waste of money whatever the intention had or hadn’t been.

There were six of them in all. One of them hadn’t been expected. He had not been in the rogue’s gallery of head shots prior to the event, at any rate. Had he gate-crashed perhaps? No, he was the chap from the Esquerra Unida. And what’s the purpose of their existence exactly, other than to be left and united? Still don’t know, though the united left is the only party which will defend workers, or something like that.

It wasn’t trains and boats and planes so much as trains and buses. Ah yes, the train. The one not standing either somewhere near to Alcúdia’s auditorium or the Es Foguero ruin. Here, the main three parties, mayor Goldblum’s Convergència, Ann Widdecombe’s PP and the PSOE of the alarming Brian May lookalike, stood shoulder to shoulder. Not that Coloma could physically stand shoulder to shoulder with the tall guy; only metaphorically.

All three agreed that the government had been wrong regarding the siting of the railway and that the views of Alcúdia had to be respected. One Alcúdia, one train. Not that there is one train and is unlikely to now be one, besides which Brian May, sometimes also referred to as Pere Malondra, reckoned it wasn’t necessary anyway. There are other systems of public transport which can connect Alcúdia to Sa Pobla. Such as? Helicopters perhaps? Silly me. It’ll be a bus of course.

The lady from the Esquerra Republicana, whatever they are, made an unusually useful point. Still about buses, but it was useful nonetheless. Why wasn’t there a bus stop by the newly-terminaled commercial port? Well yes, why isn’t there? Probably because there aren’t any buses which go there, but possibly also because the port with its shiny new terminal has achieved the remarkable. It has actually managed to create less traffic than before.

There was one matter on which the aspiring and perspiring candidates could all sort of come together. Tourism. A longer season was needed. As was an agreement on tourism quality, one suggested by Brian May rather than his proposing something as dramatic as we will Mallorca rock you. Alcúdia offers not just sun and beach but also culture and gastronomy, parroted the Mallorcan socialists lady. How revolutionary. Who would have ever thought of such a thing? I must run the idea past the waddling masses of Bellevue some time. The chap who we didn’t think was going to be there wanted 30% of hotel places open in winter. Though how they might be filled is quite a different matter and therefore one that was not addressed.

The mayoral candidates lit up Can Ramis with their enlightenment. When the official campaign starts, there should be a banner strung high above the street by the town hall. “Vote Llompart, a mayor you can look up to.” Because everyone does, or has to. Alcúdia’s one unique political selling-point. It has the tallest mayor in Mallorca. In the absence of candidates offering any great thoughts, other than about bus stops where buses don’t run, this is about as good a reason as there is for voting for any of them.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Finding Nemo: Palma Aquarium

One of the images of the Palma Aquarium is the clownfish, the comedian of the deep; Nemo found. This small joker in the pack of the oceans, the housekeeper-in-chief and cleaner to the sea anemone, with which it is symbiotic to the extent of having been nicknamed from the anemone itself, is a tiny specklet of life amidst the larger submariners of the seas. On a scale of one to several billion, it is amoebic within the vastness of the Aquarium and its grounds.

Heading towards its fourth anniversary, the Aquarium is an oddity of all-year attraction, the lie to the criticism of fallow-season all-closure. It is also an oddity of commercialism combined with philanthropy for the aquatic natural world, a charitableness that extends to its campaigning on behalf of the bluefin tuna. Coals to Newcastle and then back again. The tuna that is harvested from the seas around Mallorca can well end up at a sushi processor in Japan before being shipped back and served locally. So it is with the madness of the demands of current-day culinary refinement, and so it also helps to make the jellyfish of Balearic waters proliferate.

This philanthropy and campaigning comes with an educative element, replete with a classroom, one wall of which is an orange submarine. The young Captain Nemos learn from within a Nautilus, and a different kind of Nautilus, created as an archway sculpture of the mollusc’s chambers, is its own portal through which you pass into this twenty thousand leagues under the sea, lavishly and lovingly reproduced inside an ocean-colour-scene blue building near to Playa de Palma.

The Nemos junior, enthralled by their clowning namesakes, can also feel. In one of the touch pools of the Aquarium, there are some gobbling fish, frantic at the prospect of food, who would have your hand off were it actually edible; their mouths like plumbers’ plungers popping against flesh but finding nothing on the menu.

In the tanks are some startling weirdos. None more so than ones you can barely see. In a bed of sand carved and curved like roof tiles, one head sticks out. This is the only one-way tank in the aquarium. The sand eels are not show-offs like other fish. They will not show at all, if they can help it, and certainly not if anything is in the eye-line. The tank looks like a mistake or one that is in preparation for some new inhabitants. It isn’t; there are some 70 or so eels there, buried under the sand, save for the one who has come up for a furtive look around. Then there is the dragon fish of a sea-horse variety, newly arrived, suspended in the water, unmoving, like a Hirst in aspic. Less weird, but bumblingly big is the Napoleon fish with his Josephine, a social pair that appear to be possessed of a rare fishy quality, that of recognition, of the diver-keepers.

Into the blue, the Big Blue, the deepest shark tank in Europe. The immensity of the tank, matched by what is moving around inside it, is exaggerated by the low-lighting of the viewing area. This is in common with other sections of the Aquarium’s interior. The vivid collages of fish and coral are highlighted, spotlighted if you prefer, by an ambient lighting that is sufficient for human movement but which accentuates the richness of the contents of the tanks.

And outside, around the gardens, are the jungle with its damp tropical sprays, more tanks of turtles and sharks and even some unprepossessing-looking flora, an endangered species of limonium, native not just to Mallorca but to the door step of the Aquarium itself.

The Aquarium is a remarkable place. It is one that has come at no small cost. Fifty million euros or so went into its creation, and it operates with a substantial staff and with much that, like the sand eels, you don’t see. There’s an awful lot of kit needed to keep fish and coral happy.

Aquaria don’t always have a great name, the reason being that they can disappoint. They promise something they don’t actually deliver. They do things by half. This cannot be said of the Palma Aquarium. The little clownfish, the Nemos, are one of its images, but little the aquarium most certainly isn’t. Big. Blue. And all year. It’s the model for other attractions to aspire to.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Pepe And The Banshees: Pollensa

The voice has been one of a one-man banshee howl at nepotism, inefficiency and the opaque. Yet the image, one that may have come across through the media, is quite misplaced. For starters, it is more than one man and indeed woman. It is also no deranged spirit, wailing at the prospect of death in the house; more mild-mannered Clark Kent, but with a legitimate fear of death of a resort and town.

This is Pepe Garcia. He is, his party is the Alternative. For Pollensa. The scourge of Pollensa’s town hall, something of the pin-up boy for those in a municipality who wear Pollensa’s badge of dishonour with a perverse pride. This is the worst town, or worst town hall, in Mallorca. It’s not something to be proud of, but pride has to be sought somehow.

There are doubtless other towns in Mallorca which would wish to lay claim to the worst crown, but none has been as unremitting in its pursuit as Pollensa has, and none has the same highly vocal banshee cries emanating from it, as those which Garcia emits.

What Garcia has achieved, and it is no small achievement, is to strip away and expose what many either know or suspect. He has gone for the throat and no longer is there any illusion that contracts and services have been variously dubious, uncompetitive or the result of nepotism. Gardens, street lighting and cleaning, transport plans. All have been targets and all have been revealed for what they have been. The workings of the town hall are out in the open, much as it, like other town halls, would prefer that they remained inside and closed.

Transparency is one of the Alternative’s demands and one of its election promises. The lack of transparency, which is largely endemic to most town halls, has a collusive basis. When the Alternative pressed for a motion requiring the institution of greater transparency, it was rejected. More than this, it failed to receive support from other opposition parties, such as the Partido Popular, which abstained. Why would other parties not support this? You’d better ask them.

The lack of transparency, the lack of information make a true assessment of what is generally considered to be the parlous state of Pollensa’s finances (a state it shares with other towns) nigh on impossible. The hole in the finances could be considerably deeper than is admitted. It is a hole into which, for example, has been thrown the salaries of not one, not two but six full-time councillors, including one for fiestas. Why does any town need someone working full time on fiestas? The answer is that it doesn’t

The spend on fiestas is something which I have questioned in the past. The amount that goes up in smoke alone is far from insignificant. No one wants to lose the essence of fiestas, but are exercises such as cost-benefit analyses ever performed which might, or might not show what they bring in terms of return?

What has generally happened, with all sorts of spend on all sorts of contracts, services and events is that no one has sought to seriously question them, to seriously dig for answers, except the Alternative. In Pollensa, some of the worst-offending contracts (and not all contracts were ever actually contracts) pre-date even the benighted administration of the current mayor. Yet, prominent town hall figures, of whom some are seeking selection as mayor this time round, raised nary a quibble. It is for this reason that the air of collusion exists, the nod and a wink of that’s how things are done, the acceptance of opacity over transparency.

And behind all this, there exists something else. The local system. Garcia has a problem, in the unlikely event that he were to wish to break into the tight-knit network of contracts being granted. He is not from Pollensa. It makes his voice independent, but all the more liable to be harangued as the shrill cry of an outsider.

One can’t speak for every town or village in Mallorca, but the case of Pollensa surely has echoes elsewhere. They are those which reverberate with the same accusations, largely substantiated, that have come from Pollensa. Those of nepotism and a lack of transparency, which, in turn, lead to inefficiencies, exacerbated by systems of inadequate control.

All the main parties will do their schmoozing, all will offer their words which are ultimately vacuous. Some, and some mayoral candidates and others in different towns of Mallorca, may be genuine. But you can look at Pollensa and wonder.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Five Ten Fiftyfold: Pollen allergies

A doctor’s advice is all very well, but you are inclined to wonder. There’s the doctor for example, who, waiting to be called to the surgery, hangs around in a nearby bar having a smoke. He is not unique. Then there is the general health advice which is issued. In Mallorca, they do a lot of this issuing, and some of it, regardless of season, is the same. Such as keeping windows and doors closed. Why would you do this? In summer, to keep the heat out. In spring, to keep pollen out. Or such as not going out between the hours of eleven and three. Why not? Because in summer, it’s too hot and in spring the pollen is more likely to affect you.

Don’t have rugs or carpets, don’t hang washing out, do wear sunglasses. Life, you would think, is intolerable in Mallorca. Everyone should live like hermits in minimalist interiors, stripped of all textile products, with the windows tightly shut, the vacuum-cleaner permanently on. Pollen gets everywhere. The medical people issue their advice to tackle the problems, and no one of course takes a blind bit of notice. Wheezing and sneezing.

Just look at how nice those pine trees on Puerto Pollensa’s pine walk are. Not so nice when the pine is in full flower. Think how much the olive industry in Mallorca is valued. Yes, but the olives are the source of pollen, too. A great abundance of it. Less valued and less nice are the pellitory plants, the nettles, the lichwort, the sticky-weed, known also as the asthma weed. These can out-pollen even the pines and olives.

For all the advice and for all the lime-green stuff that flies about, I find it hard to think of people in Mallorca who have displayed overt signs of suffering from pollen allergies. Certainly not in the way people can be afflicted with hay-fever in Britain. And there’s a reason why. Despite what the medical people say, a different type of doctor, one who is a scientist at the university, says that conditions in Mallorca and the rest of the Balearics are pretty benign when it comes to pollen allergies.

So benign are these conditions in fact that there is a tourism opportunity. Seriously, there is talk of it. Compared with northern Europe and indeed the mainland of Spain, Mallorca is a haven for the hay-fever sufferer. From March to June, the wheezers and and sneezers of Britain, Germany and elsewhere can flee the pollen of their own countries and breathe more easily in Mallorca. In the Balearics, apparently, only 40,000 people suffer from pollen allergies.

This, though, is nothing like as many as populations of northern Europe who are affected by pollen: one in four people. I’m not sure how many more that equates to, and I’m certainly not going to try and work it out, but five, ten, fiftyfold more? Whatever the number, relatively it is very much higher.

It is also nothing like the over 150,000 people in the Balearics who suffer from allergies as a consequence of the house dust mite, which is the single greatest cause of allergic reactions on the islands. The climate and the dampness of Mallorca have its drawbacks, one of them being that it is perfect for the dust mite, a problem on the island that is tenfold that in the likes of Madrid and a problem that is greater than everything that flies around in the air.

Given that Mallorca is in fact like sucking on a Tunes and breathing more easily, you can understand why few people might pay attention to the window-closing advice. You can also but wonder what the fuss has been about in respect of the withdrawal of funding for the capturing of pollen data and for the provision of this information on the website of the Balearic Government’s environment ministry. The funding has been withdrawn because, well, funding is being withdrawn – period.

No, the fact is that wheezing and sneezing in Mallorca is more likely to be something to do with our mate the mite and not the pollen, and when the breezes are light, as they mostly have been lately, the pollen is tossed around far less. So you don’t need to close the doors and windows. But when gushing gust winds turn just up the north, then you might have to.

* Something of an annual event now, the pollen thing and the Cocteaus’ homage to wheezing and sneezing. Here this time, though, with lyrics (such as they are):

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Language At A Price: Promoting Catalan

If you thought that the forthcoming elections might just all be about the economy and might avoid the fractious topic of language, then think again. The two issues, the economy and cutbacks in public spending and language, specifically the promotion of Catalan, are coinciding.

Sorry, I need to be a bit clearer. When I say cutbacks, they don’t apply to the promotion of language. While there have been cuts in many areas of public provision and support, Catalan has not been one of them. Throw this little fact in front of the Partido Popular, and wait for the language to turn blue, appropriately enough for a party that is like the British Conservative Party.

The regional government has agreed to hand over 470,000 euros in the form of new support for what is the “social use” of Catalan. The money is distributed to town halls as well as to the likes of unions and even cinemas. It is all designed as part of a process of Catalan “awareness” and is driven by the ministry of education and culture, which is run by the PSOE socialist party, and which has under its umbrella the department for language policy, controlled by the nationalists of the Mallorcan socialists (PSM).

Though the full budget for this department was trimmed by 15% in 2010, it was nonetheless 45% higher than had been the case in 2007, the year of the last local elections. The existence of the language policy department is mirrored by there being responsibilities for language, by which is meant Catalan, at town-hall level.

Is it appropriate that Catalan should be enjoying governmental financial support at a time of austerity? Given reductions in public funding for other social purposes, then the answer is possibly no. The promotion of Catalan, however, is a political issue that can defy the rational, as was the case with the similar level of funding for promoting the use of Catalan in local restaurants.

There are, though, more fundamental questions. One is whether it should be any business of governments to involve themselves in what languages are spoken. The other is why is Catalan promotion needed in islands, the Balearics, where an overwhelming majority already speak it (or a variant thereof).

The answer to the second question is wrapped up, of course, in history, culture and politics. Despite the fact that Catalan has become the de facto official language, neglecting its dual status with Castilian, despite the fact that one has instances such as the secondary school in Porreres being criticised for conducting only 1% of its teaching in Castilian, the impulse to keep promoting the language remains strong. It isn’t perhaps necessary, but politics make it so.

Governments involve themselves in language, and none more so than the current Balearics regional government. The insistence on proficiency in Catalan as a necessity for working in the public sector has been a clear indication of this, an insistence that the Partido Popular would do away with. The politics of language policy are one largely of left and right, though not exclusively, as evidenced by pro-Catalanism within the PP itself.

Governments elsewhere involve themselves with language. The Welsh Assembly Government, for instance, states that it “has a statutory duty to support Welsh and promote its use”. In Ireland, Irish is the first official language, and public money for education is dependent upon Irish being taught, even if Irish is not treated as a first language in the educational curriculum.

At the very heart of the Spanish Government, the national parliament, you now have a situation in which languages other than Castilian can be used. In January, a Catalonian politician became the first to address the parliament in Catalan. This development has been criticised, and not just for its cost alone, but Spain is a signatory to agreements which obliges it to not just tolerate specific languages but also to promote them. And through the government’s regional wings, this is precisely what happens.

To answer the question as to whether governments should involve themselves with languages that are spoken: if not governments, so long as this involvement is tolerance or promotion and not repression, then who? It may cost nearly half a million euros for social use of Catalan, in addition to the six million plus that was spent on language policy in general in 2010, but it is a cost that comes with a moral and political obligation attached. The PP might do well to remember this.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Choice Words: All-inclusives

Is this the end of tourism choice? Quite the reverse. It is the choice of the tourist and of the market that has led First Choice to limit choice. To the all-inclusive.

First Choice has made a fair old splash with its announcement that from 2012 it will only offer all-inclusive. The splash has caused waves in the British press and locally. There was even a debate on Five Live. It was one in which all the old arguments were tossed around, as though the advantages and disadvantages of all-inclusive were suddenly a new area for discussion. It is far from new. What is, is what “Travel Weekly” headlined by saying is a “bold and shrewd” move.

This bold and shrewd move is, of course, marketing-led. It is designed, in the words of TUI, to “differentiate the First Choice product from Thomson and its competitors”. First Choice becomes the first “mainstream holiday company offering a completely all-inclusive portfolio”. In other words, what TUI is doing is to create an all-inclusive brand, i.e. First Choice. It has also said that hotels which are unable (and also perhaps unwilling) to go along with the all-inclusive offer will be shifted to the Thomson programme.

This latter bit is important, because, amidst the hype and what is doubtless a gnashing of teeth in Mallorca amongst bar and restaurant owners, is the fact that hotels to which First Choice gives primacy on its website at present are mainly already all-inclusive only. There may be hotels which are not exclusive to the company that will become so and which will go the full all-inclusive route, but until one knows how many (or any) additional hotels are actually affected, it is difficult to arrive at a complete picture.

I have previously drawn into question quite how all-inclusives fit with policies of so-called tourism sustainability. TUI (and this means both First Choice and Thomson) has made much of its commitment to this vague concept. With this in mind, it is instructive to learn how TUI is spinning the First Choice move. From a press release in “Travel Weekly”, therefore, I quote:

“We have been working with experts to see how we can increase the benefits of all-inclusive to local communities and putting in practices to do this.” “We are doing a lot of work … to increase communications whilst they (tourists) are on holiday, encouraging them to use local services.” “We are also setting up excursions that will enable customers to get a real taste for the destination they are visiting.”

This verges on the risible. When all else fails, invoke some anonymous “experts”. Who are they anyway? Encouraging tourists to use local services? Of course, and so undermine the very principle of all-inclusive. Setting up excursions? This is the biggest laugh of the lot. First Choice and other tour operators sell excursions. They always have done. The real taste? What do you think? Pirates?

To be fair to First Choice, they are right when they also say that “it is a myth that people do not go out of the hotel just because they’re on an all-inclusive holiday”. Yes, but how many actually debunk this myth and what do they do once out of the hotel? All-inclusives, perversely, want people to go out, because most of the hotels can’t cope and they’ve got their money already, thanks very much.

First Choice is bigging up its new offer with the bottom-line of a five hundred pound saving. This itself is a marketing-driven myth, as it depends on how drunk and how fat you want to get, but savings can, nevertheless, be derived; and these are one of the big attractions. Yet, the spin goes on. “With differentiated product, we will move further away from customers choosing tour operators based on cost alone, which is unsustainable.” Clearly they are and clearly a five-hundred quid saving is in fact unimportant; nothing to do with cost alone.

The good news may be that the First Choice offer will not be that significant. For now. It is further down the line that counts, and whether other operators decide to follow suit. What would be nice, though, would be for the tour operators to be less obfuscatory and to not hide behind the spin of sustainability.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.