Reflections Of The Way Life Used To Be

Back in the days when The Supremes were singing about reflections, things were very different politically in Spain. They didn’t have to worry much about mass demonstrations and they didn’t have to worry much about such demonstrations intruding into days of reflection before elections, as there were neither reflections nor elections.

Today is the day of reflection. What it means is that all political campaigning and indeed comment about the elections should cease prior to tomorrow’s elections. As a result, I shall not be talking about the elections. Indeed, I hadn’t intended talking about the day of reflection until the demonstrations across Spain began to gather momentum and it occurred to me that this day of reflection is archaic.

Let me make it clear. I think a day of reflection, one in which there is an abstinence from campaigning and comment is a very good idea. The trouble is that its practicality has been lost. While the mainstream press will observe the day and while the political parties will be silent, there will be a whole other world chattering away like fury: the Twitter and Blogospheres.

The social networks have been at least partially instrumental in garnering support for the protests that are and have been taking place across Spain. Together with what will continue to be said today on the internet, the power of the social networks is proving to another government, this time Spain’s, that when people feel strongly enough about something, the rules can be ripped up and chucked away.

For it is the rule about the day of reflection, sound in principle but outmoded in reality, that is creating a rod for the government’s back. As the protests have a political dimension, they have to cease as they break the rule. But try breaking the protests and the day of reflection will cause there to be a far greater political dimension. The government is in an intolerable situation, but it is one that shows how impotent or potentially reactionary governments can actually be, despite the best of intentions as encapsulated in the day of reflection.

The protests, camps in squares around the country, including Palma, and led by a movement called 15-M, have drawn comparison with events in other countries, most obviously Egypt, but such comparisons are pretty fanciful. Nevertheless, they are being taken seriously enough for President Zapatero to have acknowledged that there are reasons for discontent.

Though it is the national government that is taking the brunt of the protests in that it has to decide how to respond, as do the police, the protests are clearly directed at the whole political system. These are not protests against unemployment, cuts in wages or such; they are against the system and against corruption. “The New York Times” has, as an example, drawn comparisons between Silvio Berlusconi and the head of the Valencia regional government, Francisco Camps, who is likely to be re-elected but still faces the probability of being called to account in a court of law.

In the Palma protest, one of the demands made has been that the protesters want governments which deliver obedience: the governments’ own. The disobedience of the protesters, crossing into the day of reflection, will unravel in terms of what reaction there is from these different governments and police; the regional electoral commission in the Balearics has backed the central one in declaring protests today illegal.

And that’s all I’m going to say. Has this article broken the day of reflection rule? I don’t know. But you can’t have protests going on without there being comment. If one thing is to come of the protests, it may well be that it is decided that the day of reflection is more trouble than it’s worth. Which would be a shame, but these are modern times, and not those of the past.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Market Forces: Inca and other markets

An item of news that probably slipped under your radar a few weeks ago was the seemingly non-earthshattering report that leading tour operators, e.g. TUI, were planning to put Inca market back on their excursions’ itineraries.

The market, for all that it boasts being one of the island’s most important, if not the most important, and for all that its best-known event is November’s “Dijous Bo”, has not been as good as the “bo” in “Dijous” might have us believe. Or indeed, have the tour operators believe.

Excursions to the market were dropped last year; some operators had done so before this. The reason was that the market, though huge, had lost much of its attraction. There was in fact too much of it, and much of this too much wasn’t much good.

Inca town hall, recognising full well that coach loads of tourists not turning up every week means less money in everyone’s pot, set about remedying the situation, and agreement with the tour operators was forged in early April. More local craft stuff, a bit of the old ball de bot traditional dancing and, perhaps most importantly, getting rid of some of the stallholders. A total of 49 have been told they will not be pitching up at their pitches any longer, and some of them have come onto others’ radars – those of the tax man and social security.

Seeking to maintain the standards of the market was fair enough. Complaints about its overall quality and ambience increased last year. The town hall was forced to act. But it had taken the tour operators to really shake up the market’s supervisors.

This goes to prove what should be a principle accepted by many involved in the island’s tourism business: that the tour operators can make or break an attraction, a hotel, or even a market.

Those in the front line of encounters with the tour operators do of course know this well enough. Recently, I happened to be at some apartments when the new owner was showing Thomas Cook’s representative around. Once Mr T.C. had gone, the owner, beaming and rubbing his fingers, said that they would be signing a contract for a third of the apartments.

Back at Inca market, the tour operators had a legitimate point about its standards. But the fact that they acted and thus threatened the enduring success of the market demonstrated that even Mallorca’s traditions can be influenced by companies from Germany or wherever. You do begin to wonder if there isn’t more of this influence around. The fiestas, for example.

Inca market is not, though, an isolated case. Friends of mine who had not been to Sineu’s market for many years went a couple of weeks ago. This market is one which also enjoys the reputation of “traditional” and of being one of the markets that should be on every good market-goer’s schedule. They were disappointed. It wasn’t as it once was. It could be just like any other market.

The importance of the markets, not just for tourism but also as aspects of the fabric of local communities, has been highlighted by the temporary relocation of the market in Puerto Pollensa. Though not a traditional market in the same way as Inca or Sineu or even Pollensa town, the Wednesday market in the church square is popular.

While the square was being dug up, the market was shifted to a car park. For reasons known only to themselves, the town hall suggested that this move might become permanent. A survey of stallholders was meant to have taken place, but they probably gave up after the first few replies.

Besides the fact that the new site meant an obvious loss of car-parking spaces in a town not blessed with easy parking, the notion of it becoming the permanent site was absurd. Puerto Pollensa’s market may not be traditional, but it is also not a car-boot sale.

The markets have become more ragtag affairs, and I think we all know why. It is important that they don’t end up becoming like car-boot sales or flea markets for the lookies clan to ply their trade. The tour operators’ influence may be vast, but where the markets are concerned, and for Inca market in particular, the influence is not unwelcome.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Not Just A Single Issue: Local elections

(My apologies if the following is seemingly only directed at a Mallorcan audience.)

Will you be voting? If yes, it’s probably because you are interested and know what and for whom you will be voting. But you might also vote according to how it was and is in Britain. Traditionally Conservative, and you go PP; traditionally Labour, and you opt for PSOE. As for the other parties, well what are they about anyway?

Much has been made in the lead-up to the elections, except by the Spanish media of course, about issues as they affect the foreign community (and for our purposes, this means Brits) and the need for this community to vote as a way of registering an interest that would demand a vote in national elections.

I simply don’t get it. Yes, I understand full well the arguments about you pays your taxes, you should have your vote, and I understand the ruling (by Britain) which ultimately excludes British nationals in Mallorca from voting in British elections. But a national election is, and should be, for citizens of a specific country. It is an expression of nationhood and is for its citizens, not for others; the Single Market agreement in 1992 made it clear enough where the lines were drawn in respect of voting rights.

Then you have these so-called issues. The residence certificate, in other words. Again, I don’t get it. Yes, it’s an inconvenience, but there is more than a smattering of double standards about the demand for getting the card back. The brouhaha regarding the British ID card, whipped up not by the left but by the libertarian right, and especially David Davis, was perfectly legitimate in the objections raised. The British card did not have anything like overwhelming public support, so why should it be different here?

As an issue, for the local elections, it is a non-issue. For any party, i.e. the PP, to make it one by suggesting they will somehow bring pressure to bear for a change is cynical opportunism; the PP are playing to a British audience they suspect, rightly probably, will support them anyway.

On both these matters, national voting and the residence card, turn it around. Uppity Spaniards in Britain demanding the vote in a British national election and suggesting that they will vote locally for a party which might grant them the wish for an ID card. How would you react? The card issue, in the great scheme of things here in Mallorca, is an irrelevance. A single issue for a minority; the age-old tyranny of democracy.

Setting aside these matters, though, should you be interested enough to vote? That’s up to you. There are those who are interested, and I am one of them, but my interest is more in a role as an observer of the social phenomenon of Mallorca’s politics, of its more than occasional battiness, of the enduring strength of networks, tribalism and communities in influencing voter support. It is, if you like, the culture that interests, as much as if not more than the issues and whether so-or-so politician has been caught with his fingers in the till.

Will I vote? Probably. If, that is, I can be bothered to drive the ten kilometres and back to Muro town in order to do so. Who will I vote for? I really don’t know. In the town, I could vote for the current mayor and for maintaining Grupotel’s hold on the town hall, or maybe I’ll vote for Entesa, purely because they’ve hung a poster up on the lamppost outside.

It is what happens in Palma and in the Consulat de Mar, though, that will hold the greatest interest. The PP and José Bauzá should walk the regional election. If they don’t, something very odd will have happened; perhaps because the British had seen through their promises.

Bauzá may prove to be any good as president, but it is not the economy, employment, tourism, transport, health and all the rest that concern me about Bauzá; it is the social and cultural aspect. He has already proven himself capable of being divisive within his own party, and it is the wider divisions that he might cause which worry me.

Mallorcans aren’t a naturally radical people. They are conservative. There is a reassurance in this, in that it would prevail over what could be unleashed, namely a rejection of Bauzá’s anti-Catalanism in favour of a growth in radicalism and even extremism. But there again, it might not.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Fight ‘Em On The Beaches

Puerto Pollensa is not going down without a fight. You wouldn’t expect anything else. The bell is due to sound on the end of the four-year bout and, punch-drunk, they’re still at it.

If it’s May, it is time for the quadrennial elections and also for the annual kerfuffle surrounding Puerto Pollensa’s beaches. All you need to know by way of background to this is that each year the town hall manages not to get the contract sorted out for the umbrellas and sunbeds in time for the season. True to form, it has happened again this year.

In an act of altruism, the neighbourhood association in the port has taken on the task. But not everyone has been happy, including the company that is meant to be getting the contract, while it would not be a matter of town hall affairs in the port were Pepe Garcia and the Alternativa not to have its say.

Garcia, who is standing for mayor, suggested that there might be some financial shenanigans. From a report I read, it seemed as though he was levelling this charge at the neighbourhood association, a most unwise thing to do given that he would hope its members might support him.

The association seemed to read it as I had and said it would consider whether it had been defamed. Garcia insisted that he hadn’t meant the association but the town hall, but he may suffer a loss of votes because of the misunderstanding. Which goes to prove that beaches, and their management, are not something to be trifled with. Nor are their local politics and local turf wars.

Other towns have their issues with the management of beaches. I shall not identify the town or the beach, but the following example is indicative of the potentially lucrative business of being awarded with the concessions for beach management and of how the “system” can operate.

One particular lot on the beach in question had, the relevant town hall’s inspectorate was to discover midway through the summer, too many sunbeds and umbrellas. The company with the concession was duly fined. Was it unhappy? Not really; too many sunbeds and a consequent fine were part of the “system”.

When the tenders were put out for the lots on the beach, excessive bids were lodged as a means of securing the concession. The town hall was more than happy with this; of course it was. The winning bidder then went ahead and put out more sunbeds than it should have. More revenue for the town hall coffers; this time through a fine. The concessionaire was still not unhappy. Yes, it had paid more than it should have done and yes, it was fined, but it was still making money. More in fact than it should have been making. One imagines the fines and the excessive bid were taken into account in the business plan.

It wasn’t as though the town hall ordered the removal of the offending sunbeds. No, they were allowed to stay. And why do you think that was?

This “game” demonstrates how the process of beach management can and does operate. In this particular instance, however, there was a twist to the story, because local people, fed up with the sheer volume of sunbeds, took action. It should be remembered that beaches are public spaces. They belong to the Spanish state, and ordinary members of the public are entitled to use them without the space being over-invaded by money-making ventures.

What then happened was that the town hall itself faced a fine for allowing the situation to come to pass. Our old friends the Costas authority may usually trample across dunes in heavy boots looking for illegal buildings, but it does also have the final say-so when it comes to what goes on on the beaches.

As a result, the concessionaire was presented with a situation that hadn’t been bargained for; the government’s fine to the town hall being passed on. But even more was to come. A concessionaire, and there was more than one, suffered from having its sunbeds slashed. Over 500 were wrecked, and the cost of repair was put at 40 grand.

Which all goes to show that management of the beaches and sunbeds is far from being as gentile a past-time as building sandcastles. What’s been happening in Puerto Pollensa is positively serene compared with what can happen elsewhere. Fights on beaches, and kicking sand in faces.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

A Different World: Mallorca’s north-south divide

North, south, east or west. Wherever you may live in Mallorca, you will have a view as to where the place you live fits within the general scheme of things. My apologies, by the way, if you live in the middle, but for the purposes of the following, I’m afraid I will need to exclude you. But don’t feel put down, because you are not alone. And if you don’t live in Mallorca, you will still appreciate that location on the four main points of the compass can have meaning.

You may live in London, or you once used to; London and the south that have been damned for always being the focus of attention. It’s the media that’s to blame. Usually. But it has always been thus. Greater density of population, the capital city and the financial centre. And for England, read also Mallorca and Palma.

One needs to define what is meant by the south of Mallorca. In purely geographical terms, “the south” isn’t strictly accurate. The dominance of what is referred to as the Palma-Calvia axis lies to the south-west, but let’s ignore such pedantry.

The dominance is all but total. Everything revolves around the south and Palma in particular. You can judge for yourselves how the hierarchy works beneath Palma. It probably goes, in descending order, something like: Calvia, Manacor, Inca (and see, if you are in the centre, you aren’t neglected), Llucmajor, Marratxi, and then it’s anyone’s guess. If you are unfortunate enough to live right out on the east coast, you will know that, for all intents and purposes, you don’t exist.

The hierarchy reflects the degree of attention afforded different parts of Mallorca. It really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that certain places receive less, far less or even no attention. If no one much lives in these places, if nothing much happens, then what can you expect?

Nevertheless, there are genuine antagonisms, and none more so than the north-south divide. Well, the antagonism is felt by those in the north; I would very much doubt that it is reciprocated. And it is an antagonism that crosses nationalities. The natives are as disaffected by Palma-centricity, far more so in fact, as are incomers from other countries.

I’ll give an example that is not unrepresentative. The lady in my local newsagents in Playa de Muro lives in Alcúdia. Why, she wanted to know, was there no coverage of the Ironman triathlon in Alcúdia at the weekend. It was an international event which attracted some two thousand athletes. The newspapers, the television; they didn’t cover it. Had it taken place in Palma, it would have been a different story. I wasn’t inclined to disagree with her.

The triathlon may not, compared with other international sporting events, register that highly, but for Alcúdia, and for Mallorca, it was a pretty important event. To be fair, it wasn’t totally ignored. There was mention in sports pages, which is where you might expect it to be mentioned, but the point the lady in the newsagents was making was that there would have been considerably more hullabaloo if Palma (or Calvia) had staged the event.

So why the apparent neglect? The charitable defence of the media is that it is all a resourcing issue, and let’s not forget that there are elections looming, with all the coverage they require. Less charitably, one can perceive this as being indicative of a Palma-centric arrogance, aloofness and disinterest in anything outside Palma’s boundaries or those of its westerly neighbour.

It isn’t only in media circles that the divide exists. It is there in politics as well. For all the publicity given to corruption scandals, they don’t have much influence on towns well away from the dominant south. Miguel Llompart, Alcúdia’s mayor and likely to still be its mayor after 22 May despite his association with the discredited Unió Mallorquina, once told me that the scandals were all a Palma thing. They were largely irrelevant to what happened within the town.

And you can understand this, because, and it is the same anywhere, people identify most closely with their own communities. Alcúdia, and you can name any number of places in Mallorca, could be in another world compared with Palma. And as far as Palma is concerned, it is in another world.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Sundowners: Who runs tourism?

As the sun goes down over the Antich administration, so various interested parties are toasting its lowering into the political horizon with gin and tonics raised at the yard-arm and celebrating the coming reveille of what we must expect will be dubbed a new dawn of Mallorcan politics. It’s always a new dawn, as it is also always the end of an era.

Of these interested parties, one, the Mallorcan hoteliers’ federation, has been pushing itself to the front of the queue to get a good look at the beauty parade of the contestants for the tourism ministry in Bauzá’s Partido Popular government. Various announcements emanating from the federation have had a political edge and haven’t always been veiled, as with the thumbs-down it has given to the idea of Carlos Delgado becoming minister.

The federation’s most recent declaration is not quite so manipulative, but it is a warning to the new occupant of the ministry to ensure that it gets its priorities right.

When the current government gasps its final breath, a last post will be sounded for the dead body of the tourism ministry. Rather than it being buried with a stone that says “here lies the Balearics tourism ministry 2007-2011, may its sins be forgiven”, it will be taken to a quiet spot in the Tramuntana where no tourists can be bothered to go and dumped in an unmarked grave.

The ministry’s legacy will largely be one of it having produced the four riders of the tourism apocalypse – Buils, Nadal, Ferrer and Barceló – but it will also be remembered, if not mourned, for its inability to handle money, either legally or sensibly. And it is this that the federation is warning about.

The target for the federation is an online tourism logistics system that was first spoken about over a year ago and which is up for tender. The federation believes that it’s a waste of money, especially when money is so tight and certain spends, such as that for promotion to the Spanish domestic market, have been cut. The tender process itself is costing up to a million euros.

The federation is probably right to be questioning spend on IT projects at a time of shortage, but is there something more to all this?

An information system that is supposed to increase efficiency and hopefully also effectiveness within the chain of tourism business should, you would think, be something that the federation would welcome. However, if you go back to when the concept was first announced, there was the cracking noise of various noses being put out of joint, one of them being the federation’s. It wasn’t consulted.

If it is the case that the federation wasn’t involved, and appears to still not be involved, it is, at best, an example of lack of judgement by the ministry. You don’t create this sort of system without stakeholders, the users, being intimately party to its development.

You have to ask, therefore, why it wasn’t in the loop. Was it a case of the ministry flexing its muscles and showing who’s boss when it comes to tourism?

It is the suspicion that this may well be the reason which makes you wonder whether an inability to work with key sectors of and professional bodies within the islands’ tourism industry could be added to the list of sins perpetrated by the ministry over the past four years.

But, you can look at this a very different way. Yes, it may have been high-handedness on behalf of the ministry, but perhaps it wanted, needed, the opportunity to exert its authority. The federation, and it is not alone among bodies within the tourism industry in having its own agenda, can appear as being one which wants to call the shots.

The accusation by the federation that the ministry is mis-spending money could well be the PR spin to disguise the real intention, which is to send out a message to the incoming PP and its tourism minister that the federation expects to have its voice heard. It should have; of course it should. But lurking in all this is an issue as to whose voice is loudest and who it is who actually runs tourism.

The federation will probably have its wishes granted where Delgado is concerned, and if it does it will have proved it can exert its own muscle. And how much more might it wish to if the new minister is just another pale horse of tourism pestilence whose reins, like strings, might be easily pulled?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

For Whose Benefit?: All-inclusives

“The benefit it brought its surrounding area.”

If you make a statement such as this, without qualifying it, you can bet your life that someone – me – will hunt for some qualification.

The quote is from a short piece on Saturday in “The Bulletin” about TUI conducting a pilot study of the effects of all-inclusive hotels.

The study was undertaken in Turkey. At the Holiday Village in Sarigerme. The news item gave no detail, so let me now do so.

The benefit that TUI claims relates to what the hotel complex spends within Turkey itself. 55% of its total outgoings. This is not, though, the complete story. The study found that only 11% of tourist spending benefited the regional economy, a mere fifth of which found its way into the pockets of businesses in the village of Sarigerme (not the village’s actual name, but let’s not worry about this) and the surrounding area. How much does this equate to? One million euros. The study would appear to have been for the 2009 season.

According to First Choice’s website, the Holiday Village has 500 rooms, sleeping up to four people. Work it out for yourselves. Over a six-to-seven month period, one million euros will be spread pretty thinly; though Sarigerme is not a huge resort, it is a resort nevertheless.

The gloss in the report about the study is the so-called benefit of spending within the country. But so what? Hotels, in all sorts of places, source stuff locally, including Mallorca and including Mallorca’s all-inclusives. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about this. And even when stuff is sourced locally, as with the local booze that is commonly served in all-inclusives, and would appear to be at the Holiday Village, it isn’t always to the punter’s delight.

TUI know full well that all-inclusives have an impact. With the release of the information about this pilot study, the company is seeking to change the bad impression of all-inclusives. “Little research has been carried out” into the effects of all-inclusives, say TUI, implying that an absence of research means that the harm caused by all-inclusives has not been proven.

It is a diversion on the part of TUI to highlight matters of sourcing and employment, as it finds it hard to make a good case for all-inclusive impact on other elements of the local business scene. It is a diversion that shields behind its much-publicised and self-aggrandising sustainable tourism, of which purchasing local produce and giving people a job are two aspects.

I don’t question TUI’s sincerity, but they aren’t being quite straight. It seems no coincidence that, a month after First Choice made the announcement that it would only offer all-inclusive packages as from next year, TUI should now wish to show how such holidays can be of benefit.

The latest announcement echoes one of the laughable bits of spin that First Choice came out with – that of excursions which will enable its guests to get a taste for their destinations and to spend some money. At the Holiday Village, the guests will be able to enjoy a “walking tour” to the local village. For God’s sake.

Don’t be fooled by any of this. The pilot study may be “research”, it might even be good and rigorous research, but it is being done in the name of public relations. TUI have a point in that the impact of all-inclusives has not been well-researched, but the body of knowledge is growing. The company may like to know that the 11% of tourist spending is below that of 20% found by research in Hawaii. It may also like to know that Mallorcan research has revealed spend by all-inclusive guests to not just be the lowest among all categories of tourist but also over a third less than the next lowest-spending group.

But there is research and there is research, and it depends on the characteristics of different markets. Mallorca is not the same as Turkey because it is a far more mature tourism destination. The impact of all-inclusives might well be greater in more mature markets; this should be a strand of research in its own right. TUI say that more studies will be done. If so, then let them come to Alcúdia or Magalluf. Better still, give me the research spec, and I’ll do it for them.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Quackers In Can Picafort

It is the fate of certain places that they get lumped in with larger ones nearby or are thought to be a part of these neighbours. So it is with Can Picafort. It’s part of Alcúdia, isn’t it? No, it isn’t. It isn’t even a direct neighbour. Playa de Muro intervenes. But that’s part of Alcúdia, isn’t it? Wrong again.

Can Picafort suffers a fate twice over when it comes to what it is a part of. “It’s part of Santa Margalida!?” ask some, incredulously, who do nonetheless know that it isn’t part of Alcúdia. “Well, I never knew that. I always thought it was its own place.”

It’s a simple mistake to make, though. Can Picafort. Santa Margalida. Where’s the name link? There isn’t one. The resort is several kilometres away from the town that owns it: a once wealthy town, birthplace of Franco’s banker, Joan March, he of the Banca March. Its one-time affluence was what led a poor boy of the town to up sticks and find some then more or less worthless coastal land on which to build a home. Mr. Picafort. How he would be laughing nowadays.

The reversal in fortunes of town and resort is not dramatic, however. Can Picafort is, with the greatest respect, the poor man of the tourism-centre trinity of the bay of Alcúdia (you can pretty much discard Artà as a fourth member). Santa Margalida, if not a poor man’s town by any means, is not wealthy in the way that Alcúdia is.

Arguably, Santa Margalida should be better off than it is, if only because of the sheer volume of hotels in Can Picafort. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the benefits of the resort’s tourism have never quite rubbed off on the municipality. It could all simply be down to two quite different cultures that have never found a way to work with each other.

The meeting of these cultures was a feature of the town’s mayoral candidate debate. At present, the Partido Popular (PP) holds the whip-hand in the town. It governs in alliance with something called the CPU. Not a computer’s central processing unit, but the Can Picafort Unit.

One of the candidates, representing an amalgamation of the PSOE socialists and independents under an umbrella party called Suma pel Canvi, lambasted the CPU. It was responsible for “nonsenses” and “sins of management”, said Miguel Cifre. (How many Miguel Cifres are there, do you suppose, in Mallorca? But that’s a side issue.)

The PP and CPU are not responsible for all the sins of Can Picafort. One, the quite appalling state of the marina, has required a judge to arbitrate, giving the company which is meant to look after and develop the marina its marching orders. But the marina is symptomatic, despite an upgrading of the resort’s promenade, of what is widely felt to be neglect.

The bad blood between opposition and town hall government has never been far from the surface over the past four years. At times, it has come pouring out of the wounds inflicted on the PP, such as when the what is now the Convergència published a news-sheet with a front cover showing mocked-up 500 euro notes with an image of mayor Martí Torres. The squandering of public money was the accusation, which you might think was a bit rich coming from what was then the pre-corruption-charges Unió Mallorquina (UM).

The sheer pettiness of Santa Margalida’s politics was no better summed up than by what appeared to be a retaliatory gesture. The CPU’s Can Picafort delegate vetoed the handing out of trophies donated by the UM for a football tournament a day after the news-sheet appeared.

Back at the election debate, though, there was one issue which didn’t get a proper airing. It should have, because in the bizarre world of local politics, there is little more bizarre than the row that has been going on over Can Picafort and its August duck-throwing fiesta.

Can Picafort may be mistaken for being a part of somewhere else or for being a town in its own right, but its greatest claim to fame is that it’s the place where the burning issue is whether live or rubber ducks should be lobbed into the sea. If you think local politics and issues are mad elsewhere, they are positively sensible compared with those of Can Picafort. Absolutely quackers.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Smile, You’re On Camera

Video and the internet have enabled us to become virtual tourists. Though I worry that there are strange people who spend hours staring at a barely changing image of a promenade or sea front in Mallorca through the medium of a shaky webcam, to be able to drop in and take a quick view of what a place is like at any time does have some attraction.

One problem with webcams, other than the fact that the images are often not very good or the camera isn’t working, is that many of them aren’t registered. Mallorca is not a heavily surveillance society. It adheres to Spanish regulations governing data protection and privacy, but it is these regulations that webcams can flout.

Security cameras for property are meant to avoid showing the “public way”. In other words, they have to be trained on entrances, access points and so on and not, potentially, on members of the public who might be passing by. Regardless of whether the public way is being shown or not, the right authorisation and controls are needed, which come from the police and the data protection agency.

There has been an increase in public way surveillance, however, and this is as a result of the police requiring systems to watch for potential delinquency. Though this increase has caused some disquiet, the use of cameras is nevertheless authorised. Webcams often are not.

Webcams have cropped up in an unexpected context. The ongoing court investigations surrounding alleged corruption and other misdemeanours at the tourism ministry have now focussed on webcams that were put up following the ETA bombs in 2009.

It was not unreasonable for the regional government to think that ETA might just place a bomb or two on tourist beaches. The terrorist organisation had done so in the past. It was this concern that was the backdrop to the tourism ministry setting about putting up surveillance webcams on hotel sites that were trained onto the beaches.

On the face of it, this may sound like it was a sensible precaution. Sensible or not, little that was occurring at the tourism ministry or at its strategy institute, Inestur, during Miguel Nadal’s period as minister is escaping the scrutiny of the investigators.

But then, how sensible as a precaution was it? The number of webcams amounted to five in total. One of them was put up at the Nuevas Palmeras hotel, part of the Sunwing Resort, in Alcúdia. Anyone with even a vague idea of the geography of Alcúdia’s coastline will know that the beach stretches for several kilometres. The other four were in four different resorts. As surveillance measures go, they were of limited or even no use.

Apart from the fact that investigators might want to know if there was any government cash going somewhere it shouldn’t have, they also want to know whether permission was actually sought or indeed granted for the cameras to be put up. Furthermore, they want to know whether these cameras are still there, whether they are working, who exactly is looking at or controlling the images captured and whether these images have been or are being stored.

Here’s a question for you. If you are a sunbather on a beach in Mallorca, do you want a camera to be watching you? I suspect you don’t. And this goes to the heart of the privacy laws. The investigators are quite right to be taking a wider interest in the webcam affair than just any possible financial wrongdoing.

A mystery of this case is the line of authorisation. No mention is being made of the security forces. It was Miguel Nadal, the tourism minister remember, who appeared to order the cameras’ installation; for the regional government, either through the tourism ministry or another agency, to undertake the sort of surveillance which appears to have occurred (may still be), it has to refer the matter to the delegation for the Balearics at central government.

It’s all about checks and balances. Privacy and data protection are taken seriously in Spain. The contrast is sometimes made between the liberal application of privacy laws in Britain with the greater rigour in Spain and in Germany. The contrast owes much to contrasting political regimes of the last century.

It may all seem pretty innocent, sticking up a webcam and showing views of a beach or a promenade or whatever. But there are meant to be rules.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Getting It Wrong: Tourism promotion

At the same time as various agencies are criticising the regional government’s tourism ministry for pulling the plug on promotion to the Spanish market, the same government is turning out its largely empty pockets to scrape together 50 grand for some different promotion; more of this below.

The failure to promote to the Spanish market for the lower months of the main season is due to a lack of funds. Does this matter?

It is easy to overlook mainland tourism, yet it forms, along with the British and the German markets, one of the three most important markets for Mallorca. It has its own characteristics. It is one that is accused of being the most miserly when it comes to spend and it is, obviously, not a foreign market. For the Spanish, a holiday in Mallorca is a “holistay”.

Though Spanish tourists might be more aware, regardless of promotion, of what is available to them in their own country, it doesn’t mean they should be ignored. They are also, like their British and German counterparts, subject to what happens in the world, i.e. they go to places like Egypt; or don’t, as the case may currently be.

You wonder if behind this lack of promotion (other than the fact that the tourism ministry is all but bust) is the hope that the overseas (and potentially higher-spending) markets are going to be that strong this season that promotion to the home market doesn’t indeed matter. But it may matter for different parts of Mallorca.

The distribution of Spanish tourists is heavily loaded towards the south of the island, with Palma a particular attraction. By contrast, in the northern resort of Alcúdia, the volume of Spanish tourism typically accounts for only 8% of total tourism. It’s still 8%, nonetheless.

But there is a more fundamental issue, and it is one that gets back to just how effective, or not, any of this promotion and marketing really is. And that’s where the 50 grand spend on something else comes in.

The national tourism ministry is putting together a promotion package, to be directed to both the home and foreign market, that will amount to nearly 500,000 euros in total, one tenth of which will come from the Balearics. It’s a small amount, but the size is not what matters. It’s what this plan is.

It is for the promotion of the estaciones náuticas. In Mallorca, there is one of them. In Alcúdia. Not that you would really know. At the risk of repeating myself, because I have spoken about this before, an estación náutica is not a physical entity, it is a marketing concept. One that is meant to promote a resort’s water sports and related activities; water sports and related activities which already exist.

Are you aware of any marketing of this marketing concept? Well, there is some. There is a website, not for Alcúdia’s estación náutica specifically, but for the estaciones in general. I didn’t know about it until I spoke to a business which is one of the so-called related activities. It is not a big concern, without a huge amount to spend on promoting itself. It is nervous that the 500 euros it has paid to feature on this site is a complete waste of money.

I would be nervous, too. But then I wouldn’t have spent 500 euros on a website for a questionable concept that is just an umbrella for all the various estaciones náuticas and which also, at present, does not provide a version in any of the languages its flag icons suggest – English, for instance.

I guess you can say that the marketing concept has been successful insofar as it has persuaded a business, which can ill afford to do so, to part with 500 euros. But what is any of it going to achieve?

The Balearics have five other estaciones – three in Menorca. I have a question. Where is the evidence that they have benefited Menorca? The island has been suffering a decline for some time. Has this marketing concept helped? I would seriously doubt it.

And this is the real point. It doesn’t matter in the slightest what is spent. If it’s spent badly, if the concept’s lousy, then no amount of money makes any difference. I hope that I am proven wrong where the estación náutica idea is concerned, but I fear I might not be.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.