The World’s Greatest Newspaper Outrage

When Angus Deayton became the news, his position as presenter of “Have I Got News For You” became untenable. You can’t have a news comedy show in which one major item of news might be skirted around (it wasn’t of course) and in which that major item is squirming as the barbs come in from both sides.

Deayton was caught in a web spun by the “News Of The World”. Like Deayton, when a newspaper becomes news – bad news, really bad news – its position becomes questionable. Newspapers exist to report news, not to be the news. A truism you might think, except that it isn’t true.

Newspapers acquired long ago a sense of their own importance to such a degree that they have made and make their own front pages. But when this self-importance becomes so inflated that it causes a break with reality and becomes so arrogant that it strips away any vestige of moral code, then all respect is lost.

This self-importance witnessed its final, appallingly self-congratulatory act on Sunday. “The world’s greatest newspaper 1843-2011.” How dare it?

Journalists at the “News Of The World” can rightly feel indignant at the paper’s closure – those whose methods have not been underhand, that is – but they have reaped the failed harvest of a culture into which they bought. Taking the “News Of The World” shilling meant living by its moral code, or lack of one. Its fall from grace may have been the product of a small and secretive cadre associated with the paper, but this lack of grace had long existed within the paper’s consciousness and ethic of nastiness, bullying and arguably anti-democracy through abuse of power.

The Brit bars of Mallorca will now be deprived of a paper that, on Sundays and as breakfasts and roasts were consumed, became ever more grease-marked and ketchup-splattered. Many a Brit bar applies a principle of the LCD and provides for its customers the lowest common denominators of “The Sun” and the “News Of The World”. The bars may not have to wait long for a replacement. Rather than titles that have been suggested (and indeed registered two days before the announcement of the closure of the “News Of The World”), why not simply call a new rag “Sunday”. Murdoch has aspired to dominate in other spheres, so taking over the sabbath should pose no great difficulty and thus reinforce the arrogance and self-importance.

The LCD principle and its accompanying salaciousness play well among an expat and tourist audience, just as they play well with the inpat (I’ve invented another new word) back in the UK. This audience no longer has the “News Of The World” to feed its hunger for scandal and the shallow, but it will not cease to have an appetite.

William Rees-Mogg, the former editor of “The Times”, has referred to losing touch with the moral codes of the readership, defined – by him – as common sense, goodwill, help to neighbours and decent conduct in general. However, because the audience’s appetite will never be fully sated, is Rees-Mogg right? Be the audience expat or inpat, what actually is its moral code?

Amidst all the discussion about the goings-on at the “News Of The World”, it was the more sensationalist aspects of the paper’s desire for the sensational, the hacking of the phones of dead servicemen’s families and those of the parents of murdered children or the children themselves, which informed the expat (and inpat) audience debate as it thumbed through the last copy and sipped a cold San Miguel or a warm John Smiths.

The moral code of the audience isn’t offended; rather, it is stripped as bare as that of the perpetrators at the “News Of The World”. The audience laps it up and craves more; it requires being outraged by further news of the actions of a newspaper it relied upon to pander to its own outraged voyeurism.

The “News Of The World” could only have ever gone out in one way: the way it has chosen, through one grand act of self-destruction born out of the uncontrolled pursuit of the sensational, out of its disregard for morality and out of its self-importance and viciousness. The audience was not a participant in this final act, but it was a willing participant in all that went before. It feels let down. Not so much by the actions of the paper but by the disappearance of a source to feed its fix of the drug of being outraged.

Edwina Currie, who knows a thing or two about the salacious exposé, having manufactured one of her own, has placed blame for the paper’s downfall on the audience being voracious consumers of the questionable or the immoral. But then what comes first? The chicken of the public’s prurience or the egg poisoned with the salmonella of journalistic immorality? Both parties are culpable.

The “News Of The World” may have believed that whatever stories might have emerged from its hacking would have had the public on its side. Sadly, it was probably not wrong in believing this. It is the conspiracy between paper and public that is the real moral of this story and how low each will stoop in feeding and consuming the salacious.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Widening The Umbrella: Beaches

I must have told you the story of the javelin-throwing nudists of Cap d’Agde. Surely I have. But if not … To set the scene, and just to add that they weren’t in fact javelins, the mayor of Agde, some time in the mid-90s, decreed that “pornographic” activity on the nudist beach had to stop. This meant, of course, that the order was mostly ignored. Things came to a head one summer when certain nudists, numbering several hundred, or so it seemed from a safe distance, were confronted by riot police on horseback during the early evening shag-in that used to occur at the far end of the beach. It was at this point, point being apt, that the nudists retaliated. The poles from beach umbrellas rained down on the police.

I tell this story, not because beach-umbrella poles are commonly used on Mallorcan beaches as offensive weapons, but because these poles could theoretically cause harm. And they are most likely to when the wind suddenly gets up.

Umbrellas are becoming, like balcony diving, the theme of this summer. The main theme has to do with the companies providing the umbrellas, the reed or grass-made ones, as opposed to the multi-coloured ones with a pole that fly into the air at the merest hint of a breeze. The kerfuffle in Puerto Pollensa over provision of umbrellas and other services appears to have died down, only for it re-emerge in Can Picafort.

There is a connection between the two. F&A Beach, the Puerto Pollensa operator, has had concessions on Playa de Muro beach, as has Bernat Riutort. They have not exactly seen eye to eye in the past. Anyway, Riutort is running the Can Picafort concession this year, and a familiar story has cropped up, one familiar to anyone who was aware of the over-provision of beach umbrellas in Playa de Muro in the past.

The mayor of Santa Margalida, Miguel Cifre (always a Miguel Cifre), said that there were too many umbrellas and sunbeds. Way too many in fact. Oh no, there weren’t, came the Riutort retort. Plod was duly despatched, unmolested and not attacked by beach umbrella poles, as would be the practice in the south of France, and found that an order for the removal of the excessive numbers of umbrellas had been complied with. “For now,” mayor Cifre has observed cryptically.

The over-proliferation of umbrellas on Can Picafort’s beach had one big advantage. Sorry, two big advantages. One was that the umbrella sunbedsraum of the beach meant that more beachside businesses had umbrellas in front of them. Now that they have been taken away, businesses are complaining and demanding that they be put back. The other big advantage was that by making it impossible to find any space that wasn’t occupied by a static umbrella meant that umbrellas on poles couldn’t be planted. And the big advantage with this was that the likelihood of death by beach-umbrella pole was lessened considerably.

I have wondered, especially as a beach umbrella hurtles past me or crashes into me in mid-snooze, whether any litigation has resulted from flying poles. They are normally the result of negligence. Off go the owners into the water or to the beach bar, leave the umbrella up, wind suddenly gets up and off goes the umbrella. And what about the harm to the environment? Wind in the right direction and the umbrella makes a dash for France, assuming it has come from a beach in the north of Mallorca. Might be useful of course if it makes its way as far as Cap d’Agde, but otherwise it will eventually come to rest and clog up the Med.

The beach umbrella, offensive though it is, is not the worst beach offender. Other items of beach furniture, though less likely to cause injury, could be said to contravene certain regulations. The beaches are public spaces, and one reason why a concessionaire putting too many umbrellas out falls foul of a town hall is that he is occupying too much of that public space.

The same could be said, however, for the beach tent. They take that much time to erect that by the time they are put up it is time to go home, and they offend in the sheer amount of space they demand. They are also offensive in reinforcing the fact that, whereas going to the beach used once to be a straightforward enough procedure, it now requires a removals van, and this includes the dog, which shouldn’t be there at all, but which is then hidden from view of the beach plod inside the tent.

No, rather than tents, rather than life-threatening umbrellas and poles, let the concessionaires put out as many of their umbrellas as they like. After all, the town halls should worry. All those lovely fines.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Henry The Seventh: Social media success

Do you “like”? Do you “tweet”? Do you tube? Does your business do any or all of these things and, if so, does it really know what it is doing with them?

Social media. Social networks. Once upon a time, social networks were just networks of people, doing what people do, i.e. being social, being friends, being business acquaintances. Whatever the type of network, the purpose is the same: to make contact and connections.

And that’s what it’s about. “Making connections.” The words of Seamus Cullen at No Frills Excursions when I told him I was going to be talking to his business partner, Toni Alenyar, about social media.

No Frills is a small business, but it is a successful one, and one reason why it is successful is that it goes about its business in a purposeful fashion. It plans. And among its plans is one for the use of social media. I have a copy: all fourteen pages of it.

Not every business can devote significant time and resources to social media, but most have come to appreciate that they are, as Toni says, “essential tools”. Many businesses have Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and the like, but do they really appreciate what they are doing with them?

No Frills is guided by a seven-step strategy. It is one that is partly specific to it as an excursions’ operator, but most of the steps can be applied to or adapted by any business. How the company uses social media is geared to meeting one or more of these seven steps. Crucially, they are not the company’s, they are the customer’s.

From the customer’s seeking of holiday inspiration and information to his planning and decision-making, to his taking action (making a booking and travelling) and to his sharing of his experiences, social media accompany each step along the way.

No Frills tests out any social media going. With some it is a case of learning what they offer and which may assume greater importance in the future. But with all its social media activity, there is a wish for the business to be visible, to enhance its reputation and to be seen as innovative.

Of the different networks, the most important to the company are Facebook, You Tube and Trip Advisor. The glowing reviews that No Frills attracts on Trip Advisor come quite obviously as a result of good experiences and good service, but the company actively encourages customers to review what it does, whether good or not so good, and spends time in responding to reviews which are posted.

The sharing of experiences by customers on Trip Advisor is the seventh step in the company’s strategic approach, but it can just as easily be seen as the first step. As Toni points out, Trip Advisor is that significant now that a majority of travellers consult it as part of their initial planning.

The attention given to the traveller’s information-gathering process is one that has led No Frills to be highly proactive and innovative. For example, it now makes short videos about hotels and posts them on You Tube. Why? Because someone interested in coming on holiday searches for information about specific hotels. No Frills videos give a short tour of the hotel and other relevant information about the resort, and relevance is a keyword in Toni’s vocabulary.

But how does this benefit the business? It’s not about selling as such. Of course, selling is the outcome that is sought, but it comes back to making connections. Someone sees a video about a hotel, it comes from No Frills, there will be some means of connecting to more No Frills information and the result … There may be a sale either online or in-resort. Critically though, trust and credibility are being created.

Actually quantifying the benefits of the company’s social media activity is nigh on impossible. Toni freely admits this. But then much promotional activity is hard or impossible to quantify. It is hard to place a value on the benefits derived from visibility, reputation and innovation, but social media, used well and planned well, will bring such benefits, and the importance attached to social media by No Frills is reflected by the fact that there is now a full-time member of staff who concentrates on the company’s internet presence.

There is way more to the No Frills internet story. I’ve not mentioned how Google search enquiries have helped to create a whole separate website, I’ve not mentioned that each of the four No Frills offices (three in Puerto Alcúdia and one in Puerto Pollensa) has its own You Tube channel, and I’ve not mentioned Henry the elephant. You might guess though that Henry has his own Facebook page.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Great Reform Act: Mallorca’s hotels

President Bauzà and tourism minister Carlos Delgado have been parleying with the hoteliers. Love is now in the air where once were poisoned arrows, those being lobbed by the hoteliers in Mr. D’s general direction.

Delgado is promising the hotels just about everything they might have wished for: a change of use for obsolete hotel stock; a new tourism law that will make procedures more flexible; a crackdown on illegal accommodation. Throw in some redevelopment of resorts and you have just about the perfect result for the hotels.

Just about, but not entirely. The redevelopment of Playa de Palma, still being battled over and still short of funding, is held up as the model for resort upgrading elsewhere – Magalluf and Alcúdia have been mentioned specifically – but not all hotels in Playa de Palma want to see changes that might remove the bread and butter of the three-star hotel.

But plenty do want improvements. Mallorca’s tourism industry suffers from having been one of the first locations of the tourism industrial revolution of the mid-twentieth century. As with all original infrastructures, they become obsolete or old-fashioned; hence the desire to redevelop the resorts.

Knocking old hotels down isn’t really an option except in extreme cases, but upgrading them or converting them is. One type of conversion would see hotels become condohotels; another would let them become residential. With either option, and depending on the precise nature of what “condo” might actually entail and what constraints, if any, were placed on what could be done with these residential former hotels, what you might end up with is a system whereby holiday lets are made available under the control of the hotels.

You can conclude, therefore, that behind the opposition to holiday rentals and behind what is now meant to be a more rigorous approach to stamping illegal ones out, there is another dynamic. The hoteliers aren’t daft. They know full well that a market, a very sizeable market, exists for accommodation which isn’t that of the hotel. What could be better than to get hold of that market as well, whilst at the same time seeking to eliminate or limit alternatives.

The hotels have been lobbying to be able to undertake conversions for some years. The consequence of this, however, together with a reduction in total hotel stock envisaged under plans for Playa de Palma (and therefore elsewhere, you would think) and the fact that Delgado doesn’t foresee new hotels springing up in abundance, is that there will be fewer hotel beds around.

This could all make sense if you believe that Mallorca’s tourism should become leaner if not necessarily meaner. However, take a certain number of hotel places out of the equation and the attack on the holiday-rentals market looks even more ludicrous than it already is.

Following my article of 5 July (“No Hope”), I had some correspondence on the issue, and one question that came up was just how many hotel beds there are in Mallorca. I’d thought finding the answer would be difficult. It wasn’t. Thanks to the Fomento del Turismo (the Mallorcan tourism board), I discovered that in 2005 there were 283,436 beds. The figure won’t have changed materially. It was also easy, because I had written about it before, to find out how many tourists, at the very height of the summer season, there are. In August 2008, the number peaked at 1,930,000 in the Balearics; it will be higher this year.

Allowing for the other islands and various other factors, you can guess that, at a conservative estimate, there are at least as many tourists who stay in rental accommodation such as apartments and villas as there are those who stay in hotels. If the hotels cut their overall capacity, and even if they don’t, were holiday lets to be driven out of business or to be hounded more than they already are, where on earth would everyone stay?

The hotels might think that condos and hotels converted to residential use might go some way to housing these tourists, but the numbers would surely not be great. Plus, you would have lost those hotel beds into the bargain. Far from holiday lets being “unfair competition”, they are in fact a competitive necessity – for Mallorca and its whole tourism industry.

I have high hopes for Delgado. He should go some way to proving that these hopes are not misplaced. He should look at the total mix of the industry he now presides over and come to a conclusion that the hoteliers might not like, but which Mallorca can ill afford to be without.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The New Model Fiesta

The rumours had been circulating, and for once they proved to have substance. Puerto Pollensa’s summer fiesta of Virgen del Carmen will have neither a firework display nor a beach party. The fireworks that finish off Pollensa town’s Patrona fiesta in August are a likely further victim of the financial crisis at Pollensa town hall. What else? Will Cala San Vicente, treated as a sideshow anyway, have any sort of a fiesta this summer?

It comes as no great surprise, other than that it has taken till this year for reality to bite. The funding shortages have been there for ages. They existed B.C. (before crisis), but no one thought to do much about them, ever reliant on government funds or taking on extra debt that town halls are now forbidden from doing.

In 2009, cuts to fiesta budgets did start to come in. In Pollensa, for instance, there was supposed to have been a reduction of up to 25%. If there indeed was, and the main targets were said at the time to be the autumn and wine fairs rather than the fiestas, then it wasn’t necessarily obvious.

If there are to be cuts to the fiestas, and there have to be, then what should their priorities be, who should pay for them and who indeed should organise them? Is a firework display, for instance, a priority? It depends on how much it costs, and getting to that information isn’t always straightforward.

One town, Felanitx, cut its budget for fireworks by 2,000 euros in 2009, so that it cost 3,000 euros. My guess is that displays in resorts such as Can Picafort and Puerto Pollensa require a far larger wedge. Upwards probably of 10,000 euros. More possibly.

In itself, this doesn’t sound like a lot. In the context of this year’s budget for fiestas in Puerto Pollensa of 30,000 euros, then it is. But note that it is fiestas and not fiesta. The budget was for both Virgen del Carmen, now stripped of its fireworks and beach party, and the Feria del Mar and Sant Pere fiesta just gone. Yet, the main fiesta is Virgen del Carmen. Sant Pere may not cost a lot by comparison, but why didn’t they just scrap it? Why have two fiestas three weeks apart? And on the religious angle, Sant Pere, or rather his image, gets dragged out during the Virgen celebrations, so what’s the point of the earlier event?

The argument goes that the fiestas bring in tourists. I’m not convinced that they do, except those which occur out of season. There may be some tourists who book holidays expressly with the fiestas in mind, but how many is some? I’m sure no one has bothered to find out. But as there is so much entertainment being laid on, then maybe those who enjoy it, whether specifically attracted by fiestas or not, should contribute to the cost.

I don’t have a good suggestion as to how you would create a mechanism for doing so, but assuming one could be dreamt up and let’s say you have five thousand tourists knocking around, charge them all two euros a pop and bingo, there’s the cost of your fireworks covered. And while you’re at it, what about charging people from other towns? They don’t pay the local taxes.

If not tourists paying, then what about the private sector? In the town of Dos Hermanas in the province of Sevilla, business has come to the rescue of the fiesta firework display. Put such a suggestion to businesses in Puerto Pollensa, and it would probably go down like a lead balloon, given the poor relations with the town hall and gripes about services for which taxes are paid, but the involvement of the private sector is common enough in other countries. In the USA, for example, the money for fireworks at fairs typically comes not from local authorities but from fundraising and from business.

And then there is the issue of who organises the fiestas. There has been talk of local people in Puerto Pollensa trying to stage the missing ingredients to the Virgen fiesta. In Inca, they have already looked to involve the locals in fiesta organisation. As a general principle, were the local citizenship charged with doing the organising, were it given a grant by the town hall (lower obviously than what it would otherwise spend), then this would not only give the local population greater “ownership” of the fiestas, it would also bring about a mix of private-public funding.

Perhaps we have to accept that the fiestas got too lavish for their own good and that a return to a more basic fiesta becomes the norm; DJs playing dance music isn’t exactly traditional. Or perhaps we should now expect a different model for the fiestas, and one that isn’t dependent upon the public purse.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Tender Trap

Trains don’t have tenders as such any longer. What they do have are tenders of a different type; public ones to arrive at which firm gets the contract for this or that. Or to not arrive at. The tender for the train now arriving at Sa Pobla station has been delayed. We are sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused.

The trains operated by SFM (Serveis Ferroviaris de Mallorca) and the railway stations on the lines to Sa Pobla and Manacor from Palma are not being cleaned. The contract ran out at the end of June. The new tendering process has not been completed; indeed it seems to have all but run out of steam. As a consequence, the trains and stations are gathering litter and at Inca station the loos are shut because there is no hygiene service.

How is it that there can be such a break in continuity of service? Did someone fail to notice that a new contract was due? The answer is probably down to a failure of bureaucracy.

Though the rail service in Mallorca is pretty reasonable and inexpensive, there is something distinctly not right with it. Apart from the collapse of the extension to Alcúdia from Sa Pobla, it took ten months to get the line between Manacor and Sineu up and running again following an accident which occurred in May last year, and then you have the situation regarding the re-development of the old line between Manacor and Artà. When will it be completed? Will it be completed?

The new track and other facilities were due to have been completed some time between May and September this year. They won’t be. They might be completed by the end of next year. Or they might not be. There is, and you might have guessed it, an issue with financing. However, that there is this issue with financing is a slight surprise.

When the Alcúdia extension was scrapped, funding from Madrid was meant to have been transferred to the Manacor-Artà line. If it was, then where is it? Or was there always going to be a shortfall on the budget that has now gone up to 150 million euros? Construction firms involved in the project are being left unpaid, indicative of a general malaise in the island’s public sector of non-payment of suppliers, and one that President Bauzà is meant to be tackling.

Coming back to the breakdown in the tendering process for SFM’s cleaning service, this highlights an issue as to how well or not the bureaucracy works in making the process happen smoothly. Putting out to tender makes contracts more transparent, but it doesn’t always go to plan and indeed you wonder why it is really necessary.

As ever, we can rely on events in Puerto Pollensa to shed some light on the strange world of tendering in a Mallorcan style. Firstly, an example of when there is no tender. This occurred with the granting of a contract (later rescinded) to a firm charged with coming up with a general transport plan for the resort. The firm which was awarded it just so happened to have a family connection with the then town hall delegate for Puerto Pollensa. Something seemed a bit fishy, or so thought a number of people, especially as the firm in question had not previously undertaken such a project.

So much for transparency, something that the new mayor is planning to address. And being transparent and being seen to do the right thing was probably behind the mayor’s demand that Sail and Surf should cease operations, only for him to say a couple of days later they could continue.

The story of Sail and Surf is bizarre. The sailing school has been in Puerto Pollensa for 40 years. What happened was that the school wanted a reduction in what it paid to the town hall. It was agreed that there would be a reduction, but, and despite having an annual concession with a four-year extension, the town hall reckoned that this demanded a new contract and therefore a new tender process.

Why such an established business should need to go through the rigmarole was anyone’s guess. But the rigmarole was started and then got lost. As a result, the school started up again this year, someone found that everything wasn’t quite in order, and the mayor, as I say, probably needing to be seen to be acting correctly, said the school had to stop. Then they could carry on, and an emergency tender notice for the “lot” that Sail and Surf has was posted onto the town hall’s website. And the result of all this will be?

Not getting round to a new tendering process, not doing it all, or doing it but then forgetting that it was being done, when it was pointless doing it at all. The tender traps of Mallorca.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

No Hope: Private holiday lets

Justin in Paris has made 90,000 dollars. Daren in London has raked in 100 grand. In Mallorca, you can expect to coin in 2003 euros per month.

An advert on a Facebook page demanded a damn good clicking. Make money in Spain, it said. Rent out your place to travelers (all American travellers, therefore, as they are lacking an “l”) and make 75 euros+ per night. Interesting, I thought. Not because I want to rent out to travelers or even travellers, but because it is quite possible that anyone wishing to – in Mallorca – shouldn’t.

On the site, there was Daren, relaxing, sound in the knowledge of the 100 grand he had made. Novi from San Francisco was smiling, thanks to her 30,000 dollars. Justin looked suitably satisfied with his ninety thousand.

The 2003 euros was the calculation for a month to rent out an apartment in Palma or Pollensa. I went and had a look. Was anything actually available in Mallorca? Yes. Not much, but there were some places. By the night or longer. Some with photos, some without. Not having a photo doesn’t really “sell” a place, but there might be good reason for there not being a photo.

It’s kicking off again. The periodic wielding of the holiday-rental stick. The tourism ministry and friends at the tax authorities are spending their days in earnest perusal of websites, mainly British ones, seeking to identify properties for holiday rent. An announcement was made last year that web pages in particular would come under scrutiny, and a similar announcement has been made this year as well.

John Lance, in his letter to “The Bulletin” (Saturday, 2 July) made the point well enough, as he has in the past, about the lunatic situation in respect of holiday lets in Mallorca. The “grey area” he referred to isn’t really all that grey. Want to now license your property for holiday rental? You can’t.

There are plenty of properties which are licensed but they date back to and before the registration of, when was it, three, four years ago. Even then, however, there was massive confusion, and the dice were heavily loaded against apartment owners. The greyness of the situation is especially so with apartments, but it isn’t so grey if you accept the version which states that you cannot rent out private apartments as holiday lets at all.

The tourism ministry has wielded its stick. In February, there were reports relating to action taken against owners of apartments in Santa Ponsa, to what was being offered, and to the fact that the apartments were being advertised via a UK website. And then there were the fines. Up to 30,050 euros.

We know the arguments in favour of more relaxed rules on holiday rentals: not everyone wants to stay in a hotel; tourists in private apartments and villas tend to spend more; a mix of accommodation types reflects the diversity of the tourism market. We know the hoteliers’ arguments against: they have the hoops they have to go through; they invest heavily; they are a key source of employment. Like the endless all-inclusive debate, none of the arguments are new.

The hoteliers can, however, be somewhat disingenuous. When the Santa Ponsa reports were coming in, the head of the local hoteliers’ association said that the competition from private apartments was unfair. Yes, but turn it around. Owners could argue the case of restriction of trade and of unfair competition that denies them the chance to properly register and market their properties.

As John Lance remarked, this could all end up with Europe getting involved. But for property owners, the problem is the lack of any co-ordinated voice. The hoteliers know this, and so, as importantly, does the Balearic Government.

It might be remembered that the hoteliers, well before the elections, expressed concern as to the appointment of Carlos Delgado as tourism minister. Now they express contentment, and Delgado, who one might hope might be more willing to throw off the shackles of trade restriction, has announced his intention to collaborate with the hotel sector in making the tourism law more flexible. And one aspect of this is the residential use of tourist establishments. Owned by the hoteliers, I think we can assume this to mean.

Just as is the case with its dealings with the major tour operators, a government in the Balearics, be it PP or PSOE, cannot afford to alienate the hotel sector. If there was hope that the private rental market might be treated more favourably by the new government, then I’m afraid it was probably a forlorn hope. And it will remain one.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Language Rules: Don’t enter containers!

“All concerts will start punctually at 22:00 hours.”

So far not so bad. Bit of a problem with “22:00 hours” and the rather direct tone, which makes it sound like a police report, but then this is all part of the “rules”, as will become evident.

“The entry will only be allowed in their precinct in the rest among the pieces of the program, if there is some.”

Erm, now things get a tad awkward. We have a definite article “the entry” where a definite article is not required. We also have a “program” that can normally only be a “program” if it is American or a piece of software. We also have a totally meaningless sentence. If there is some what, exactly?

“The persons foreign to the organization can not make pictures, nor filming or enregistramens.”

Ok, so the persons are presumably in fact people, as, and again a bit like police reports, persons are not generally the correct plural form. And who are these persons? They’re foreigners. Is this right? From abroad. Tourists perhaps. Whoever they are, they “can not” where normally they “cannot” take pictures and then … then we get a bit lost. The foreigners cannot make “enregistramens”. Let me help out. It is in fact Catalan for recordings.

“It is not allowed to smoke in the inside of the courtyard of the Cloister, nor the use of ranges or similar. It is not allowed either to enter any type of container nor devices of telephony.”

Right, so I think we get the bit about not smoking, but the use of these ranges or indeed similar. Where is this all going? And then it becomes a guessing game. What containers are there in the Cloister (I assume we are talking about the Cloister)? One is not, for example, allowed to enter a rubbish container or a skip. Is this what is meant? Entering a device of telephony would be some feat. Don’t know about you, but I have never tried to physically get inside a mobile phone.

“The entry/ticket of those persons who use a non appropriate wardrobe in relation/relationship to/in the act will not be allowed.”

Hmm. So someone or some persons come along with a wardrobe that is, oh I don’t know, is it from IKEA perhaps? If it were from the grand El Corte Inglés department store would this be appropriate? The police report seems to have returned as well. Persons or persons unknown in a non appropriate (should of course be inappropriate) wardrobe and being caught in the act. Fine, it’s becoming clearer. If you’re caught in the act with your inappropriate wardrobe, then you are not allowed. Allowed to do what? Or allowed in maybe? Yep, I think it’s allowed in.

Look, I could go on with all of this, but I imagine you have got the drift by now. This mangling of the English language comes from the ominously presented “General Rules” for the Pollensa Music Festival. Actually getting to these rules is a challenge in itself. Go to the website for the festival and the home page is that from 2010, so you might be inclined to give up. But if you click English, you come to 2011 and eventually to the rules.

There are several points about all this. One is that the publicity is still so poor that they haven’t got round to changing the home page. The second is the sheer pomposity of some of these “rules”, assuming you can understand them. They just go to reinforce what I have said about the limited appeal of the festival. They are designed to deter not to attract. And thirdly, there is of course the fact that the English is total gobbledegook.

This is an international event. Allegedly. English is the usual international language. Why on earth can’t they find someone – from Britain or another English-speaking country, of whom there are many knocking around Pollensa – to spend a few minutes translating the Klingon that has been provided into English? Probably because they might have to pay someone, and they haven’t got any money. It is, however, a dreadful indictment. You can understand a restaurant getting its English cocked up (actually you can’t understand, because they could also get a native-speaker to give it the once-over), but this is a bloody music festival. Prestigious, so they say. The most prestigious in Mallorca. They’re having a laugh.

You despair, you really do despair.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Party’s Over: Fiestas

The threat of cuts to fiesta programmes is becoming a reality. Pollensa town hall is considering scrapping the street party of the night of 1 August that runs on into the early hours of 2 August, the day of the Moors and Christians battle that is the climax to the town’s Patrona festivities.

Mayor Tomeu Cifre has said that something has to give. If not the street party, then other things would have to go, one possibility being the “marxa fresca” (the white party) that is normally held on the night before the street party.

You might ask what the difference is between these two parties. Both are, after all, held in the streets and squares of Pollensa. The marxa fresca is more an open-air disco in the Plaça Major, whereas the street party of 1 August involves three squares holding rock and dance music concerts. The cost alone of staging this street party, according to the mayor, is 40,000 euros; 40,000 euros the town hall simply hasn’t got.

The funding crisis for cultural events in Pollensa nearly claimed this year’s music festival. While the previous town hall administration was tardy, to blame it entirely for the disorganisation is unfair. The new tourism ministry has ridden to the music festival’s rescue in providing emergency funds, the ministry of the last government having blocked funding.

The town hall was short of nearly two hundred thousand euros for the music festival, money that had traditionally been forthcoming from the government. Though the new tourism minister, Carlos Delgado, has assured his support for the music festival, he has also made it perfectly clear that an examination of grants to events from the government is going to be undertaken – in an as objective fashion as possible. In other words, there can be no guarantee that the music festival, along with any other recipient of government cash, will be helped out so generously in future, if at all.

In the case of the music festival, why has the tourism ministry been helping to fund it? I raised the question before. What does it really do for tourism? Well, come on, what does it do? Anyone able to give a firm answer? I would very much doubt it. If any ministry should be putting its hands into its pockets, then it should be that for culture.

In terms of the economic resources directed towards fiestas or festivals and of the direct economic benefits from tourism, to justify funding in the name of tourism is sophistry.

In Pollensa the mayor has also said that the budget for this year’s fiestas, well down in any event on what is needed, will see 30,000 euros directed towards the fiestas in Puerto Pollensa, both the recent “feria del mar” and the upcoming Virgen del Carmen.

The town hall has 130,000 euros in all at its disposal. Patrona in the old town gets the lion’s share of the budget (100,000 euros), yet, with the exception of the Moors and Christians battle, Patrona doesn’t necessarily attract huge numbers of tourists. The events in the port, on the other hand, do, for the very good reason that this is where most of the tourists are to be found.

This underlines the fact that, for all the talk of fiestas as traditional events which appeal to tourists, tourists are not the primary target. They are events for the local population; as is the case with the music festival as well. There is nothing at all wrong with this, but, and despite the music festival being a different category of event to fiestas, Delgado is absolutely right to be taking a hard look at grants. If by doing so, he sends out a message to town halls that they need to apply greater realism, then he will have done a great service.

To come back to the street party, there is a further reason for its possibly being scrapped, and that is the problems it causes. Increasingly, it has become an excuse for an almighty great piss-up – a botellón – and the ambience is less than pleasant. Calls have been made, for instance, for people to desist from using the streets as toilets.

In Sa Pobla they dropped their own street party last year. Similar reasons were cited to those in Pollensa where there has been disquiet expressed as to the fact that the fiestas have lost their sense of tradition among young people and simply become the launch pad for drunkenness and misbehaviour. So, Pollensa town hall has more than one agenda when it comes to abandoning the street party, but overriding this is the fact that the fiestas have needed to be scrutinised more intensely. It’s a great shame that economic crisis has necessitated this, but it is long overdue.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

All Fall Down: Balcony diving again

On the “Ultima Hora” website some wag posted a comment under a news item. It read (and I’m translating here): “Balearic tourist promotion. Blue-flag beaches. UNESCO mountain heritage. University Hospital Son Espases (specialists in balconying)”.

You can probably work out what the news item was about. The day after someone died falling out of a hotel in Ibiza, two more didn’t quite bite the dust in terminal fashion: one in Cala Rajada, the other in Sa Coma. I might be inclined to make a not so funny gag about comas in Sa Coma, but I won’t; in any event the one who made the descent suffered relatively minor injuries.

Balconying. Balcony diving. I’ve done the subject before, but it doesn’t stop me doing it again. Another person commented under the news item that it was the “theme of the summer”. Which may be true, but then it was last summer’s theme too. And what a fine theme it is as well. If it weren’t for the case that it can end in tragedy, as it did in Ibiza, then we could all have a jolly good laugh. Actually, we do have a laugh, because what else can you do when you learn of the lack of brain capacity of some visitors to Majorca and the Balearics and the potential for the brain to be permanently lacking as it spills out onto some poolside concrete.

Rather than repeat what has been said before, let’s consider some of the thought processes and justifications that have been forthcoming from the incidents of what may be balcony diving or may be falls as a result of climbing from balcony to balcony.

Instead of just admitting that falls are because someone was mad enough to try and dive into a pool, what you get is some other reason. Not from the police, the paramedics or the hotels, but from the ones who have suffered injuries or from their friends.

One thing about balconies is that they have railings or some other elevated barrier. They are there for a good reason. To stop you falling off. I can think of only two really good excuses as to why anyone might find him or herself on such a barrier. One is that there is a fire. The other is that an axe murderer has broken into the room. Both might require that a certain risk is taken in effecting an escape. Otherwise there isn’t a good excuse.

Nevertheless, you get excuses. The fall was the result of a slip. The hotel was negligent. Neither is satisfactory because they ignore the obvious and seek a justification or to apportion blame. I can give you an example of how this goes.

When one particular incident occurred, I posted something about it onto this blog. This attracted a great number of comments, one coming from someone claiming to be the person who had fallen (and it may well have been this person) and who refuted the idea that it had been a case of balcony diving. The best of all was someone who reckoned that the hotel should be sued.

Do people deliberately fall from balconies as a way of trying to extract compensation? It would be an extreme way to do so, but you can bet your life that compensation and ambulance-chasing legal firms are likely to loom into the equation.

The Ibizan hoteliers’ president has been at pains to point out that the railing at the hotel in Ibiza is of a height that conforms with requirements and that everything possible has been done to prevent the sort of incident which occurred there. But why should he have to make this confirmation? Well, why do you think?

Hotels in Majorca and the Balearics fall foul of compensation claims all the time, and many are spurious. I mentioned all this in an article back in February (“Trying It On”, 22 February). And the poor hotel is normally left with no alternative but to cough up for cases that are brought not in Spain but in the UK or elsewhere. With balcony diving, well, you would deny you’d done this if there was some possibility of getting compensation; not even ambulance-chasers could surely get it to stick if it was admitted, though you wouldn’t put it past them trying. And crazy it would be if the hotel were held liable because someone had been crazy enough to take a dive.

There is such a thing as assuming responsibility, but the notion has become obsolete thanks to the rush to compensatory litigation and to assigning blame when blame resides elsewhere – splattered over a hotel terrace.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.