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.

Any Old Iron: The triathlon

“You look neat. Talk about a treat. You look so dapper from your napper to your feet.”

The words of Harry Champion’s music hall song, “Any Old Iron”. There will be any old number of athletes looking neat, from their nappers to their feet, in their helmets, vests, speedos, shorts and shoes when three thousand of them take to the waters and streets of Alcúdia and other parts of northern Majorca in just over a week’s time. The first Ironman 70.3 triathlon will be staged on 14 May.

Three thousand participants, 1500 helpers, 20,000 visitors. Of these, perhaps only the first will be accurate. They are having trouble attracting helpers, and as for the visitors. Well, possibly. But if there are 20,000, where will they come from? Day-trippers from elsewhere on the island, one imagines. Assuming they can get anywhere near the place.

The triathlon will last from eight in the morning till five in the evening. The professionals will not need anything like this length of time, but some will. As a result, for much of the day the town and resort of Alcúdia will be in virtual lockdown. The main roads will be closed, as will be the back streets of residential areas. Very little will be able to move unless it has two feet or a bike and looks dapper in its any old Ironman attire.

For a week leading up to the event, one part of the main carretera into the port of Alcúdia will also be shut. They need to prepare, in order to house the athletes and their bikes, in order to put up temporary structures, such as showers. Getting around Alcúdia in the lead-up to the day and on the day itself is going to be difficult, which is putting it mildly. And on the day, with so many roads closed, how are these visitors meant to make their way in?

The Ironman is a huge boost for Alcúdia, not necessarily because of tourists coming to watch the event itself, as these, in any number, would seem unlikely, but more because it puts the resort on the map of sports tourism, an ambition the town, together with adjoining resorts on the bay of Alcúdia, has harboured for some time. In terms of publicity alone, it is a thoroughly worthwhile event.

The downside of it is the level of disruption and inconvenience. But does this matter? It’s only one day, after all, unless you include that bit of the main road that is affected for several days.

In the scale of sporting events that require some streets, the Ironman is a drop in the bay of Alcúdia. It is hardly a London Marathon or a Monaco Grand Prix. But complaints there will be and complaints there are.

In strictly productive terms, any disruption to road systems is negative. When you have a town to all intents and purposes shut for a whole day, even if it is a Saturday, then there is a loss of productivity. Whether gains will be made from those visitors who do manage to break through the cordons and which compensate for any losses, real or imagined, we will find out. But the moaning is less rational than this. It is just a case of being put out.

The Ironman is not the only sporting event to disrupt local traffic. Two cycling races in the space of three weeks caused roads to be closed. But not for long. The delays were perhaps half an hour at most. An inconvenience, yes, but unless it’s a matter of life or death (and there is admittedly an issue with this), it should be tolerable in the wider scheme of things.

Alcúdia, Playa de Muro and other resorts want the type of sports tourism that Ironman brings. If they want it, then there has to be an acceptance that there will be some disruption. You can’t have it both ways.

The key issue, though, is whether such tourism does in fact translate into more business for local bars and restaurants in addition to hotels which will accommodate athletes. And there will be plenty who will say that it doesn’t. For the longer term, however, the first Ironman could be the start of future opportunities that will be real enough. Then they might be talking about a treat.

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.

I Know My Place: Magalluf

It was some time since I had been to Magalluf. Coming in along the coast from Palmanova, was to realise that it still has the power to, depending upon your perspective, inspire and overwhelm because of the towers of hotels and the claustrophobic tight roads with bars that seem to topple from the pavements, or to horrify, for much the same reasons.

Depends upon your perspective. This about sums it up. How you look upon Magalluf, how you look upon other resorts. The first time I went to Magalluf, I thought the place was mad, a modern bedlam that made no sense. The most powerful initial image I had was turning a corner and seeing Benny Hill in front of me. You still expect Fred Scuttle to appear at the doors, offering a salute and wearing a lascivious grin as scantily-clad 18 to 30-ers (the female variety) hare towards the beach in speeded-up motion. Like the rest of Magalluf, Benny Hill, if only by name, is completely and compulsively crackers.

But of course, Magalluf makes perfect sense. As with other resorts, its sense is one of being fit for purpose, this purpose being the one it has chosen for itself. It knows its place in the order of things. Yet, it is this order which deals it a death by a thousand cuts and criticisms, many of them delivered by those who barely know the place or who don’t know it all, and occasionally by what is unfortunately highlighted by the media.

Who among you remembers the sketch on “The Frost Report”? The one with John Cleese and the two Ronnies. “I look down on him.” “I look up to him.” “I know my place.” If Mallorca’s resorts were comedians from a 60s’ review show, then somewhere like Puerto Pollensa would be Cleese. Magalluf would be Ronnie Corbett. Alcúdia would probably be Ronnie Barker, essentially lower middle-class but with aspirations towards something greater.

But even this metaphor is inaccurate. It makes an assumption not only about the resorts but also about the people who go to them or indeed live in them. Just because you’re Ronnie Corbett and are endlessly saying “Sorry” doesn’t mean you are barred from Puerto Pollensa. A cat can look at a queen and all that. But there are plenty of cats knocking around the bins of Pollensa, and rather more queens in Magalluf. Probably. So, that’s another metaphor that doesn’t really work.

A metaphor, or more a simile really, is that Magalluf is like Blackpool. Unfortunately, for the ones who would make this comparison, so too is Alcúdia. Or at least, this is how the criticism goes. It is one of a kind of collective presumption of prejudice, a conspiratorial knowingness of condemnation. Oh well, we all know what Magalluf is like, when of course we don’t. We think we do, and it is Blackpool.

For all the Blackpool shorthand, strangely enough, neither Magalluf nor Alcúdia is like Blackpool. And what, pray, is meant to be wrong with Blackpool anyway? No, Magalluf is like Magalluf, even if Alcúdia is sometimes reckoned to be like Magalluf, but never the other way round. You see, that Ronnie Barker place in the scheme of things is not so completely inaccurate.

Recent events in Magalluf merely conspire to confirm what is believed. But stuff happens. What conclusions do we, for example, draw about Pollensa from the fact that an octogenarian allegedly deliberately drove over his wife or that another eighty-year-old, a female, was attacked in her home? I’m not sure that we draw any. With Magalluf, though, it’s a different matter.

The resorts of Mallorca are highly diverse. Their differences add to an overall diversity on the island, of landscapes, towns and of people. But one feels there is a desire to somehow standardise Mallorca and to do so along some idealistic lines. Where does Magalluf feature, for instance, in a coffee-table-style advertising for Mallorca? It doesn’t. And it doesn’t for the very good reason that it doesn’t conform to an image. Yet, by neglecting it, a major aspect of the island’s diversity, and its tourism, is shunted into the background, shunned even. It is a neglect that says to Magalluf, and it is not alone, that you should know your place.

Well, it does know its place. It’s there on the coast in Calvia, resplendent in its hotelmania, gloriously bar crazy. It may be nuts, but all power to it for being so.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Going Swimmingly: Mallorca’s pools

What is it with swimming-pools? Not swimming-pools and the mercifully only occasional outbreak of cryptosporidium or swimming-pools of all-inclusives and the legends that are the stories of defecatory deposits which are left in them. No, not these, but swimming-pools of the local authority variety.

The Rebecca Adlington gold award, were there such a thing, would long ago have been claimed by Puerto Pollensa’s indoor pool for its services to public amusement. See that roof. It’s on the wrong way round. Well, it isn’t now, but it once was. A splendidly pre-fabricated upside down cake. How about someone paying the electricity bill? Not we, said the pool’s operators, Algaillasport. Endesa were none too amused. Not that we should really care what Endesa think, but when they’re owed 20 grand or so, we know what they are going to think. Finally, an agreement was brokered with the town hall, and the pool did not close once more, as it has been prone to since it first opened.

Joining Puerto Pollensa on the winner’s rostrum and clutching its own medal, we now have Alcúdia’s swimming-pool. For five years since it opened, relationships between the operator, Gesport Balear, and the town hall haven’t always gone swimmingly. Now, they’ve got a bad case of cramp in the deep end and are foundering. And why? It’ll be electricity again, or the cost of heating the pool to be more accurate. We’re switching off the boiler, say Gesport, unless we get some 300 grand. The town hall isn’t prepared to play water polo and has taken its ball home. No heating, no swimming, unless you’re mad.

Oh that the two northern rival towns were isolated examples of the curious swimming-pool management art of Mallorca, but they are not. Santa Margalida, just down the bay from Alcúdia, has been doing its best to claim the gold medal. Keeping itself closed for a couple of years and then still managing to leak itself. Not to be outdone, Inca came roaring along in the final stretch with its over-budget of 600,000 euros, a vigorous butterfly of profligacy to beat off the more sedate breaststroke of Alcúdia’s lost thousands.

When the plunge was taken to improve the island’s health and build proper swimming-pools in various of Mallorca’s municipalities, there would appear to have been less than sufficient attention paid to how they would actually operate. All very good it may be in theory, but the idea of contracting-out has hardly been a great success; indeed it has been about as unsuccessful as some of the actual building.

And how successful have the pools been in terms of their usage? Doubtless, there are statistics to prove that they have been, as there always are statistics, but they’ve tried hard for them to not be. Alcúdia again …

Not long after it opened, a local British woman, who speaks perfectly serviceable Spanish, went along to the pool and asked for a list of services and prices. It was in Catalan. Did they not have a list in Castilian? She received short shrift for having the temerity to suggest that they might. How long had she been living here and why couldn’t she speak Catalan? Yep, you can use the swimming-pool, so long as you pass a language test.

I once suggested to the pool’s director that they could do with letting more people know of its existence. Publicity perhaps. For tourists maybe. I think I was speaking a different language. It was Spanish admittedly. But then when there is publicity, it is of a singularly strange variety. When Puerto Pollensa’s pool announced its re-opening, now that the roof was as a roof should be, i.e. the right way round, there was a poster of splashy-happy kiddies. Nothing wrong in attracting children to the pool, but as it was a summery outdoor scene and the indoor pool was re-opening in March, the message didn’t quite fit. Nor did it with the fact that the municipal pools are, oddly enough, meant for swimming and not cavorting around on giant rubber ducks.

No, if you want fun in water, you can go in the sea or to a waterpark. Leave the municipal pools to the geriatric speedo set with their goggles and their morning’s twenty lengths. Yes, you can have fun at a waterpark, so long as you don’t try and take your own water in, to one particular waterpark at any rate. Enjoy being searched and having your bottle taken off you. I pointed out to the waterpark’s director that the internet was incandescent with rage at the practice, as indeed were real-life tourists in the vicinity. Has it stopped? Will it have stopped this summer? It damn well should have.

Swimming and Mallorca should be somehow synonymous, but they are not because ways are found to prevent this being so. Best perhaps to forget the pools and just head to the sea. But then there are always the jellyfish. Still, no one has to worry about switching the boiler on or getting the roof on the right way.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Through Sepia-Tinted Spectacles: Alcúdia’s cuttlefish fair

Sepia, in English, is the fluid secreted by cuttlefish. The word is more commonly associated with sepia tint, the brownish colour utilised by designers, film-makers and others to provide a nostalgic, clichéd effect that represents “old”. Though the inky fluid itself might not be used any longer, it was this that first gave us sepia tint.

In Puerto Alcúdia, the Confraria de Pescadors (literally, the fishermen’s brotherhood) has its own building. It is on the old pier in the port. In it, there are ancient photos, some of them with sepia tint. These photos have, on the occasion of past spring fairs in Puerto Alcúdia, formed exhibitions of the local fishing history. This year, the building and the Confraria will not be taking part in the spring fair.

Sepia, or sipia, depending on your linguistic preference, is Spanish and Catalan not only for the tint but also the cuttlefish itself. The sepia fair, combined with a nautical fair, has become an established, early-spring event in the port. The boat bit was spun out from the autumn fair in the old town as a way of addressing the fact that the port was missing out in not having its own fair. Locating it in the port also made greater sense. And so it was that when the idea for the boat fair was hit upon, they decided to invent another one to celebrate the local fishing industry, its heritage, its skills and its different major catches, of which sepia is one.

Devoting an entire fair to what for most Brits is something to do with keeping budgerigars happy and to what is like stuffing an inner tube into your mouth seemed, to this Brit anyway, a weird pretext for a celebration. Unless it is cut into small pieces, fried with herb and spice and served with rice and some mayo, cuttlefish is rotten, to the point of being inedible. But then who am I to deny a culinary tradition, even if it is no good?

The first sepia and boat fair in 2006 was a huge success. Blessed by perfect April weather, warm, blue skies brought out vast numbers of visitors in giving the port a pre-season boost. Terraces were jammed, so much so that some restaurants could  barely cope with the demand.

Since 2006, the fair has hit some difficulties. The crowds still come, but there have been rumblings from some restaurants that they have been overlooked when it comes to participation, while others have moaned about demands placed upon them for paying for town hall promotion.

The boat fair has also not escaped some backlash. Though it is the island’s largest outside of Palma, it is small by comparison. Some nautical-related businesses in Alcúdia itself, those situated close by in the Alcudiamar marina, have ceased to have their own stands, either on the grounds of cost or because they can’t afford to have personnel at both a stand and at their units in the marina. The most popular stands during the weekend event are not those with boats, jet-skis and the like, but the craft stalls of the market that was a later addition to the fair’s mix.

There is now a further difficulty. The Confraria, the fishermen themselves, are going to withdraw their support and participation. While the sepia fair was partly intended to be a celebration of the fishermen’s work and of their cuttlefish catch, this hasn’t proven to be the case. Restaurants, rather than buying their sepia from the local fishermen, get it from wholesalers at prices half or more than those that they have to pay the fishermen. It is for this reason that the fishermen are planning to down nets and take them home over the weekend of 9-10 April.

Alcúdia’s mayor, Miguel Llompart, has been attempting to arbitrate in what has become a real old spat between the restaurant owners and the fishermen. He concedes that the negative responses from the fishermen in respect of, for example, lowering their prices a tad will mean that neither the Confraria building nor the old pier will be part of this year’s fair. The pier is in fact loaned out for the event, and on it, were it once more to be made available, would be a marquee in which restaurants would sell tasters of sepia that has not been bought locally.

Though it seems perverse that the fair should not feature the local catch, one can have sympathy for the restaurant owners. Why should they pay up to 12 euros a kilo when they can get away with paying as little as four euros? An answer might be that they should be prepared to pay the higher rate; they do, after all, reap some benefit from the event and they are part of the same local economy as the fishermen. But needs and economic times must, you have to suppose.

Without the local catch, however, the whole event becomes a bit of a charade. The sepia angle becomes a commercial excuse rather than a cultural justification. The fair, when it started, was a very good idea, but the best of ideas can become mired in local battles. And so, in years to come, there will be photos of the first, glorious spectacle, a reminder of what it once was, tinted with sepia.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Never Mind The Quality: Meaningless systems for tourism

There are certain words which, because of their widespread and widely unthinking usage, have lost any sense of meaning. Quality is one of them. Everyone does quality. “Our meat/fish/desserts/full Englishes/beers (use as applicable) are of the highest quality.” Oh, for the bar or restaurant which advertises its quality as being rubbish. Or the resort which promotes itself as being the worst or most maligned: “Everyone hates us, but we don’t care.”

None of this applies to Alcúdia, Pollensa or, mystifyingly, Artà. Quality abounds in all three, unlike, at present, anywhere else in Mallorca, other than Palma. Each can boast of quality. The whole of Menorca can also do some boasting, as can Formentera and Ibiza. Soon, you would imagine, everywhere in Mallorca will be proclaiming quality, and so the meaning will go out the window, if there was any to begin with.

I am not making this qualitative assessment of the three towns/resorts. It is being done by something called SICTED, the Sistema Integral de Calidad Turística en Destinos. It’s an unfortunate acronym. Is sick Ted pervy Edward or infirm Eddie? Sick Ted, Father Ted: “Would you have a look at this quality here, Ted.” “Not while I’m vomiting, Dougal.”

SICTED is, so says its website, “a project for improving the quality of tourist destinations that is promoted by the Spanish tourism institute (Turespaña) and the Spanish federation of municipalities and provinces”. I’m sure you feel better for knowing this, as you will feel better – less sick – for knowing that the sick note from SICTED is a sign of a destination’s “commitment to tourist quality”. And signs you can get, it would appear. One with a T with a gap and a sort of Smiley curve that brings to mind the TUI logo.

They should mind the gap. If it’s quality they’re after, then they should learn to cross their Ts properly. But a broken T is, I suppose, all the more aesthetically and graphically-designed pleasing, and it would seem that it will be making itself known outside “distinguished establishments” in the SICTED towns: the odd restaurant or hotel and, in the case of Alcúdia, its police station.

I confess to being utterly confused. Not so long ago, there was all this stuff about the Q quality mark, something also to do with Turespaña. Now there’s this one. Destinations and businesses can apply to be assessed for receiving their sick note and subject themselves to surveys of customer satisfaction. So convoluted does SICTED appear, the FAQs (frequently asked questions) on the website run to 102 in total. If you can wade through this lot, then you probably deserve to get what you’re meant to – your commitment to tourist quality and your broken T.

But as the mere word quality loses its meaning, so do exercises in granting quality. How many more of them are there? And what on earth do they mean? And for whom?

Alcúdia’s SICTED, so says the citation on the website, is on account of, among other things, “beautiful beaches with fine sand”, “hidden coves”, and “very diverse peoples who form a tranquil environment”. These will presumably be the same diverse peoples whooping it up in the bars and entertainment centres of The Mile of an evening, scratch-card touts, and lookies selling dodgy DVDs and/or crack on the streets.

Pollensa “combines sea, countryside and mountains”. It has “solitary coves” as opposed to hidden ones; someone’s been at the thesaurus. No mention of dog mess on the streets, not getting the management of the beaches sorted out on time for the start of season or protesting business owners marching through Puerto Pollensa.

Then there is Artà. Its inclusion is a bit mystifying, as it’s not exactly a place with a lot of tourism. It’s off-the-beaten-track coastal Mallorca, but it does, like Alcúdia, so goes the SICTED blurb, have beaches with “fine sand”. There is, possibly though, more of a reason for Artà having its SICTED than Alcúdia and Pollensa, and this is because it isn’t particularly known for its tourism. Otherwise, what really is the point of all this?

The answer, one guesses and obviously so, is a desire for a general lifting of quality, a response to the threats posed by perceptions of greater quality in rival destinations. Fair enough, but does this require the rigmarole that SICTED and the Q mark demand? It should be obvious where quality failings may exist, and failings there are, even in Alcúdia and Pollensa, despite their having passed the sick test.

Who takes any notice? Tourists? It’s very doubtful. And were all other towns/resorts in Mallorca to apply for and be awarded the same status as Alcúdia, Pollensa and Artà, then even less notice would be taken. It is quality becoming meaningless because everywhere has it, or so it is claimed.

Never mind the quality, because no one’s paying any attention.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Same Old Rot: Tourism in the off-season

Easter is late this year. Easter Sunday is the 24th of April, three weeks later than 2010, and a week before the real season kicks in on 1 May. An earlier Easter makes life awkward for businesses. Open, and they face the inevitable hiatus of the phoney season before the May lift-off. This year is not quite so awkward.

Nevertheless, many hotels will not be opening for Easter. In Alcúdia, 26 establishments will remain closed. It seems perverse. At a time when Mallorca is reaping the benefits of north African disturbances, should all hotels not be taking the plunge and opening that one week earlier?

This is the headline-grabber. Hotels not opening for Easter, a late Easter at that. This is the headline-grabber that inspires rumblings as to the state of the tourism market, the tourism industry not trying hard enough, and all the other rot that goes with it.

It is rot. What the headline fails to tell you is that 24 hotels will be open at Easter. I make that roughly the same number that will not be open. So what’s the problem? Answer? There isn’t one. Demand, with or without Egyptian uprisings, is not so high that all hotels need to be open at Easter. Moreover, most of the hotels form parts of chains. One, two maybe, are sufficient. All of them? Of course not.

There is also the smell of a rat with the hotel-opening and hotel-not-opening figures. It is one that comes from their source, the local hotel association in Alcúdia. Not all hotels in Alcúdia are listed by the association on its website, as not all hotels are members. One very large complex that isn’t listed is Bellevue. One whole chain, GC, which typically does open its hotels either early or through the winter, is similarly not present.

The point is that when you are fed stories about hotels and consequently the state of the tourism market, you don’t always get a complete picture, while it is easier to be convinced as to the rotten state of the market by the fact of non-opening hotels than to be convinced as to a reasonable state of the market by the fact of a similar number which are open.

But let’s get real. Out of season, only a few hotels being open can be viable. Of the 24 hotels in Alcúdia open by Easter, only six will have opened by the start of March (plus others that are not members of the local association). The Alcúdia hotel association, in releasing the figures as to non-opening hotels, has taken the opportunity to also state that the situation with winter tourism is very bad. Yes, I think we know this, and it applies not only to Alcúdia and the north of the island, but also to the whole of Mallorca. So what’s new?

Well, there are some things that are new. Two different and more positive opportunities to lengthen the season and to make the off-version less “very bad”. One is the “bienestar activo” concept of activities, the other, the “estación náutica” branding of Alcúdia as a watersports resort. The association supports both these initiatives.

It is hopeful that the activities included in “bienestar” (hiking, Nordic walking and so on) will reap some reward this coming season, that the results from this “strategy” and its promotion will bear fruit. But these activities are essentially non-summer activities. What difference are they likely to make in summer? Very little, I would suggest.

Far more important is that this so-called strategy should be aimed at the winter market, but what actually is the strategy? And where is this promotion? Not on the association’s website, as far as I can see, unless you count the absurdly passive question – “have you been to our new Nordic walking park yet?” A word in the association’s shell-like. Do not ask a closed question, the answer to which may well be “no” and which inspires no further interest or action. It’s known in the trade as motivational copy. Or in the association’s case, non-motivational.

The establishment of the “estación náutica” concept, an element of which is an obligation to have hotels open in the off-season (at least from March and to the end of November), presents the opportunity for the hotels to ensure that they are open before Easter. It will also test their resolve. Will they open? And will they make sufficient effort to promote this concept to ensure that it is sensible for them to open?

Here are two initiatives which in theory can lengthen the season and which can reduce the whingeing about the winter season being “very bad”. The theory is one thing; the practice is quite another. Will they really mean that more hotels open earlier? It is very doubtful. How many watersports enthusiasts or Nordic walkers might be expected? Not enough to fill more than a handful of hotels. Around the same number that will be open during this “very bad” off-season, hotel association figures or otherwise.

Rot? You’d better believe it.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Accidental Historian

The first golf course in the Balearics was opened in 1934. This may surprise you, though any of you who might have read something I wrote for Alcúdia tourists last summer about this golf course would not be surprised.

The “revelation” of the first golf course comes from “Mallorca Magazin”, the German weekly. This, in turn, is based on a study that has appeared in the “Jornades d’Estudis Locals d’Alcúdia”, a dry and academic tome that is published irregularly but which is a gold mine of fascinating historical information.

I first came across this journal purely by chance. I was whiling away some hours at a printer and found it in a book case. Though all the papers were in Catalan (a pre-requisite for the inclusion of papers in the journal) and were all, in typical academic fashion, highly off-putting in terms of presentation, there was stuff within its covers that demanded a bit of perseverance.

It helps, I guess, to be both a historian by degree and to have had a previous publishing life in which I was fed a diet of heavy academic material. For many, irrespective of the language, the journal would be a complete turn-off. Understandably so. Even in English, much academic publishing might as well be presented in Klingon, for all the sense that it makes.

The copy I found, which remains the only copy I have seen, included a paper on the history of the fiestas of Sant Jaume, the patron saint of Alcúdia. It was one that transported you back to the thirteenth century and to the origins of the fiestas. It was a story that was completely new to me.

The story of the golf course was also new to me. Again, it was something I came across by accident. The article I was writing was in fact an interview with someone who has a far longer association with Alcúdia and Mallorca than I do, Graham Philips, estate agent of the parish. During the course of the interview, Graham explained that there was once a golf course in Alcúdia (and not the present one in Alcanada). It was short-lived. The Civil War led to its being converted into a landing-strip for airplanes.

Unexpected as the story was, I asked around to try and find any other recollections of the golf course. There was as much surprise as I had felt when told about it. Someone though spoke to an old man, and he confirmed the story. He could recall the planes that flew in and out of what is today the residential and tourist area that combines Alcúdia’s Bellevue and Magic districts.

The golf course history comes apparently from the sixth edition of the journal. The seventh will include something on the British squadron in Alcúdia (and Pollensa) in 1924 and something else on the application of “the model of tourist enclavement” in Alcanada in 1933. Both are potentially interesting and of far wider interest than the narrow audience that an academic publication appeals to. As with the history of the golf course, the development of a tourist area in Alcúdia’s Alcanada area is precisely the sort of thing that grabs tourists’ interest.

One of the problems with the portrayal of Mallorca’s history, and it is a problem that is compounded by the historical information that is put out by the tourism agency and town halls, is that it tends to all be pretty ancient. In Alcúdia, the default historical information is that of the founding of Pollentia by the Romans and the Moorish occupation and the consequent naming of Alcúdia from the Arabic. It’s not without interest, but it isn’t that relevant to most tourists who are turned on far more by recent history, such as the development of Alcúdia and the island as a tourist destination.

There is a wealth of historical information – documents, photos – that sits in archives in the town halls. Alcúdia’s journal is not unique. Most towns have these studies and they come under the umbrella of the university. Yet it rarely comes to light, and when it does is in forms, the largely impenetrable language of academia and in Catalan alone, that simply do not translate to an audience which is hungry to hear about it.

And when you come across it, it is usually by chance. There’s another example; the time I found the original 1936 article from “The Railway Magazine” about the planned extension of the railway to Alcúdia (which of course has still not been built). But this, the railway, is another subject with the potential to fascinate.

The point is that, for all the desire for tourism attracted by Mallorca’s history and culture, far too little attention is paid to what really can excite or to what can be more understandable to a tourist market – that to do with tourists’ own experiences: of tourism. This more recent history, that of tourism development and the changes brought about by tourism, exists in archives and in people’s memories.

It really needs to be made available.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

To The Alcúdia Station: Estación Náutica

Never let it be said that things move swiftly. So slowly do they move that you can be forgiven for believing that whatever they are had been forgotten. As is, or was, the case with the Estación Náutica in Alcúdia.

You have to go back to February 2009 to be reminded of when this concept first surfaced in Alcúdia. In May of that year it was actually signed into being. And then? Silence. But the silence has now been broken. The business association behind the “estación” in Alcúdia has finalised the process of its candidature to become a part of the Asociación Española de Estaciones Náuticas (AEEN). A further meeting in January should seal this candidature and allow Alcúdia to call itself an “estación náutica”.

We can all breathe a sigh of relief. Put out the bunting perhaps. We would do if we really knew what the whole thing was about and, more importantly, what benefits it is likely to bring. I can go back to a meeting at Alcúdia town hall in February last year to remind myself of the degree to which attendees were unclear. I can recall a later meeting, one that I didn’t attend, but which was – as it was described to me – full of those looking to extract whatever benefits they could for themselves. Whatever the concept was, it appeared to be a recipe for self-interest.

Let me try and clarify. An “estación náutica”, and this description is aided with the words of the head of tourism in the town as expressed in May 2009, is “a tourist product with accommodation and water-sports activities sold as a tourist package that allows the tourist to engage in the likes of sailing and underwater activities and complementary activities such as golf and horse-riding”. Alcúdia will become the first such “estación” in Mallorca; others exist elsewhere in the Balearics and on the mainland. AEEN’s website declares that these centres are the “best nautical destinations in Spain”.

There is a lengthy document which lists the requirements for becoming an “estación náutica” and the benefits of doing so. If I try and put them in a nutshell, they demand levels of quality and service of all participating members, of whatever type of business, and the use of the “estación náutica” brand as a mark of quality. There is also a requirement, one to tackle seasonality, which demands a minimum of the principal offer of accommodation and water-sport activities from March to November; a requirement that should be a benefit.

The concept does not necessarily mean creating anything new – Alcúdia has plenty of water-sports activities plus all the complementary activities and offers. It is largely a marketing exercise.

Anything that might assist tourism in Alcúdia (or anywhere else that fancies branding itself in this way) has to be welcomed. But questions do arise. One is why it requires an outside agency, AEEN, to bring parties together in establishing a “brand” that already exists? Or rather, could have existed if parties had been minded to put their heads together to come up with something similar.

Secondly, would it really help with lengthening the season? Menorca has such centres. Are they operating for the minimum period set out? Maybe they are, but whether anyone is going to them or indeed can get a flight out of season, I couldn’t honestly say. Thirdly, there is the matter of organisation.

What you will have is a further agency involved in tourism, one separate to the town hall but which will presumably work alongside the town hall. There will be a separate website, a separate office (like a tourism information office, I guess) and separate promotional material. Duplication is everything in tourism promotion.

This could all be a great success, and innovation is not to be sniffed at, if success does follow. But what would be useful to know is what hard benefits have accrued to those resorts in the Balearics and the mainland that already operate as an “estación náutica”. Does this marketing have a positive bottom-line effect? Well, does it? I have searched for examples which might indicate this, but without success.

However, one does also need to consider this in the longer-term. Establishing a reputation as a water-sports centre doesn’t happen overnight, nor does one for high quality. So in terms of measuring benefits, some patience is necessary.

There remains, though, one final question. The name “estación náutica” might mean something to the Spanish, but what does it mean to those from other countries. How is it translated? A nautical destination in English, according to AEEN. Sorry, this doesn’t cut it. Water-sports centre or resort? Better perhaps, but isn’t Alcúdia already known as this? Maybe it isn’t, in which case fine, but water-sports resort conjures up an image of something different, of something specific, of something new. And unfortunately, apart from the “brand” name, it is none of these.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.