The Seven Pillars Of Tourism Wisdom

Exceltur is the “alliance for touristic excellence”. It is a body that comprises some of Spain’s leading hotel groups (and therefore Mallorca’s hotel groups as many of them are Mallorcan) as well as travel agencies, car-rental agencies, financial services companies and more. Its remit, as you might gauge from what it stands for, is to look at how to improve and develop Spanish tourism. As part of this mission, it undertakes annual surveys of tourism competitiveness in the different regions of Spain.

The survey for 2010 (MoniTUR – very clever) has just been published. A collaboration with the consultancy group Deloitte, the new survey doesn’t make great reading for the Balearics. The islands are still in the top half of Spain’s regions, but they have slipped one place to sixth. In itself, this doesn’t sound particularly dramatic, but when you study closely the so-called “seven pillars” of competitiveness that form the basis of the survey, it is.

Of the seven regions that lost competitive value in 2010, the loss by the Balearics is greater than that of any other region. Of the seven “pillars”, a gain has been made in only two, one of which (economic and social results) is insignificant. The other gain, that in transport accessibility and connections, is significant. More of this below.

The other five measures all register a fall. The two greatest are in “diversification and categorisation of tourism products” and in “strategic marketing vision and commercial support”. This latter measure has tumbled almost ten points compared with 2009. Only one other region of Spain has performed worse – Murcia – and it is one of the least competitive parts of the country.

As with strategic vision, only one autonomous community does worse when it comes to diversification, the Basque Country. Yet, diversification has meant to have been one of the “big things”. You might remember what this entails. Golf, hiking, gastronomy, culture … . Do you really want me to go on?

Diversification and the vision thing are two sides of the same coin, a badly minted one in Balearics terms. One, diversification, leads from the other. Or at least I think this is how it’s meant to go. A problem, however, is what strategic marketing vision means. In consultancy management speak, very little usually. But we can just about suss what they’re on about: lack of leadership, lack of planning, lack of any meaningful action. In the Spanish league table of tourism competitiveness, the collective Balearics tourism officialdom has been the Avram Grant – they haven’t known what they’ve been doing.

This isn’t completely true. The disgraced ex-tourism minister Miguel Nadal knew full well what he was doing. Allegedly. Unfortunately, it wasn’t anything to do with tourism. And Nadal did have a strategy institute that he could call on at the ministry, the now defunct Inestur, up to its neck in as much alleged wrongdoing as the one-time minister.

But let’s not dwell too much on the past. A whole bright new tourism competitiveness future beckons for the Balearics, thanks to he In Whom We Trust. Unlike his predecessors, who gave the impression of not having graduated beyond the Janet and John book of tourism clichés, Carlos Delgado does seem to get it. He appears to have been on the 101 course of Strategic Marketing for New Balearics Tourism Ministers, if an observation as to how Calvia should be spoken about in marketing terms is anything to go by. Don’t call it Calvia, because no one knows where Calvia is or what it is. Do call the individual resorts Santa Ponsa, Magalluf and so on. It’s an encouraging start. Blindingly obvious to anyone other than a tourism official, but encouraging nonetheless.

And Delgado will, we hope, set in motion some diversification. Converting Mallorca into one giant theme park is an excellent idea. Not that he has actually said this, but he has given encouragement to the idea of theme parks that the enviro-lobby have hitherto so successfully managed to boot into the long grass of a finca or several.

So, next year we can look forward, with any luck, to MoniTUR giving the Balearics some better marks. But there just remains this business of transport accessibility and connections, the one area of improvement, according to the report. Which connections is it referring to exactly? Those with Germany? With Russia? Yes, both good and getting better. The UK? In winter?

Strategic marketing vision and diversification are fine. They can lead to new products and new opportunities for tourism. But they’re not much use if no one can get a flight. Or perhaps the UK isn’t part of the strategic marketing vision.

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 Real Carlos Delgado?

So, after all the talk, the new tourism minister for the Balearics is indeed a professional. A professional politician. Regardless of whatever agreement Carlos Delgado and José Ramón Bauzá are meant to have cooked up at the time of the Partido Popular leadership election in 2010, for Delgado not to have been named as tourism minister would have raised serious questions as to unity within the PP; the unity of the party’s right-wing that is.

Bauzá could not have afforded not to have appointed Delgado to tourism. But despite the politicking behind the appointment, Bauzá may well have chosen wisely, even though one suspects his hands were tied.

The good thing about Delgado is that you know what you are getting. He has been clear and honest enough about his ambitions and his attitudes. Some of his pronouncements on matters unrelated to tourism have caused disquiet, most obviously the language thing, but on tourism his instincts seem entirely appropriate and forward-thinking.

The surprise has been, therefore, why there was opposition to his appointment. This surfaced in March when he spoke about his ambition to be tourism minister, and it came from hoteliers. The fear then was that Delgado would clash with the hoteliers, though it was never made clear as to quite why, which led to a conclusion that it was largely personal.

The appointment made, the hoteliers, in the form of the Mallorcan hotel federation, have now come out and said that they look upon the appointment very positively. But the federation always says this. It had plenty of opportunity to do so while the tourism ministry door was revolving during the Antich administration; whether it believed what it was saying or not. It’s known as being diplomatic.

One of Mallorca’s leading hoteliers, Gabriel Escarrer, the president of Meliá Hotels International, has issued a glowing assessment of Delgado. The right noises are being made, therefore, but behind them you wonder as to the degree to which they are designed to influence Delgado. He has a reputation of being his own man, and there is one issue, barely mentioned in despatches at present, that the good free-marketer Delgado will have to contend with – that of the confusion surrounding the holiday-let industry and the hoteliers’ hostility towards it.

This aside, most of what Delgado has said and is saying should be music to the ears of the hoteliers and others in the tourism industry. Creating theme parks, allowing for condohotels, reducing IVA; they are all positive. But his market liberalism has not played well with everyone. His declaration that he will make the general tourism law more flexible in order to permit concerts at hotels is a clear shot across the bows of Acotur, the tourist business association, and others that have opposed the Mallorca Rocks hotel in Magalluf, and a pop also at the association’s hounding of Calvia town hall for having granted the hotel licences for the concerts.

The controversy that has surrounded Mallorca Rocks is symbolic of what Delgado represents. Market conservatism is not a concept he adheres to. Acotur has brought criticism upon itself by opposing innovation and new business; it has cast itself as being reactionary and the defender of the status quo. If Delgado can break the shackles of such conservatism and vested interests, then he could well prove to be the tourism minister that Mallorca has been crying out for.

Much is being made of the fact that Delgado, as former mayor of Calvia, is the right man for the job because he has been mayor of a municipality with such a strong tourism economy. The argument doesn’t necessarily follow. When Miguel Ferrer, the then mayor of Alcúdia, became tourism minister, the same thing was said. This smacked of a rationalisation for an appointment that owed more to Buggins’s turn than to credentials for the job. Delgado is different in that he has been intimately involved with Calvia’s tourism in a way that Ferrer wasn’t in Alcúdia, but what actually has he done? PSOE, for instance, suggests that tourism initiatives in the town have been non-existent.

And this is the worry with Delgado. For all his instincts, for all his pronouncements, for all his challenge to forces of market illiberalism and for all his new best friends among the hoteliers, does his publicity outweigh the reality? We are about to find out.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Heaven Or Las Vegas

Three steps to heaven … First step, the initial gathering of the newly made-up parliament of the Balearics; second step, the debate of investiture; third step, taking possession. On 18 June, José Ramón Bauzá will officially be acclaimed as president.

While the process of transition, both at town hall and regional government levels, will have seemed interminable, Bauzá has been busy drawing up his plans for government and for its organisation. Following a trend established by Antich, certain portfolios will be combined in creating super-ministries.

For Antich, the impulse behind establishing super-ministries – transport with environment, tourism with employment – was twofold. Firstly, it was a cost-cutting exercise; secondly, he simply ran out of ministers, once the old Unió Mallorquina was booted out of government.

The spin behind Bauzá’s amalgamations will also be twofold: cost-saving but also greater agility, of which the second will be open to question. There is a third, which is by far the most significant.

Bauzá is envisaging six or seven super-ministries and one stand-alone ministry, tourism. They are likely to be headed by his allies.

There is nothing remarkable about a head of government packing his cabinet with those he can trust to tow the party-line but, in so doing, the broad church of the Partido Popular in the Balearics will be funnelled along one narrow aisle, the pews to one side in particular, the left, forced to kneel in supplication through gritted teeth.

Of the various ministries, keeping tourism by itself shows the importance attached to the ministry. Bauzá should be applauded if this turns out to be the case. But it is still unclear who will be heading it. Carlos Delgado’s is the name which refuses to go away; Delgado, the force behind Bauzá’s Damascene progress on the road ever more to the right and treated with suspicion by Mallorca’s hoteliers who have said they don’t want him.

One other ministry, education and culture, could end up in the department of the presidency itself. This, in itself, says a great deal, as also would the absence of ministers among the awkward squad. One of these is Antoni Pastor, the mayor of Manacor.

Pastor, it was thought, might have jumped and joined forces with his former PP ally, Jaume Font, when Font left to form the La Lliga party. For him to have done so would have been political suicide. La Lliga, not unexpectedly, fared badly in the regional government elections; it is contemplating merger with the eclipsed former UM, now the Convergència.

Pastor remains; the most charismatic cheerleader for the local left of the PP. Without him in a position of power, with Delgado in one, and the most important one, and with education and culture under Bauzá’s umbrella, everything will become very much clearer. For this will be the nuclear option that could have been anticipated.

While Delgado, despite the hoteliers’ mistrust of him, could actually prove to be a very good tourism minister, the mistrust is shared by many within the PP and is indicative of the battles that lie ahead in what is anything but a unified party. But more significant than a Delgado appointment would be the siting of education and culture within the department of the presidency.

For education and culture, substitute the two words with “language” and “anti-Catalanism” and you get a far greater appreciation as to why it would be so significant. It would be a clear declaration of the personal intent of Bauzá (and Delgado) to pursue a social agenda of the sort that helped to alienate Font, Pastor and others.

By packing his cabinet with obedience, Bauzá may be sure of initial victories, but it could well develop a bunker mentality when the worm turns both within his party and the islands in general. The first victory is likely to be economic. Plenty of advance warning is being given – the classic there is no money, blame it all on the lot before line, á la the Tories and á la any party set on deep cuts to expenditure while no one is really looking and no one is inclined to challenge. But it’s what comes later that is the scary part. Bauzá and Delgado ensconced in the casino playing a high-risk game of social roulette.

From the heaven of acclamation to the Las Vegas gamble on the cohesion of Mallorcan society.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

* Been looking for an excuse to do the “Heaven Or Las Vegas” title, so I can do a Cocteaus’ thing. This remains utterly brilliant …

Naked Ambition: Carlos Delgado

You can’t blame a man for harbouring ambitions. But there is understated ambition and there is naked ambition. In the case of Carlos Delgado, he has stripped himself bare and exposed himself as unashamedly as a naturist strutting along the water’s edge at Es Trenc beach.

Delgado, the retiring mayor of Calvia, is not normally the retiring sort. He will vacate the mayoral throne this spring and, following a period of ominous silence, is making his intentions loud and clear. And by doing so, he brings to a head and into full public, voyeuristic glare the divisions within the Partido Popular.

Delgado has announced that in a PP administration he wants to be either tourism or education minister. Either, for differing reasons, would be the nuclear option. He knows it, and so does everyone else. Tourism is the most important ministerial appointment, while education is the most politically loaded.

Why does Delgado appear to be so confident that he might land either of these positions? That he is widely perceived to be the real power in the party behind José Bauzá may have something to do with it. His relative silence and absence over the past few months seemed to start when the suggestion of his power began to be given an airing.

Even such reticence, though, can reinforce an image of behind-the-scenes scheming; silence can be golden when it is tactical treasure. The reason for my dubbing him Grytpype-Thynne is only partly because Delgado means thin; another is because, like Peter Sellers’ Goons character, he is seen as something of the villain of the piece.

But it is for this reason that Delgado is arguably the most interesting politician in Mallorca. He conveys an impression of being the genuine political-animal article. His ability to appear divisive says much for his lack of equivocation. You know what you’re going to get with Delgado, or at least you think you do. The trouble is that many would rather not get it, including many in his own party.

Delgado was trounced in the run-off against Bauzá for the party leadership. It was a snub of the anyone-but-Delgado variety. Yet, despite the pair’s rivalry, it soon emerged that Bauzá was moving closer to Delgado and to his philosophies. It was this shift to the right that started the ruptures which continue in the Partido Popular in the Balearics.

Delgado has never hidden the fact that he believes in the primacy of the Castilian language. When Bauzá said much the same, here was just one example, latched onto and claimed by his opponents, of Delgado’s influence. It is this streak of anti-Catalanism that would turn his appointment as education minister into more than just a political hot potato; it would be a three-course meal with brandy and cigars to follow and indigestible for almost every other political party in Mallorca as well as those to the left within the PP.

The Catalan question is the local PP’s Europe question. It is one that carries less weight with the electorate than the obsession with it suggests, but the prominence given to it, and wrapped up in the further question of regionalism, is of a conservatism which, rather than seeking to conserve social, political and cultural subsidiarity (of Catalanism), openly rejects it in favour of the sovereignty of the Spanish state and Castilian.

Tourism is a different matter entirely. It is far less political and far more an issue of industrial and economic strategy. In February last year, prior to the election for the PP leadership, Delgado made his opinions plain enough. He favoured the prioritisation of tourism legislation over that for land. He advocated changes to allow for the establishment of condohotels. He called for the creation of theme parks and sports centres aimed at reducing the impact of seasonality. His party has said that it will press for changes to IVA, so as to reduce its burden on the tourism industry. All of this, you would think, would make him the darling of the tourism industry and of the hoteliers. You would be wrong. The hoteliers have made it clear that they don’t want him.

For such opposition to be stated is extraordinary. The hoteliers, when faced, as they have been over the past four years, with regular, new tourism ministers, have always uttered the same diplomatic mantra – that so-and-so will be good for the industry, even if they haven’t meant it. They haven’t waited this time. Theirs is a pre-emptive strike to seek to deny Delgado one of his ambitions. But why?

As Delgado has said much that should be music to the hoteliers’ ears, their rejection of him seems surprising. But perhaps it isn’t. Perhaps they don’t much care for naked ambition. Perhaps they don’t much care for him; he is far from being universally popular. Perhaps they fear that he might ruffle some feathers. Whatever the reason, Bauzá surely cannot ignore the industry’s objections. If he acknowledges them, then that leaves education.

Bauzá has himself become divisive in a way that does not bode well for what should be within his grasp, the presidency of the Balearics. If he bows to Delgado’s ambition for education, the divisions are likely to widen. But then who actually makes the decisions and who actually wields the power?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Party Games: Bauzà’s lapse

The Partido Popular in the Balearics are making a video game/puppet version of themselves. It features the party’s leader, José Ramón Bauzà, pronounced Bowser. His number two is Calvia’s mayor Carlos Delgado, Charles Thin, represented by the old Goons’ character – Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, to whom he bears a not totally thin resemblance.

It’s a shame that Bowser is not a chameleon, but the Super Mario turtle – PP Bowser-style – combines in animated villainy with Grytpype-Thynne to make for a real hoot of an educational tool, one for the pupils of the Balearics. The big question is in which language they should be speaking. The preference should be Castilian. But this is too simple. There are also Catalan, Mallorquín, Menorquín, Ibicenco and Formenterense to take into account. The game does get somewhat complicated.

The solution is to make the animation a battle between Bowser and Grytpype, suitably cast as the Castilian-speaking villains, against hordes of Marios or Neddie Seagoons mouthing off in Catalan or versions thereof. But there’s a sub-plot, because we can’t be too sure about Bowser, as he’s prone to turn turtle. One day he says he’s going to kick Catalan into touch, and the next day he says that he hadn’t meant to say that, it was all the result of a “lapse” he had suffered during an early-morning radio interview.

Bowser has pumped out a whole load of oil onto the troubled waters of local language politics. He had done so by suggesting that, were he to become regional president next year, he would get rid of the law of 1986 which had granted Catalan dual-official status, a result of which would be to promote Castilian, together with the local languages, as the tongues of learning in schools – the so-called free selection, but without Catalan. He had done so, and then said he hadn’t meant it, having caused a hell of a stink in the process.

There is a fair old back story to all this.

Bauzà and Delgado were rivals for the leadership of the PP in March, the former winning quite comfortably. Before the leadership election took place, Delgado had some pretty harsh words for his rival, accusing him of having no credibility when it came to the language issue and of being opposed to free selection of language.

Delgado, on the other hand, is an advocate of free selection. He is unashamedly pro-Castilian and anti-Catalan, stating that Castilian is his “mother tongue”.

But since the leadership election, things have moved on. Firstly, Bauzà created something of a stir by making Delgado his number two, which didn’t go down a storm with the party’s moderate wing. Secondly, he managed to alienate this moderate wing by being perceived as being too close to the party’s national leader Mariano Rajoy; the insinuations are that he is something of a stooge. Thirdly, he increased this alienation by getting ever closer to Delgado, who is to the right of the party. So much so that, by the end of September, he was being branded a Delgado “clone” and, in an “Ultima Hora” blog, was said to have “adopted the anti-Catalan thesis” of Delgado.

It is against this background, therefore, that Bauzà did the radio interview, one in which he seemed to be following the Delgado line. The impression is of someone prone to vacillation and to misjudgment, which he quickly tried to rectify by claiming a lapse that allowed him to then try and distance himself from Delgado. But if he is capable of one lapse, then what other ones might he have? The words of Delgado regarding his credibility will be haunting him.

Bauzà might hope that when the elections for the regional presidency take place next spring, everyone will have forgotten about all this. It’s most unlikely. Though whether he has dented his chances are questionable. The PP will probably still win, but what confidence might there be in a president who seems far from sure-footed?

He should stick to video games. Bowser’s the one who always steals the game show. And he should be wary of Delgado. Grytpype-Thynne always managed to put one over on the fall-guy.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Silly Season: British election and the new tourism season

There was a long article in yesterday’s “Diario” which was its introduction to the new season. I’ve linked it below. For many of you it will probably make no sense, but just a look at its length will indicate the significance of the start of the tourist season. Tourism is not only news in Mallorca, it is the inspiration for comment, letters, angst, anxiety, hopes. The prominence given to tourism in the local press is deserved. It is just a pity that it isn’t necessarily mirrored at governmental level. However, in one municipality, Calvia, the mayor, Carlos Delgado, has assumed responsibility for tourism. Calvia, remember, is the home to Magaluf, Santa Ponsa and other resorts. After Palma, it is the single most important tourism town in Mallorca; it might be argued that is more important than Palma.

While Delgado has taken on the tourism brief in an act of politicking – stripping the British-born Kate Mentink of the duty, given her support of his rival in the recent election for leader of the island’s Partido Popular (a contest that Delgado lost) – the grafting on of tourism to his mayoral role makes much sense. I have argued, on more than one occasion, that tourism should be firmly in the office of the regional government’s president. Delgado may have done something along these lines in Calvia for the wrong reasons, but he is still right to have done so.

Turning to the “Diario” article, there is stuff here about the prospects for “new” markets, most significantly the Russian one. To this end, you may (or may not) be interested to learn that there is now a Russian bar/restaurant in Puerto Alcúdia. It might be a tad more sophisticated than a cult Russian restaurant I used to frequent years ago in Kensington: no alcohol licence so you brought your own, and when you asked the waiter what “red sauce” was, the reply would come: “it’s red.”

Also buried within the article is a reflection on the British election. See, British politics spreads its tentacles far and wide. There is some optimism for a recovery of both the German and Spanish tourism markets this season, while there is also hope that a change of government in the UK – from Brown to Cameron – will result in a strengthening of the British market on the back of a further strengthening of the pound. This hope might be misplaced, while a hung parliament, so we keep being told (by the Tories if no one else), could be detrimental in terms of markets, the pound more than anything.

It’s hard to imagine there being much interest in the UK where an election run-off between Zapatero and Rajoy is concerned, but in Spain, British politics (and French and German) is followed keenly, and not only by some expatriates. It is curious to observe the election from a distance, but it is no less fascinating, even if it seems to matter less than it does to a disillusioned electorate in the UK. Oh, the memories of that glorious spring day of 1 May 1997 and the equally glorious 2 May when one had a skip in one’s step despite the hangover. What a shame that we were sold such a pup.

I know what I’ll be doing on Thursday night, hoping for a Portillo moment, a Goldsmith-Mellor moment, or something equally as delicious. Bye, bye, Gordy. Hello, Dave. Now, there’s a good name for a comedy channel.

The “Diario” article:
http://www.diariodemallorca.es/mallorca/2010/05/02/queda-inaugurado-verano–recuperacion-dicen/566700.html

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Political Balls – Carlos Delgado and the politics of language

Carlos Delgado. Get used to the name. You might be hearing quite a bit more of him. Some of you may already know the name. He has been mentioned here before. And who he? Delgado is the mayor of Calvià (Magaluf etc.). He is also a candidate for presidency of the Balearics Partido Popular (the conservative party), and were he to become leader, he could well also become president of the regional government.

Delgado is something of a controversial character. No, he’s not mired in corruption scandals, but he is one of the main protagonists in the politics of language and is – essentially – pro-Castilian, a position that many in his party would also hold. For pro-Castilian, you can read – were you minded to – anti-Catalan. Delgado has made repeated pronouncements on the language issue, and in a feature from the “Diario” the headline starkly states that he could enter the region’s administration “without knowing Catalan”. For a Mallorcan politician, this is a heck of an admission. If Delgado were to be the PP’s candidate for president, you can bet your life that the election is likely to be sidetracked down the emotional language line. There are more important matters.

One area of the so-called “Catalan imposition” that Delgado would backtrack on (backtrack, sidetrack, we all get off track) is the Catalan requirement for public-sector workers, such as those in the medical service. It was this, more than anything, that gave rise to a demonstration in Palma last spring against the imposition.

There are many who will support Delgado for this reason alone, but there are many, even PP voters, who might find his own lack of Catalan a drawback. They wouldn’t be wrong. However much many might agree that Catalan has encroached too far into public administration and other aspects of Mallorcan life and society, it is the case that it holds joint official status alongside Castilian. An argument, and not an inaccurate one, is that Castilian’s joint official status has been undermined, but the duality of language is a fact. A president of the Balearics should be a Catalan speaker. If nothing else, it is a matter of respect.

The current leader of the PP, José Ramón Bauzá, has also not been unknown for making pronouncements against Catalan. The language issue, he has been quoted as saying, has been “perverted” by the current administration, but he believes, as seemingly also does Delgado, that school textbooks should be freely available in the local dialects of the four Balearic islands. Doesn’t sound like a strong pro-Castilian line (indeed it sounds rather contradictory), but one thing you can be sure of, especially if Delgado were to come to power, would be that the main language of teaching would become a major issue.

This is all a not insignificant social and political issue in Mallorca, one cannot downplay it, but the worry is that it might assume far more prominence than matters of real importance, the economy for example. If all the corruption were not enough, politics in Mallorca may be about to take its collective eye further off the ball.

Palm beetle
On the march. On the wing might be more appropriate. The African beetle that is threatening to devastate palm trees in Pollensa has arrived in Alcúdia. Gardeners are being told by the town hall to only trim branches. Cutting right back lets off the pheromones that attract the beetle. Though there has been spraying in Pollensa, it is largely ineffective.

Palms come at a price. They may be very attractive, but they are also expensive to maintain. And even more expensive if they have to be cut down as a consequence of the beetle.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.