You Have A Cup Of Coffee

Oh no, here we go again. Hot on the heels of the piece of two days, another letter complaining about prices. One grows tired of this litany of expensive woe, especially when it’s so skewed. Up pops someone else in “The Bulletin”, this time using the price of a coffee as the stick with which to beat the cost of Mallorca. How much? 3.50 euros. 3.50 euros? Where the hell have they been taking a coffee? It can be the case that some restaurants will charge excessive amounts for the likes of a coffee, but they are usually expensive restaurants anyway. The solution is to go somewhere else, or take a post-prandial stroll to a café or bar where the coffee will be, typically, 1.50 (you can indeed pay less). Or maybe this was a special type of coffee, who knows? And that’s just the problem, you never know. You never know which restaurant or bar, you don’t necessarily know where it is. I daresay that in the high- and well-heeled boutique bars of Deía or Portals you can cop a big’n for one with milk. Doesn’t mean to say that you pay it everywhere, and you don’t. Of course you don’t. So why say it? You know, I might write a letter, say I was charged five euros for a coffee. No, make that a tenner. And then I’ll demand that the authorities do something about it all before the tourism apocalypse occurs. And of course I won’t say where this tenner was charged, because it was all a fabrication. Can we please just give this all a rest, as it is, yes really is, rather tiresome.

 

 

Not the year of the jellyfish

Been stung by a jellyfish this year? Chances are you haven’t been. According to the “Cruz Roja”, its lifeguards and staff have had to attend to a mere 3,221 bathers in the Balearics who have been on the wrong end of a jellyfish tentacle. Sounds a lot? Not really. In 2008 the number was 13,767, while in 2006 – the year of the plague – it was almost double that figure at over 26 thousand. Ibiza is the place you need to go to be more likely to be stung; the number of victims there is not far off a half of that 3000 plus total for this year. Given that more people go to Mallorca than to Ibiza or Menorca, it is perhaps surprising that the fewest numbers of stings are recorded on the biggest of the islands. Or maybe the Cruz Roja doesn’t patrol that many beaches in Mallorca. Anyway, it’s all rather encouraging. Perhaps the winds have just been in the wrong direction and have blown the sea and the devils away. But don’t get too complacent, there have, in Mallorca, been nearly 270 people stung by fishes, most obviously the weever fish. My neighbour for example. “Merde”, said he when his foot expanded and he had to head off to Muro General. Well, he is French, so he would say that.

Animal Quackers

And so they came again, they saw and they let loose some live ducks – more than on other occasions during this time of prohibition. Therein lies a story. If you know not of what I speak, get yourselves down to Can Picafort next year for the traditional duck liberation farce. Where there should be only rubber ducks are a few real ones – a dozen in all this year. The problem is you can’t get a good view. So many people came this year, perhaps because it was a holiday and a Saturday, but also because they want to see live ducks being let go in contravention of this mad denial of an old ritual; they want people to be naughty. Whether the masked men who were responsible for the live fowl came on jet-ski or boat is immaterial, the fact is they came, and no-one in Can Picafort is inclined to let on who they might be; they still like their traditions live and with breathing animals in Can Picafort. Plod were apparently unable to use launches because they were all being used to protect the royals down in the south. It would be same next year as well. Unless they form some sort of exclusion zone with helicopters, launches, submarines, the masked miscreants will prevail. But to create an overwhelming police presence would be insane. We are talking about ducks here. This is of course now all a cause célèbre, and there will be a desire for more audacious cocking-a-snook at authority; expect whole flocks of ducks in 2010. And even more people willing them on.

 

 

Oh so expensive – or not?

Yet another letter to “The Bulletin” about over-pricing and low standards. Yet another letter choosing Puerto Pollensa, or one restaurant (unnamed) in Puerto Pollensa, to justify the argument. To be fair, the letter-writer(s) praised restaurants in the resort but picked on one where the menu of the day was less than good. So what? We can all point to bad experiences wherever we go. One example does not make a case for anything, other than not returning to a particular restaurant. ‘Twas ever thus. Yet the conclusion, in the letter, is that tourists will not come back if they are expected to pay the prices that are being asked. Something isn’t quite right – yesterday I cited that research which made price a key issue for coming to Mallorca. Maybe it is just coincidence, maybe it is just a case of letter-writers following a leader, but the paper seems intent on ramming this theme down everyone’s throats and using it as a means of beating the tourism industry in general and bars and restaurants specifically, but with little balance or explanation as to why prices may be as they are or as to how one can actually holiday in Mallorca pretty cheaply. The letters are generally left unchallenged, creating a false impression; it’s the same principle as that to which I referred yesterday.

 

You have to, or should always strive for some perspective and some balance, and these one-off letters simply don’t do that. In “The Diario” they have been talking to tourists and finding that they are looking for ways to spend less, but they quote one British holidaymaker who says that everything is much cheaper than in the UK. So make of that what you will.

 

 

Car-hire shortage – old news

Still with “The Bulletin”, on Saturday it front-paged about the lack of hire cars on the island and their price. It was basically a thing doing the rounds of other media – the BBC’s website had something very similar. It’s fair enough and at least it does point out that the situation has been caused in large part by a lack of financing that saw hire-car fleets reduced. But why now? On 14 April (You Got A Fast Car), there was a piece on just this subject. The shortage was heralded before the main season started, but only now is it being given much attention. It’s actually old news, old news that should have been given more prominent treatment as car hire is a not unimportant aspect of the island’s tourism. Don’t understand.

Only To Distort

These are some of the things I dislike – misrepresentation, distortion, sensationalism, hyperbole, vitriol, vendettas, agendas, falsehoods, egoism, unquestioning acceptance, black and white. I may be guilty of some of them, but it still doesn’t mean I like them. Some of them overlap, intertwine; they are all symptoms of a lack of balance or of proportion. 

 

There have been examples of some of these in the reporting of Palmanova and in the ongoing Mallorca’s expensive propaganda. Let us take a letter to “The Bulletin” yesterday, another letter to the paper going down the expensive route. It requires a response, and not one that kow-tows to the sentiments of the letter and calls for price controls. The writer states that paracetamol, as an example, costs almost 5 euros in Mallorca compared to 35 pence in a UK supermarket. What is wrong with this? Plenty. For starters, a pack of one brand of twenty 500 mg paracetamol tablets costs 2.30 from a chemists. It is more expensive than UK supermarkets, but not by the margin suggested (and for 35 pence, how many tablets does one get and at what strength?). Its sale is also controlled. The UK differs from Spain, and indeed other European countries, in allowing the sale of certain drugs outside the chemist channel. UK supermarket chains have enormous purchasing power that allows them to sell a small pack of paracetamol at a lower price than many UK chemists. There is also no equivalent of Boots in Mallorca. But if drugs are on prescription, some can cost a handful of centimos, such is the cheapness of many of them. You cannot compare like with like – it’s a distortion of the facts to do so in order to seek to support an agenda that sets out to prove the expensive or more expensive case.

 

The letter goes on: vodka at the airport is similar in price to the UK. The airport shops are more expensive than ones in resorts, even for tobacco. But note that the price is “similar”. The supermarkets in the UK are often criticised for their price competitiveness when it comes to alcohol and to fuelling binge drinking. The comparison has found evidence from one retail setting in order to try and prove a case; it is a further distortion, but even then an argument not well made. The letter believes that “prices in Mallorca are exceptionally higher than those in the UK”. This is exaggeration, hyperbole. The truth of the statement, and it is not wholly untrue in certain instances, lies in the functioning of the market. Go back to the purchasing power of UK supermarket chains and add on the level of competition in that sector. You cannot compare it with that in Mallorca. A Wal-Mart or Tesco would shake up the Mallorcan supermarket scene, but neither would be likely to set foot on the island owing to cultural differences, logistics, labour rules and red tape. The letter also compares prices of named brands of sun lotion. They may well indeed be more expensive in Mallorca for the same reason of purchasing power. In which case, don’t buy them. Recently I cited the example of the Müller store that sells spray lotions at different factors at very low cost. 

 

Letter-writers, journalists, it does not matter which. One does not start, or should not start, from the conclusion, what one wants to prove; it is wholly the wrong approach, a top-down one that is bound to distort the true situation. 

 

 

Then we come to Palmanova. “The Bulletin”, through its editorial and another letter, makes a point in respect of the lack of information following the incident. The regional government president has since apologised for this lack of information. The point is well made that, without information, speculation was allowed to grow and an untrue representation as to the target of the bombers allowed to be made. There was a PR failure; the government admits this. The main concerns regarding the lack of information were to do with the lockdown of points of exit and of roads and in the immediate vicinity of the incident. There was inconvenience, annoyance and some anger, most of it the result of poor communication. But let’s take a UK perspective. When the Glasgow attack occurred, what happened? Security measures were put into place in airports across the UK, immediate restrictions imposed. Much of the reporting had to do with, yes, a lack of information and poor communication and resultant annoyance and inconvenience caused to passengers. 

 

The letter on the subject, otherwise a good analysis of the situation, concludes that Palmanova highlights a lack of political experience and a lack of fitness for office of the regional government. This is unfair and out of proportion. Take out the word political, and one has something more of the truth of the situation. Lack of experience in dealing with such an incident. The lockdown was the effecting of a plan that was already in place. The lesson of Palmanova is that experience should be gained in making communication a key element of that plan; it was this that was missing and has been acknowledged as having been missing. One also needs to consider the instructions of the police, the security forces and the interior ministry. It is they who drive events in such circumstances, not the tourism ministry. The latter should now become a firm feature of joined-up communication responses to any incident in the future, were one to ever occur. There were numerous groups that needed to be communicated with after Palmanova, not just tourists – the general public, the media, tour operators, airlines, other governments. And a final point, there is a language factor. Police not communicating with tourists in Palmanova may, as much as anything else, have been the result of their inability to speak languages. Indeed they could have made matters worse if they had expressed themselves incorrectly. 

 

Ultimately, and despite the failures in communication and the sensationalism in the press, we learn that there are virtually no cancellations of holidays. Some will always respond in a paranoid fashion, but overwhelmingly there is an appreciation that Palmanova was not the manifestation of a threat to tourists. As with plane crashes, people move on very quickly on the principle that lightning very rarely strikes twice. Thankfully, most can see distortion and sensationalism for what they are.

Face Value

Well true to form there was indeed a mention in “The Bulletin” of price controls. This followed the letter it published at the weekend, the one about which I commented a couple of days ago. This notion of price control does raise its rather pointless head every now and then. It is pointless as, in the context of bars and restaurants, there is only so little that could realistically be controlled – coffee, some beers, the price of the menu of the day (and at one time I think this was indeed controlled). But you cannot control or cap the rest. How on earth could you? Price is a facet of a business’s marketing mix, it is determined by factors such as cost and the market, of ingredients, style of menu, number and type of personnel; a statist price-fixing mechanism would not only be impossible to apply, it would fly in the face of a free (or relatively free) market. I wonder how many who might argue the case for price controls are in fact Thatcherite market liberals. The whole notion is preposterous. 

 

Rather more importantly, one does have to go behind these statements of everything’s so expensive. They are ones made largely as a consequence of perception as much as of reality. They are also ones made, in many instances, based on a lack of appreciation of prices and how they vary from establishment to establishment. To simply accept the words of one or more letter-writers as some sort of gospel of Mallorcan expensiveness, to take them at their face value is to be incurious or unquestioning. Ok, there is much that is expensive in Mallorca; land and property for starters. But it is not the whole story.  

 

Want cheap? Well try the small Spanish bars and cafés then. Even in the square in Puerto Pollensa, there is the variance between Cultural and Bony. They are totally different, and one is less expensive than the other – so be it. There are the menus of the day. Want cheap? La Cantina in Puerto Alcúdia, four euros for a menu take-away. Then there are the food stores. Want cheap? Try a litre of Aurum beer for 59 centimos from Eroski, rather than Becks from a tourist outlet. Or other types of store. Want cheap suntan lotion? Try the Müller store. On offer at a euro a bottle have been CadeaVera sprays at different factors.  

 

It occurs to me that I could list a whole load of bars, restaurants, shops and the rest and give a guide to doing the area on the cheap. It wouldn’t be difficult, but to do so would probably run the risk of hacking off those who charge more. The fact is that things are as expensive as people want to make them and to perceive them to be. And even were there to be such a list, it might strike some as being expensive. It all comes down to individual circumstances and perceptions. 

 

 

Miss Baleares

On 21 July (Childhood Dreams – Part 2), I referred to the election of the Beata at this year’s Santa Margalida fiestas, alluding to the non-beauty contest nature of the election. Little did I appreciate that the Miss Baleares contest was due to take place, and did so this past Saturday. One Verónica Hernández has been crowned Balearic totty of the year. But I shouldn’t be so non-PC. Señorita Hernández is studying journalism and “audiovisual communication”. She says, in an interview with “The Diario”, that being a “miss” and being a model are two distinct things; she is the former, a more real woman, in her words. Anyway, there may be some among you interested to know that Verónica does not have a boyfriend. In which case … here she is: http://www.diariodemallorca.es/secciones/noticia.jsp?pRef=2009072700_9_488249__Actual-Veronica-Hernandez-bonita

Souvenir

Never accuse “The Bulletin” of a lack of hyperbole. It headlines a letter “the demise of the tourist industry”. And this is? Oh no, spare me. Someone change the record. Or rather, don’t, as to do so would deprive me of some blog inches. Yep, you’ve probably guessed it; everything’s so expensive, tourists being ripped off, locals having a laugh, blah, blah. 

 

Let’s put the euro-pound thing to one side, shall we. The crisis has created a mindset that has made tourists – and not just tourists – pay far greater attention to prices than was the case. Therefore, things seem more expensive because people are more conscious of what they’re spending. In real terms, prices for many items are generally no higher than they were say five years ago, but costs have contributed to increases, inevitably so. Certain things are undeniably more expensive. Car hire for one. And the letter refers to this being “extortionate”. Unfortunately, the writer is probably unaware of the supply and demand in the car hire business this season; the agencies could not get hold of the bank finance so had to reduce their fleets. It’s not having a laugh, it’s very basic economics and very basic doing business. 

 

And doing business is what some tourists seem to resent. There is an enduring belief that Mallorca and Spain should still be some tin-pot economy on the edges of the civilised economic world. It once was, and it was once also very cheap. Not now though. Not cheap to buy products or services, and not cheap to run businesses either. But when the letter-writer refers to eating out for a “reasonable sum”, what is reasonable? Are the two large pieces of cod with chips and a salad at the Pins i Mates tourist restaurant in Alcúdia Pins unreasonably priced at 5.75 euros? I don’t think so. It all depends where you go and what you have. 

 

Elsewhere we learn that souvenir shops are having a particularly thin time. Well, nothing new there. Last year it was being reported that sales were down by around 60% in some cases. That didn’t stop the souvenir shops opening up again. If there was going to be one sector that suffered particularly spectacularly this year, it was going to be the souvenir shops and other stores, such as perfumeries. All that buying gifts for friends and family has been kicked into touch. I never quite understood it anyway. But it’s all part of the same greater awareness of what is being spent and therefore what it all costs. A hideous piece of kitchen ceramic may have seemed a reasonable thing to have bought before, but now the price tag, and the fact that it is hideous, has made the tourist think twice before pulling out some folding euros. 

 

But to come back to that letter, the writer was saying all this based on a holiday in Puerto Pollensa. Poor old PP. If it’s not the wicked uncles of Dakota or the leg-overing, sweet-dispensing José, it’s the fact that the resort is too expensive. As a conclusion, the letter says that officials “need to act now and cap prices”. Cap which prices, which products or services? And at what level? The suggestion is nuts, but it probably won’t prevent an editorial in the paper reiterating a previous call for price controls.