Is The Customer Satisfied?

The Balearics received 11% more international visitors in the first seven months of this year than last. Let joy be unconfined. Put out the bunting.

5.75 million people up to the end of July, but have they been happy? Loads of people doesn’t automatically mean loads of satisfied people or indeed loadsamoney. At the same time as the statistics of joy are being sung about arrivals into the airports and ports, the latest tourism satisfaction survey compiled by the research organisation Gadeso offers a less upbeat tempo.

The overall index of satisfaction where Mallorca is concerned is down. Only fractionally, but down nevertheless. Of the four key measures of satisfaction, only the quality of the environment shows a slight upward trend. Satisfaction with public services is unchanged from 2010, while satisfaction with both accommodation and the so-called complementary offer (bars, restaurants etc.) is down.

A caveat in all this is that the results are based on a mere 400 interviews, and these 400 have been conducted across the Balearics. There have been more in Mallorca than anywhere else, but the number still isn’t great, and there is no indication as to the backgrounds of those interviewed. So, is the survey of any use?

Its value does rather depend upon whether you believe that results from a limited survey can be extrapolated into painting an accurate picture of attitudes more generally. Tourists are a highly diverse bunch with a highly diverse set of expectations, and when a survey asks for making a ranking between one and ten, the decision of the person being surveyed can be fairly arbitrary.

What you get, at best, is an indication. No more. You can choose to use the results as evidence or not. If, however, you are inclined to take them as evidence, then certain findings do rather jump out at you. One in particular. That of the satisfaction with the price-quality ratio of the bars and restaurants. It has the lowest rating of any factor in the survey – 3.4 – which is the same as last year and down from 4.0 since 2009. It is the one factor that Gadeso describes as “deficient”.

If one interprets this as meaning that prices are too high and quality is too low, then the bars and restaurants of Mallorca are not performing well. One suspects the ratio is, in the minds of those surveyed, skewed more by price than it is by quality; that the assessment is an assessment of price as opposed to what actually appears on a plate. Why might one suspect this? Because prices are known. Quality is intangible. Providing a ratio between the known and the unknown will place a greater emphasis on what is known. Simple.

Consequently, can we assume that prices are too high? Anecdotally they are said to be. But what are the benchmarks? One also suspects that a benchmark is an historical recollection of what things cost in the good old days or is a completely unrealistic expectation that because Mallorca is “foreign” it should automatically be cheap. Prices vary so markedly that is almost impossible to come to a conclusion. How, for instance, does one reconcile the fact that in Puerto Pollensa you can pay three euros for a coffee and a bacon sandwich in one establishment, then go to another and pay 4.50 for the coffee alone? Yes, the quality element kicks in, but if you go solely on price then a reconciliation cannot be made, other than the fact that one place is cheap and the other isn’t.

The singling out of price, be it by anecdote or by survey result, is a headline maker because price is arguably the most important issue to the tourist. Indeed the Gadeso survey reinforces this, but in doing so it raises an apparent contradiction. Since 2009 price as a motivation for tourists choosing Mallorca has shot up by over 12 percentage points. 61.8% of those surveyed said it was the main motivation. So, how does this square with the finding regarding the price-quality ratio?

Perhaps it is a reflection of what tourists expect of Mallorca and is also a reflection, as noted by the survey, of low-cost travel. It may also represent expectations of first-time visitors, those who opted for Mallorca this year because of problems elsewhere in the Mediterranean region. The percentage of those who had previously been to Mallorca is down quite significantly, while the percentage of those saying they would return is also down.

Surveys are notorious for enabling whatever interpretation you want to put on them, but the message from this one is that price is the overriding factor in coming to Mallorca in the first place, and that price, once on the island, is not quite as was expected.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Paying For Sand: Prices on beaches

How much are you paying for a sunbed? It’s one of those questions, on a par with what’s the weather like in (add as applicable), that is on the list of the Mallorcan visitor’s enquiries.

I confess to not knowing a great deal about the cost of sunbeds. I have never, ever hired one. They are a part of beach life that has passed me by, and I pass them by on the way to finding a piece of soft sand. But the sunbed is important for many. The beach should be comfortable and not be a place where no end of patting the sand down can seem to eliminate the annoying ridge that’s sticking into your back.

My knowledge of the subject has, however, increased thanks to the fact that sunbeds have been very much a theme of this Mallorcan summer. They have either not been provided (Puerto Pollensa for a time) or too many have been provided (Can Picafort, before the mayor ordered the removal of excessive numbers).

And I can now thank the local Chamber of Commerce for adding to the body of the sunbed knowledge. It’s put out a report and is asking for a harmonisation in pricing in the different resorts, differences in which can be as great as five euros for a bed and a shade combination. The average price is 7.6 euros.

The cost of sunbeds has increased markedly since the turn of the century. One reason for this has been an increase in the tax charged by town halls. It’s a simple equation: the higher the tax, the higher the price.

The beach operators, however, have other costs to take into account, such as those for the sunbeds and parasols themselves, which are often meant to comply with certain specifications. For example, some of the parasols in Pollensa have not been of the required reed material, which has added to what has become an annual controversy in respect of beach provision.

With the tax that has to be paid and all the other costs, it is perhaps unsurprising that you got a situation such as that in Can Picafort where the operator was exceeding the number of sunbeds by some 550. It’s all about profitability, after all. Nevertheless, Can Picafort is one resort where the cost is said to be reasonable.

The differing costs to the operators and the differing prices they charge mean that the overall annual benefits to operators also vary. The report suggests that in Felanitx (by which I guess it means Portocolom) the return is just under five hundred euros a unit, way higher than in Manacor (92 euros).

Sunbeds aren’t the only elements of beach life that come with a price. Some come with a pretty significant one. Well, would you pay 50 euros for 20 minutes on a jetski? Maybe you would. Less expensive though and also more sedate are pedaloes. Average going rate 11.7 euros, says the report. But it can be nine euros or it can be 15 (Alcúdia). What you win on lower sunbed prices in Alcúdia, you lose on a pedalo.

And what about the beach bars? The “chiringuitos” and “balnearios”. They too are subject to varying taxes according to resort, and so charge accordingly.

Last year, before the season had even properly started, I was being told about the fact that the beach bar prices were too high. An example was given in respect of Swedish tourists to Alcúdia who now found a “pint” in a beach bar to be roughly the equivalent of that back in Sweden, a country hardly known for its cheap alcohol.

But when the chiringuitos are being taxed in the way they are, the prices start to become understandable. They have to pay the town halls, the inland revenue and the concessionaire who actually runs the beach bars.

The town halls make a mint out of their beaches. If they have a number of them and/or they have large beaches with high occupancy by tourists, then they are quids in. One of the largest beaches is that in Alcúdia, and the town hall here rakes in the most of any town hall from its beaches, more so than Palma: nearly three and a half million euros. Even Pollensa, with smaller beaches, can outstrip even Calvia when it comes to its revenue: around a million less than Alcúdia.

There’s money to be made from sand. But you know, the beach should be simple. Take a towel and lie on the sand, forget about the pedalo, pack your own drinks and snacks. And then there soon wouldn’t be money to be made.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Close To You: Tourist supermarkets

When I was at university, there was a Spar on campus. I hesitate to use the word supermarket to describe it, because supermarket and student in the same sentence, back then, meant little more than tins of corned beef and those sausages they shoved in with baked beans.

Nowadays, there are probably Tesco Metros on British campuses, pandering to a student class that places purple-sprouting broccoli and gourmet fresh pastas above getting bladdered in the union bar or being served up with the sort of animal droppings my university’s refectories specialised in.

Sophistication may have grown these past thirty years, but the Spar is still with us. In Mallorca, as elsewhere in Spain and on the Continent, Spars have become good Europeans. They are EuroSpars.

The Spar always was European, in that it was originally Dutch and still is. Though the logo of a fir reflects the Dutch word for the tree (“spar”), the word can also mean save, as in saving money.

It is here, the saving money angle, that the original Spar philosophy of everyone regularly profiting has tended to become a tad one-sided. In favour of the Spar operator. The Spanish slogan for EuroSpar has been, may still be, for all I know, “always close to you”. It sounds soothing enough, in a Karen and Richard Carpenter way, and is probably necessary in order to soothe a customer startled by a price tag.

It is not just EuroSpars that are close to you. The tourist supermarket of whatever name appears to be taking over as the main representative on the streets of Mallorca’s resorts. The restaurants are disappearing and are being replaced by emporia with stands of flip-flops and Bells whisky piled high.

The tourist supermarket, like the Chinese bazaar, is very much on the march. In Alcúdia, a large, now ex-restaurant has been supermarketed, bang opposite another that has been there for some years. Why do you need two of them in such proximity, especially as there would appear to be at least partial common ownership? Perhaps it’s all the McDonald’s strategy of street saturation.

Or perhaps it’s … . No, actually I don’t know what it is. I can’t think of any good reason why so many of these supermarkets are in fact necessary. Some, but not so many.

The trend towards tourists eating in may have something to do with it; where food shopping is concerned at any rate. But any savings on eating out are eroded by the prices that can be paid. You can hand over up to twice what you might expect to pay in an Eroski, a Mercadona and others; more perhaps.

Unless it is a matter of convenience or sometimes necessity, it is hard to understand the attraction of the tourist supermarket, though there is a further factor. Bone idleness, to which you can add heat. In ninety degrees, the nearest supermarket, even at higher prices, becomes distinctly attractive, compared to schlepping a kilometre or so with bags of spuds, bottles of Coke and a five-litre container of water.

It’s unfair to damn all tourist supermarkets, as there are those which, in addition to convenience, do some things well – better ranges of alcohol than mainstream supermarkets, the occasional deli, their own cafés, bakeries, home deliveries, plus friendly and attentive service. I can name a few, if you wish, and so it is unfair to tarnish them all. But there are those whose practices can be questionable, if not illegal.

Before the pound dived, there was one which used to advertise booze – in huge front-of-store displays – at prices quoted in pounds that appeared to be significantly lower than the real price in euros which was shown in small print. In others, newspapers can attract price stickers, above their proper prices. Paracetamol is sold at an inflated price when it shouldn’t even be sold at all. Names can be misleading. How about an Aldi which most certainly isn’t?

One of the problems for Spar is that, although its Euro shops may be perfectly ok, its name has entered the vocabulary in the same way as Hoover has to mean a vacuum-cleaner. The name is synonymous with the tourist supermarket. Whether Spar or not, whether any good or not, the supermarket is Spar-ed. But does it still sell corned beef?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Price Barometer: Mallorca under pressure?

I can hear the sound of pencils being sharpened, of keyboards being thumped indignantly, of conclusions being drawn and of calls for “they” (the ever-anonymous “authorities”) to do something.

Prices. Give me strength. The UK Post Office has issued its annual worldwide holiday costs barometer, the needle edging ever higher until the barometer bursts with the rising pressure of a correspondent letting off steam with a shout of Mallorca’s so expensive.

Mallorca, according to the Post Office’s survey, stands at number 14 in a list of 36 destinations. There are two ways of looking at this. Mallorca is either the fourteenth cheapest place in the world or it is the twenty-third most expensive. The damning evidence, if you want to call it this, is that Portugal and Spain top the list of the cheapest destinations. How can Mallorca be more expensive than Spain? Must be because it’s a rip-off. So will go the conclusions. Presumably, similar hackles are being raised in Tenerife which comes in at number nineteen on the list. Perhaps there is something to do with islands. And what might that be?

Let’s get some perspective. With the exception of Bulgaria (number four), other non-Iberian competitors to Mallorca are, if one accepts the Post Office’s findings, about as expensive or about as cheap – Croatia and Cyprus fractionally cheaper, Greece and Turkey fractionally more expensive.

The other perspective that is necessary is to understand how this survey is compiled. The trouble is that the Post Office doesn’t say. If you go to its website, you will find the full results, but nothing about the methodology, save for the basket of goods that form the basis of the comparison. And one other thing. As a footnote, it says that prices are supplied by tourist offices with certain exceptions. Information for Mallorca comes from a villa agency. Why? I honestly couldn’t say.

Unless you know the precise way in which this survey is conducted, you can make all manner of assumptions. The villa agency in question is a highly reputable operation. It specialises in luxury villas. Of its thirteen properties in Mallorca, eleven are in Pollensa. Let’s just assume for one moment that information on prices is taken locally – in Pollensa town. It is not hard to imagine that these might be a tad higher than they are in, say, Puerto Alcúdia or Magalluf.

Mallorca languishes twelve places below Spain in this survey. But what is meant by Spain? Make another assumption. Benidorm. Anyone can tell you that Benidorm has a reputation for being cheap. Naff cheap, inexpensive cheap. Potentially, therefore, you have a polarity in terms of market; the economy variety of Benidorm and the luxury end of Pollensa. Chalk and cheese. One of the greatest disparities between Mallorca and Spain, says the survey, is the cost of a three-course meal with wine for two, a twelve euro difference. So what? It’s eminently possible, just as it’s eminently possible to pay the lower Spanish amount in Mallorca.

Everything depends, just as President Zapatero’s famous 80 cent coffee depended. Another item from the survey is the cost of factor-15 sun cream. It’s way higher in Mallorca than in Spain, by almost seven euros. And? Is this the same brand, the same supermarket chain? Perhaps it is, in which case there is a legitimate question to be asked as to why it costs that much more. But perhaps it isn’t. You don’t know, because the survey doesn’t tell you. Nor do you know what size the bottle of sun cream is. There is a factor 15 sitting in my bathroom. It still has its price sticker. 3.99 euros. From the German Müller store in Alcúdia. Is this evidence of something being cheaper than the 4.42 euros on the mainland of Spain? No, it is evidence of one product at one store in one location costing one particular price. See, it all depends.

Price comparison surveys of this type need to be treated with scepticism, taken with a pinch of salt that probably costs more in Mallorca than on the mainland. They can be indicative of prices, but the surveys themselves vary. One from last year (Skyscanner’s) made Cyprus the cheapest holiday destination in Europe. Yet it is thirteenth in the Post Office’s worldwide survey, one place above Mallorca. Another, that from Thomas Cook, placed the Balearics seventh – behind Egypt, Turkey and the Canaries. But these are all more expensive, according to the Post Office.

Rigorously scientific these surveys tend not to be. They are unverified snapshots, they provide a talking-point, but that’s about it. And there is often another reason for their being produced. The Post Office sells currency, a point it makes on its survey.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Is The Price Right? Yes and no

What was I saying yesterday? The year has barely started and the recurring theme of prices, their alleged excessiveness and their control is already being aired. As every year. And as ever, the discussion is littered with anecdotal evidence that can be cited to support an argument of excessive prices. My personal favourite remains the one about the cost of a packet of paracetamol. Five euros at a supermarket, lamented a tourist letter-writer. An example of rip-off Mallorca. Yes, it was a rip-off, but more importantly the supermarket had no right to be selling the drug; the example was the right symptom but the wrong diagnosis.

For all the talk of high prices, the Balearics’ consumer price index is one of the lowest among the regions of Spain. The most recent data related to price increases, those for November, show that the Balearics’ increase was in the lower range. Statistical information, though, does not give the whole picture, certainly not when anecdotes can be dragged out to contradict it. For the most part, the debate is biased towards individual experiences of price, be it for a meal, a coffee, this or that product which are then used as a basis for a call for someone to do something; this something often being the demand for price control.

Price regulation does exist to an extent. In the case of tobacco, for example, it is not only prices that are subject to control; so also is the distribution chain. It is an example of price regulation that might be said to work. It doesn’t create a shortage of supply or any obvious black market, two disadvantages of price control in the form of a price cap. Generally, as with the control of all medication through chemists alone, the market mechanism functions to the benefit of the consumer, eliminating any need for a more liberalised market.

Could a price-control approach be applied more widely? To the bar and restaurant sector, for instance? It’s hard to see how. Unlike the sale of tobacco through the licensed tobacconists, bars and restaurants are too diverse. Even items such as a coffee are far from being homogeneous. There are too many types of coffee, too many types of bar in too many different locations with too many different circumstances.

Price controls can bring with them certain downsides. One is a loss of quality, assuming the cap is set too low (and set too high would make a nonsense of the attempt at control). Another is the sheer complexity and cost of enforcement. Yet another is that controls run counter to the principle of the free market which, by and large, Mallorca and Spain abide by. And the free-market element has an historical political factor. Current-day market liberalism is the culmination of dismantling any vestiges of what once existed under Franco – that of price control and centralised, statist regulation of most economic activity.

The market dictates, which is how it should be. That a coffee or a plate of steak and chips might seem expensive (or cheap) is the consequence. When President Zapatero, quizzed about the price of a coffee on Spanish television, gave his reply of 80 centimos, he also offered the caveat of “it depends”. And it does depend. Depends on the market and on the bar or restaurant owner being allowed to fix his own prices. If he gets them wrong, that’s his problem. No one else’s.

It is not for government to intervene where it has no right to intervene, and one thing that the local government can do little about is the in-built disadvantage of Mallorca in terms of its isolation and its limited resources, land most obviously. Nevertheless, it is here that government should be more involved.

The costs of this isolation cannot be underestimated. The director of the small to medium-sized businesses organisation (PIMEM) has said that transport alone adds some 30% to the cost of production in Mallorca. And transport cost applies both to businesses importing as well as exporting. For the local producers, they also have to factor in the cost of land.

The vice-president of the local chamber of commerce has called for an end to the speculative acquisition of industrial and commercial land that has pushed the average cost per metre to buy a plot and establish a factory to roughly six times as much as it would be in, for example, Aragon on the mainland or over a third more than in somewhere even more isolated, the Canaries.

A further pressure on cost comes from what PIMEM’s director has described as the “minimal installations for goods transportation at competitive prices and the lack of competition between shipping companies”. This, combined with other factors, goes a long way to explaining why there is a lack of competitiveness in Mallorca, which has seen its industrial base decline by nearly 30% since 2005 (far greater a decline than in any other part of Spain). It also goes towards explaining why certain prices in Mallorca, because of the island’s geographical competitive disadvantage, are what they are.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

For Another Euro More: Prices that take you for a ride

You may or may not appreciate what a grind it can be, hacking around hotels and other places – on a daily basis – distributing copies of HOT! Especially when it is as warm as it is now. Not that I complain. That’s how it is. And it can also be highly illuminating. Stop and talk to the receptionists about how things are. Many an insight is to be gained from a few moments snatched with hotel personnel.

But when it is hot, one has to either take oneself off to a bar for some liquid or – on the hoof – get some from a shop. And so it was, at the peak of yesterday’s afternoon temperature, I went into a tourist supermarket. Water, no. It’s always overpriced in these places, and it’s not what you really need, which is either fruit juice or a sports drink – water’s fine, but you’ve got to get your vitamins, minerals and salts as well. So I choose a sports drink. There is a sticker on the cool cabinet – across the row of drinks from which I take an orange half litre. 1.95. The “botellas” (bottles) are 1.95. Ok, bit over the top, but I can live with it. What I can’t live with is when I go to the checkout and the girl says 2.95. No it’s not, says I (and this is all in Spanish). It’s 1.95. That’s what the sticker says. I pick up the bottle and point out the 500ml – half litre, and then I head over to the cabinet, and she comes with me. She removes the sticker. Rumbled.

The supermarket has encountered someone who isn’t a tourist, who speaks Spanish, who’s damned if he’s going to pay a euro more than what is clearly stated – or was, before the sticker was peeled off. I pay 1.95. The girl and her companion look somewhat pissed off. It’s not really their problem; they only work there. But they have to deal with it. Deal with a little example of attempting to rip-off.

When we get all the Mallorca’s expensive anecdotes, some are related to the cost of items in tourist supermarkets. I have some sympathy. They try it on. And it gives a bad impression. Like, for example, this nonsense with upping the price of newspapers – a twenty cents here, a thirty cents there. It’s wrong. Its legality is also a moot point. But the deal is that the supermarket, or whatever, assumes you’ll be prepared to swallow the added tariff because it’s convenient to do so. Oh, that the practice were confined only to the less-than-official outlets. Because it isn’t. I was going to buy a copy of “The Observer” last Sunday from a “tabacs” (which double as official outlets for newspapers). Not when I saw the sticker with the added cents. They’re having a laugh. One of these days I will look to buy a paper with its inflated price and insist on paying the price quoted – in print – on the paper. Again, it won’t be the problem of the shop assistant, and he or she shouldn’t be placed in the position of having to be confronted by a stroppy non-tourist, such as myself. But it’s poor. It niggles. Niggles tourists and niggles me. They should stop trying to make fools out of people, which is why I do – sometimes – have every sympathy with those who complain about prices.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Ten Per Cent: The role of discounts

Money off, money off!

The question is, is price the most important thing? To read all the gripes and anecdotes, you would think that it is. There is no doubting the fact that the holidaymaker is a whole load more price-sensitive than may have once been the case, but is price the most important thing?

There are certain alleged truisms from the management/business world that not everyone is inclined to believe. One is that workers are not motivated by money; another is that businesses should never “sell” on price. Depending on your point of view, you will think these to indeed be true or bollocks. The real answers are, as always, far from black and white.

Which leads us to money off. To discounts.

Via Facebook, one of the local tourist office people asked me if I had thought about discount coupons in HOT!, and then went on to mention the bag of popcorn that’s doing the rounds, together with some cards for discounts at some restaurants. The answer to the question was, well, no. If a business wants to offer a discount, it’s up to them. The wider question is how effective is the discount approach?

On the face of it, you would think it was a no-brainer. 10% off, in flood the tourists. But it’s not as simple as that. If, for example, you get a whole load of places in an area making the same or similar offers, then where’s the difference? A business feels almost compelled to match the offer, even reluctantly. If the result is a load of repeat business, then ok, but that’s really the issue. It may be attractive to the holidaymaker, but how good is it for the business?

The argument against discounting is that it elevates price to the top of the marketing mix tree. Price becomes the selling point, and this runs counter to pretty much all marketing theory. But what you are unlikely to find in all that theory is any study of discounts in a temporary market – which is what a tourism market is. Unless you take into account those visitors who return year on year. You don’t build a business, long term, on discounts. You may do so through price, as part of the overall package, but this assumes that the prices are right in the first place. A customer doesn’t become loyal on the basis of a discount; he is loyal only to the discount, not to the bar or restaurant.

A Mallorcan restaurant owner was umming and ahh-ing about a discount. In the end, he decided against because he was worried that other Mallorcans would come in and take advantage – never underestimate the Mallorcan desire to pay as little as possible. Even without some local free-ish-loading, the point is that he would stand to lose 10% that he might have got anyway. Which does also assume his package is right – in terms of the food, service and the price.

I’m not convinced about the discount as an incentive, partly because the tourism market is too diverse to be sure. At the low end, a restaurant with relatively high prices is unlikely to attract business even with a discount. At the high end, why would you offer a discount? At the low end, a place with lowish prices might get additional trade and experience an erosion in margin, with no guarantee that the customer would spend more than they might otherwise have done, or will come back, especially if the place next door is doing likewise.

It’s an interesting subject though, and one – where the temporary market is concerned – that is deserving of investigation. Sounds like something else I’m going have to do. But if anyone has any thoughts on the effectiveness, or otherwise, of discounting in tourist resorts, it would be good to hear from you.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Yet Another Cup Of Coffee: The déjà vu of price

Go back a couple of months to the second of April and I said sorry. Said that I was going to stop. That there would be no more. Until the next time.

This is the next time.

In “The Last Supper” (2 April) I referred to “anecdotal simplism”. It was in respect of prices, specifically the price of a coffee. “The Bulletin” had commented on a small coffee costing one euro, ninety. So it did again. Yesterday. There was an admission that the point had been made before, and so there should have been. The example was the same, the line of argument the same; that there should be price controls, mainly it would appear (this time round), for coffees in Palma. You can, if you want, go further back, to 30 August last year. Same price control argument. You can go back much further than August last year; it’s a line that has been trotted out for some years. Editorial déjà vu.

I just don’t get it. I don’t get the argument for the simple reason that there is no chance of a price control being implemented (and the tourism minister in April said that there was nothing she could do about the prices). It is an issue for individual businesses. I don’t get it for the additional reason that I don’t get why it has been dragged out once more.

There are all sorts of examples one can pull out regarding inflated prices, just as there are all sorts of examples of the opposite, of prices being kept low or simply being low. A while back I mentioned a conversation during which I was told how the Swedish are finding beer prices higher than once was the case. But this was specific to beach bars. You simply cannot just cite examples here and there and claim that you have proven a case.

It is this, especially this, that I don’t get: “The Bulletin”, any paper, should strive for some balance. Quoting the example of an expensive cortado in Palma is far from this. All it does is to inspire the moans of others who will cite their own selected examples. And all this does is to create an uneven impression. Last year, another paper – “The Diario” – spoke to tourists and came up with a rather different conclusion: that prices weren’t all that bad. What it did was to go and talk to people; it was acting with a degree of balance. I’m afraid that “The Bulletin” doesn’t do this; just hauls out the odd example and calls for what is not feasible – price controls.

I said that I would stop it. I wish others would.

An event for your diary. If, that is, you like your club music in the sun – all day long. On June 27 there will be an “Ibiza Summer Festival” at Hidropark in Puerto Alcúdia. Sounds pretty good, kicking off at 10:30 in the morning. Information posted on the WHAT’S ON BLOG – http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Last Supper: It costs too much

Lord, give me strength.

Don’t worry, I haven’t suddenly gone all religious on you. But I need to appeal to a Higher authority in my moment of despairing oh-no-not-again. I am nailed to the cross of the repetitious average. The spear of recurring inconsequence punctures my side. A crown of rote thorns cuts into my skull.

Look, I’m sorry, I know that it will seem that I am being repetitious, too, but this price stuff has become like the multitudes mocking; mocking, that is, perspective and balance. In Mallorca-land, the Last Supper, we might have to presume, could never have occurred because it would have been too expensive; there certainly couldn’t have been any coffee served after the pie and custard. No, no, way too dear.

And so it came to pass that on the day of the Last Supper the price of coffee was held up for the disciples of anecdotal simplism to worship.

I am really sorry to have to do this. ‘Twas it, “The Bulletin”; it spoke editorially yesterday of a coffee costing one euro, ninety. Was this just designed to provoke? Maybe so. It’s provoked me. But you cannot take one example to try and prove a point. It just doesn’t work like that. News of the inflated price of this “cortado” (and at 1.90 it is expensive I’ll grant you) was then conveyed to the tourism minister. What was she going to do about it? She who is of those authorities who must always do something. Good for her. Nothing. Or more accurately, there is nothing she can do. Of course she can’t. It’s all down to businesses to decide. Of course it is.

In some make-believe world, Mallorca would be transported back to the days of Franco, controlled prices of drinks and menus, only a dodgy old Fiat 500 to hire and hotel workers packed off home to their tin-roofed shanty with a bowl of chick peas to feed their hungry offspring. Want controls on prices? Fine. Vote in a dictator or some other statist system. Except you wouldn’t be able to because there wouldn’t be any voting. Ministers nowadays don’t go around ordering businesses to set prices, under threat of being transported off to some Spanish equivalent of the Gulag. Well, they can where certain industries are concerned, like the Spanish energy industry – and fat lot of good that’s done.

But more than this is the fact that isolated examples (and those not explained other than by reference to a tourist area in Palma) cannot be put forward as evidence of anything; only the fact that in one place a coffee happens to cost more than it normally would. It doesn’t prove anything. Unless you want it to.

When all the Mallorca-is-so-expensive junk was cracking off last summer, a letter-writer to the paper complained about the cost of a coffee. Again, one example. Other correspondents took the author to task. Rightly so. Yet here we have the paper doing precisely the same thing. Let’s be clear, Mallorca is not cheap. If I had saved all the spending on cups of coffee over the years, I’d be able to buy … hmm, a Fiat 500 possibly. Or maybe, if I’d bought that many coffees, I’d be the proud owner of some villa in Bendinat with marble bath taps. Which doesn’t come cheap. Which is the point. It ain’t cheap. Mallorca. Get over it, and understand why it no longer is cheap. Except. Except, you will always find exceptions. And those exceptions can often be the rule. Or if not the rule, then par for the course. But let’s not talk about green fees, for God’s sake.

Sorry, I’m really sorry. I’m going to stop now. You’ve heard it before. That’s it. No more.

Until the next time.

Tonto S.A.
May I just thank those of you who were not taken in by yesterday’s piece and mailed me to say so. Normally I look to respond individually, but on this occasion… . I sincerely hope that no one was taken in. It does rather concern me that if you google “Alcúdia” and “oil”, yesterday’s piece comes up on the first page of the search engine. Perish the thought that someone might actually think it true. “Ooh, better not go to Alcúdia. They’ve got oil rigs by the beach.” This said, with a bit of luck nobody would actually want to search for Alcúdia and oil.

But even an April Fool on this blog serves an educative and informational purpose. In yesterday’s piece, there was a reference to “día de engañar”. Engañar can mean different things, but “to kid” is one interpretation. As far as I am aware, and here’s your education and information, April Fools Day is not celebrated – if that is indeed the right word – anywhere in Spain, except for Menorca. And why Menorca? Because of its British past, as in the eighteenth-century British possession of the island. Otherwise in Spain, there is something similar – on 28 December. Oh, and “Tonto”? Those of you who mailed me did all get this. If not, “tonto” means stupid or foolish.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Coffee Time (Again): Playa de Muro, prices and investment

Playa de Muro. I guess we’ve been here before. “Ugly.” That’s a quote from someone who has a business in Playa de Muro, with whom I took a coffee yesterday. Another businessman recently described part of Playa de Muro as “horrible”.

What neither of them was referring to was the beach, the hotels or Albufera. It was specficially the monotonous row of shops and “locales”, a number of them empty, which form much of the “strip”. And strip is more appropriate when describing Playa de Muro than other “strips”, such as that in Magaluf or The Mile in Alcúdia. It is a strip precisely because it is a strip, a strip of land between the sea and Albufera. And strip, save for the inland encroachment by the Las Gaviotas lake, is pretty much it where Playa de Muro is concerned. Always of course assuming that anyone knows that they are actually in Playa de Muro and not Alcúdia.

There has been virtually no investment in Playa de Muro, other than that made by the hoteliers and some other businesses. The main road may have been upgraded, but national funds went towards that. The town hall does almost nothing. It can see fit to fork out close to half a million euros on the “heritage” bull-ring site in the town in the misguided belief that it will form part of a “tourist route”, but it cannot bring itself to fund developments in or changes to its resort. It, the town hall, places a lot of store in a golf course, which may or may not be built, but which won’t, strictly speaking, even be in Playa de Muro. And it, the town hall, wouldn’t pay for this either.

The chap with whom I was taking a coffee pointed to the pavement next to where we were drinking. It’s narrow, he said. People have to walk in the road. Puerto Pollensa, he went on, Puerto Alcúdia, in the port, people love them, because they can walk along the promenades. Not in Playa de Muro they can’t, because it doesn’t have one. There’s no centre, there’s no anything.

This is a Mallorcan speaking. But he’s not necessarily typical. He’s not totally Mallorcan for one thing. Part northern European. Outward looking. And critical. “Why don’t they make you tourism minister?” he ventures. I thank him for his support. “I don’t care if someone doesn’t speak Catalan.” He goes on to attack the appointment of Ferrer as tourism minister: “it was his turn”. We talk about investment, or lack of it, and about prices. There’s this constant harping on about prices, about how expensive Mallorca is, much of it coming via the English press locally. “Yea, it has become expensive,” he admits. But so much of the price criticism is bullshit, he says. It comes from those who don’t understand how things have changed; from those living in a low-cost past. And it isn’t just Mallorca.

“Ok, we have to say it’s not cheap, but that’s why we have to be better than the rest.” Which means investment. It’s not as though there isn’t investment, just that it isn’t always the right investment. He cites the money that gets pumped into promoting Catalan. And this is a Catalan (Mallorquín) speaker. He’s having none of it, especially compared with miserly sums that might get pumped into tourism, often of the wrong sort. If investment at all, which brings us back to Playa de Muro. You can understand why the hoteliers, which have created some outstanding hotels in the resort, can get upset when they see the lack of attention being paid elsewhere.

Later, I see that hotels on the island are dropping their prices. The press makes out that this somehow vindicates what has been said by, among others, Harry Goodman. Possibly so, but who benefits? The tour operators are turning the screw, but does this mean they will lower their own prices or just make better margins? I said to someone else a few days ago that you would think that the press would be less simplistic than merely trot out the often banal prices mantra. Not so, he responded, and held up a paper in front of his face. What did he mean? The press hides away, it is too remote, too lacking in an appreciation. It’s probably true and is the opposite of what you would hope the press would be. It takes a lot of coffees and a lot of time sitting in cafes, but if you want to know what is happening, really happening, this is what you have to do. Yes, there is moaning and groaning, but there is also much that is realistic and constructively critical, starting with understanding that prices are never going to be what they were and that investment, of the right type, needs to be made.

Alcúdia supermarkets at Easter
There was a question left as a comment to a piece a couple of days ago, which asked about supermarket opening hours over Easter. To answer the question, no, it isn’t the thing I would normally do on the blog, but whatever … . According to the Eroski near to the Playa de Muro boundary in Puerto Alcúdia, it will be closed on Sunday, but will be open till two on the Monday and this coming Thursday and Friday. They seemed to think that the Eroski in the old town and in Can Picafort would be open till two on Sunday (and possibly also the one going into the port in Alcúdia). Tourist supermarkets, which are of course quite a bit more expensive, will – in all likelihood – be open all hours. I hope this answers the question.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.