Unsustainable: Transport infrastructure in Puerto Pollensa

The company that had been contracted to draw up a plan for so-called “sustainable transport” in Puerto Pollensa has had its contract rescinded. The town hall’s decision to take the contract away will doubtless have been greeted by some cheering and the raising of glasses in the “moll”, in particular by those who had raised concerns as to how appropriate the awarding of the contract had been in the first place.

The context of the contract and now its withdrawal was the abandonment in autumn 2008 of the botched project to pedestrianize a length of Puerto Pollensa’s coast road and the town hall’s subsequent desire to conduct a more all-embracing study of transport infrastructure in the resort.

In Pollensa there is a party, the Alternativa, which makes a thorough nuisance of itself in challenging the town hall, especially with regard to developments in the port. Quite rightly so. In April it was the Alternativa, aka Pepe Garcia, that questioned the process of the award of the contract.

Three companies were invited to pitch, none of them, according to Garcia, with seemingly any previous experience in the particular area of transport. The company which got the contract, but has now lost it, was Podarcis. The Alternativa was quick to point to the links between this company and the nephew of Francisca Ramón. Who she? The town hall’s delegate in Puerto Pollensa.

Podarcis, to be fair to it, was looking to do the right things. One of the main reasons for the collapse of the 2008 pedestrianization was an absence of consultation. On its blog, Podarcis, referring to the final signing of the contract at the end of June, said that it would create a website which would inform residents about the plan and invite exchange of opinions related to it.

Though it may not have conducted a previous study of the exact type required for Puerto Pollensa, Podarcis can boast a fairly impressive list of infrastructure projects. It would be wrong to suggest that it didn’t have credibility; it did. But the association with Ramón was always likely to make life difficult. It is perhaps convenient for all concerned, other than Podarcis, that the contract has been removed on account of what are considered to be “deficiencies” as highlighted by a technical review of the plan.

The very need for a plan, however, seemed slightly strange. Though it clearly had the pedestrianization in mind, and this will now once more be placed on the back-burner, the question arises as to why such a plan was not conducted a few years ago before the new by-pass road that cuts through the Ullal, Gotmar and Pinaret urbanizations was built.

The by-pass and the pedestrianization are one of the same thing in terms of the original plan for both that was drawn up as long ago as 1967. So long as pedestrianization is not effected, the by-pass remains if not a white elephant then under-used. Forward thinking, that the new plan for sustainable transport now envisages, was previously lacking at a time when it should have been performed. A justification for the by-pass and pedestrianization that the mayor offered was that these were planned for – 40 years before. Plans can be altered. It was no justification at all, especially as a different plan – to potentially close the entire coast road between Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa (one being eyed up by the environmentalists and the Costas) – would put the whole scheme for transport in the resort up in the air.

The one thing in the latest plan’s favour is that, one would hope at any rate, it would represent rather more joined-up thinking than the piecemeal style of infrastructure development of the ill-conceived pedestrianization project of 2008 and yet another plan – that of linking pedestrianization to further construction in Ullal (the latter pretty much approved by the Council of Mallorca under its land reclassification remit).

That the technical review has pointed to a lack of clearly defined solutions that the sustainable transport plan would have produced probably scuppers any developments until at least after the coming local elections, though there is, lurking in the background, the possibility for drawing on central government finance under the Plan E scheme for projects as yet undefined.

But more than anything, the story of Puerto Pollensa and its transport, over and above local political rivalries and suggestions of nepotism, is one of multi-agency lack of co-ordination. The town hall, the Council of Mallorca, the Costas, to say nothing, in all likelihood, of the transport ministry at regional government level as well as central government’s development ministry should all be involved in homing in on a definitive plan together, through proper consultation, with local businesses and residents. This, though, is the problem. There are just too many agencies, too many agendas. Sustainable? It can’t hope to be.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Town Without Pity: Pollensa

Pity Pollensa. A town of genuine artistic and cultural heritage. A town of churches and squares, of 365 steps, of the brooding presence of the Puig Maria. A town with a resort, Puerto Pollensa, which holds a place in early Mallorcan tourism of the last century and which has brought out the inner poet in visitors who have stopped to marvel at the bay and who have crowned the port (the “moll”) with the jewels of the grandest majesty among Mallorca’s resorts.

Pity Pollensa. A town of debt, of protest, of division.

Rare is the day when there is not some news of trouble in Pollensa. The latest, that regarding the lack of funds to kit out a day centre or to open a new pre-school nursery, is just another day in Pollensa. Pity Pollensa and pity its poor mayor. Beleaguered is an overused word, but it can apply to the mayor. Literally on occasions. What are alternatives to beleaguered? Beset, harassed, besieged. In June this year the mayor was besieged. He was in an elevated bunker in the town hall building in Puerto Pollensa while demonstrators shouted outside and at one point scaled the rampart steps to the balcony next to the office.

Pity the poor mayor. He has the look of someone beset by problems. He carries a sense of awkwardness, gaucheness perhaps, in a body he doesn’t seem to quite fit. It’s not his fault, like many of Pollensa’s problems aren’t actually his fault, but no one seems much inclined to excuse him. I passed him one day in Pollensa town and said hello. He smiled cautiously. Perhaps he was just happy, surprised even, that someone had given him the time of day. He had his hands in his pockets, labouring on the incline up to the town hall building, newly restored at a cost of over two million euros. He wouldn’t have remembered me, or maybe he had, as the one who had taken a photo of him in that Puerto Pollensa bunker, one that had hinted at anxiety. Or the photo of him as he had laughed when confronting the demonstrators on the balcony. A militant next to me said, “look, he’s laughing, laughing at us”. I didn’t think so. It was the laugh of nervousness.

The awkwardness of Joan Cerdà, as much as the awkwardness of the difficulties Pollensa has been encountering, contrasts with the assertive tallness of the basketball-playing mayor of Alcúdia, a neighbouring town which, to the bemusement of many in Pollensa, appears to benefit from infrastructure improvements and political calm, notwithstanding some awkward “questions” regarding the construction of the new Can Ramis building. Alcúdia’s advance rankles with the backward-stepping pollencins.

The mayor inherited problems when he came into office in 2007. Go back to a period soon after he had first plonked himself in the mayoral seat and you will find that the newly opposition Partido Popular was denouncing the state of cleanliness and maintenance of streets in Puerto Pollensa. This was one of the grievances of the protesters of early summer. It’s an old problem, one that the mayor is actually seeking to rectify with a new cleaning contract.

This might sound as if I am acting as an apologist for the mayor. Not so. He hasn’t helped himself. He didn’t help himself by a failure to consult when attempting to push through a pedestrianisation scheme in 2008, one that had to be abandoned. He didn’t help himself earlier this summer, after the protest, by seemingly seeking to create division amongst associations in the port, each with a competing agenda that he successfully exposed.

Inadvertently though, he has also succeeded in creating a realisation that consensus, rather than division, is necessary amongst those in the port who represent opposition to the town hall’s failings. La Veu d’eu Moll (voice of the port) is a new association and campaign that will hope to bring consensus to bear on the mayor. Its website will invite participation, but, in so doing, it too runs the risk of division. A Facebook campaign, highlighting examples of uncleanliness, rubbish and other issues in the port and in the town, has not met with universal approval. It has been accused of creating a negative image, just as this article might meet with the same accusation or the new website be similarly criticised.

Such defensiveness, such protectiveness of the refulgent splendour of Pollensa and the port is understandable. But some of those who do the defending will have been on the protest in June, a protest that was hardly the best image for the port, one that may be repeated at the end of the season, doubtless with the same dual-standard protesters. Moreover, presented with what is portrayed, rightly or wrongly, as an inept town hall administration, what should people who care for their town do, especially if they perceive inertia or intransigence? The directness of internet campaigning can be persuasive in a way that a caveat-loaded denial – “I know there are problems but” – is not.

Pollensa is not unique in Mallorca in being indebted and in being confronted with issues of faltering tourism, anti-social behaviour, inadequate provision of services. Perhaps the problems it faces, as in other towns, are too big for the local politicians to handle, too demanding of an old style of local nepotistic politics to solve. The issue for those who may or may not protesteth too much is what they would do that would be any better. Faced with certain realities, it might seem a whole lot less straightforward. Pity Pollensa.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Going Swimmingly? Puerto Pollensa’s pool

The first of March last year. I posed a question. Would there be another “fiesta” when Puerto Pollensa’s swimming pool was closed? There was one back then to mark its opening (in fact its re-opening). It might have been more apposite had I asked whether there would be another fiasco.

They should have known that it was tempting fate. They should have known to have kept quiet about the whole thing. They should have known better than to inadvertently draw too much attention to the fact that the pool was a botched job with a roof on the wrong way round and a company that couldn’t operate it. But no, they went ahead and had a fiesta, publicising the grand opening with a bizarre poster featuring kids in the open air in summertime. This was the start of March, don’t forget. And there was, finally, a roof as a roof is meant to be – on the right way round.

It was tempting fate. No good could have come of it. The pool is closed. Again. This time it’s because someone’s forgotten to pay the electricity bill. Well, we know who hasn’t paid the bill. The company that has the concession to run the pool, Algaillasport. The electricity supplier has cut them off, and won’t be uncutting them until the company has handed over 20 grands worth of unpaid bills, which equate to nearly seven months of non-payment. Endesa seems to have been uncommonly patient.

When the agreement was drawn up with the town hall, the company had bargained on forking out 1,500 euros a month. They underestimated to the tune of a mere 100%. Hardly a drop in the deep end. And now they’re treading water with the town hall but hoping they can come to another agreement which will enable the pool to re-open – again.

It might be easy to suggest that this is all another example of how any project that comes anywhere near the town hall drowns under the weight of incompetence. But this wouldn’t be fair to the town hall, if only because it is not the only administration with a dodgy swimming pool. Santa Margalida’s was shut for two years and still manages to leak water. Alcúdia’s simply never met the spec, which has resulted in changes to the agreement with its operating company. In Inca, the pool went over budget by 600 grand.

Having a local pool that happens to be closed isn’t so bad when there is the sea. The town hall can’t cock that up, though they can of course cock up the arrangements for the maintenance of the beach and the provision of sunbeds, which they managed to do so well this year. And then there is next year and doubtless a further round of failing to come to an adequate agreement. But the pool should be open. There again, it might not be.

* Acknowledgement to the report in “Ultima Hora” for some of the above.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Under-Cooked: Tour operators’ profits down

The tour operators are facing significant drops in their profits, Thomas Cook issuing a profits’ warning. The reasons are not too difficult to work out. Like all other parties in the tourism industry this year, the tour operators have not been immune to economic pressures and the totally unexpected. The good news in all this is that there are some remarkable bargains to be had, “The Guardian” reporting yesterday that anything up to 60% off can be expected once the school holidays are over, while 40% off this month can be obtained. The less good news is destinations that are on offer, the Balearics heading the list.

With TUI, Thomas Cook and others suffering falls in profit, a question that has to be asked is what this might mean for next season. There was some indication that tour operators’ prices had risen this year in the expectation of a better year, one that has failed to materialise. Price rises in 2011 might be on the cards, but they would be folly, especially for some destinations, including Mallorca and the Balearics.

The island’s hoteliers have come to the end of their contract arrangements for next year: they can expect no or only a one per cent increase in their own prices. One per cent is the maximum that the tour operators will give them. Yet, you have a situation in which certain hotel associations, such as the Alcúdia-Can Picafort one, are saying that up to 30% of places have been left unsold in July and August this year; some hotels have reported far worse.

But go further behind all this, and one finds a rather mysterious situation, or one that is being alleged by hotels in Puerto Pollensa. Against the background of a potential rise in all-inclusive there, hotels have accused the tour operators of not selling holidays to Pollensa, the operators claiming that hotels are sold out, when they are not. The hotels also reckon that the tour operators have been diverting clients, who would have booked in Puerto Pollensa, to hotels elsewhere.

Without knowing the precise nature of the contractual agreements tour operators might have with different hotels in different resorts, it is hard to comment on this. If what the Puerto Pollensa hotels allege is true, and they say it is, albeit that “sources” preferred to maintain anonymity when this was reported on a few days ago in “The Diario”, might this be interpreted as a bit of pressure to conform with a tour operator desire to change the status of offers at certain hotels – to all-inclusive, in other words?

In the same Guardian article, a spokesperson for travelsupermarket.com says that there will be a “bloodbath” of last-minute deals in September and October. If the tour operators are going to get so badly burned this year, might we be facing a different sort of bloodbath, that of hotels not being contracted with? It is already the case that individual hotels are making pre-emptive strikes, effectively removing themselves from under the tour operators umbrellas and going for independent, direct bookings in a far more aggressive fashion than has been the case until now. It may be that others have to do likewise. What they can expect as revenue from the tour operators will not increase in real terms; indeed it is down this year in many instances. And to what extent will they be willing to take the tour operator shilling in return for offering something – all-inclusive – that many are loathe to?

2011 is going to be a lively year. It could also be make or break for many hotels, assuming they are not already broken.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

It Just Gets Worse: All-inclusive comes to Puerto Pollensa

There was a report in “The Diario” yesterday that should, despite the heat, send shivers through many in Puerto Pollensa. Hotels in the resort are admitting defeat. They have resisted all-inclusive, but can no longer do so. To not offer it could mean having to close.

The hotels don’t necessarily want AI, but the tour operators do. The report makes clear, as should be clear to those in other resorts, that AI has largely been driven by tour operator pressure. The good news may be that only a few hotels in the port will go down this route next year. That’s one view. The less good news is an alternative view that it will be more widespread and will be a necessity.

One can guess at which hotels might move to AI: those not on the “front line”. But one can also imagine certain establishments on the front that might embrace AI. Currently, as far as one is aware, only one hotel in Puerto Pollensa has some form of AI, and that is Club Sol, where it might be argued that it is appropriate, given the location. (Club Pollentia doesn’t count as it’s more Alcúdia than Puerto Pollensa, while Duva, on its website at any rate, says nothing about AI.) Whatever the current situation is, from next year, all-inclusive will, in all likelihood, not be out of town.

There is no point in revisiting the arguments for and against all-inclusive; they are well enough known. While these arguments focus on the market that AI creates and on the impact on local businesses, they don’t necessarily deal with the character of a resort. In Puerto Pollensa, the chances are that this – the character – will change, though this might merely be a continuation of a change that has been occurring for some years.

Where Puerto Pollensa is different to resorts such as Puerto Alcúdia and Can Picafort is that it has a high level of residential tourism (holiday lets in other words) relative to hotel accommodation, so all-inclusive might have less of an impact, but impact it will most certainly have. When the protest against the sorry state of affairs in the Moll took place in early June, calls for either more hotels or improvements to hotels would surely not have had AI in mind. The protesters are likely to see their wishes met. More tourists could be on their way, but not ones they might have hoped for. The target of protests may well shift, and while the town hall has it within its gift to do something about the state of the streets and rubbish collection, it has no power to prevent all-inclusives; they are for the tour operators, the hotels and the tourism ministry (now presumably the Council of Mallorca as well) to determine. And as ever, what the tour operators want, the tour operators get.

Although some hoteliers take the view that all-inclusive is just a case of good business and that they have no responsibility for what happens to local bars, restaurants and the rest, not all agree. In Puerto Alcúdia, the director of a hotel that has stood against AI and who doesn’t like AI precisely because of its effect on businesses, has become almost resigned to the fact that his hotel will have to accept the inevitable. And the inevitable can bring advantages to hotels, other than just guests. What is sometimes overlooked is that tour operators, granted longish-term contracts with certain hotels, will help financially with improvements. So long as they get something in return. And that, increasingly, means all-inclusive. Pollensa’s mayor recently suggested that hotels in Puerto Pollensa may not all be “adequate”. Those which are not may well become so. Adequate enough to stop guests patronising the local eateries.

This should not happen. But it’s going to. A bad day.

* Those of you who do the native may want to read the full article. Here’s the link: http://www.diariodemallorca.es/part-forana/2010/08/02/hoteles-port-ceden-presiones-operadores-ofertar-incluido/591491.html

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Squeezing Lemons: Puerto Pollensa wants a tourism study

The protest against conditions in Puerto Pollensa at the start of June has led to there being meetings between the town hall and representatives of businesses and residents in Puerto Pollensa. At the latest meeting the town hall decided to invite the university in Palma to investigate reasons why the port has been losing tourists and its image (as reported in “The Diario”).

When all fails, call for a study, but there is an obstacle: Mayor Cerdà doesn’t know who will pay for it. Which just goes to prove that money can indeed not buy everything, if you don’t have any. There is an awful lot of everything in Pollensa that cannot be paid for.

The mayor says that he doesn’t know whether the tourism problem is as a result of tourists deciding against staying in the port, of the tour operators going elsewhere, of a bad image or of inadequate hotels. Things he might know are that there has been a recession, that the British market, upon which Puerto Pollensa is over-reliant, has been particularly affected, that the pound has been weak. Any study would have to establish that there was a discernible downward trend BC (before crisis). If there wasn’t, then the mayor might think a study to be a waste of time and money, were there any. Its mere suggestion smacks of a dose of PR and of attempting to mollify the Moll revolutionaries.

There is a colossal amount of garbage spoken about the apparent malaise that has laid Puerto Pollensa low. Garbage being one aspect, along with what you’d rather not tread on and even, for God’s sake, road signs not pointing people in the direction of the Moll. All of it is irrelevant. Cerdà’s unknown unknowns are not all unknown. Funnily enough, yes, tour operators do choose to go elsewhere. And perhaps some of the hotels aren’t up to scratch. Perhaps there simply aren’t enough hotels, a point to which the revolutionaries have alluded.

But let’s suppose a study were to be conducted. What do you think would happen? Chances are that the hefty tome of a report would gather dust on shelves somewhere in the improved town hall building that cost a mere couple of million euros along with shelved tourism ideas, such as the lunatic notion of using the image of Agatha Christie to promote Puerto Pollensa. Whatever happened to that? Let me hazard a guess. It would have cost an arm, a leg and the equivalent of several studies by the university to dosh up for image rights.

Research is fine. Nothing wrong with it, so long as it is meaningful and might result in some action. Trouble is that in Puerto Pollensa they do research, and have done so for some time. Remember? June 29 last year – “The Lemon Tree”. That was about the questionnaire of tourism satisfaction that does the rounds. I doubted then that anything was done with the survey results, and I doubt it even more now. So, Pollensa town hall, go find some money down the back of the mayoral sofa, hand it over to the university and wait for another bunch of lemons. Ridiculous.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Houston, We Have A Problem: Hotels – smells and receptions

From the Exagon in Son Bauló, along the bays of Alcúdia and Pollensa, into the coves, into the towns and finally to Son Brull by the golf course in Pollensa, there is barely a hotel that I have not been into.

To varying degrees, the resorts are defined by their hotels. The towns – Alcúdia and Pollensa – merge into a oneness of the “petit” or interior hotel, all designer-chic or townhouse stone walls with boutique room and furnishing heterogeneity, the total opposite of the standardised sprawls of the holiday camps of Puerto Alcúdia – what are now Clubs, Bellevue and Mac, Resort (Sunwing) or both Club and Resort, Sea. Can Picafort, to an extent, shares the gardens and airiness of Iberostars and Vivas with its neighbour, Playa de Muro, where are also the Romanesque columns of the imposing Palace de Muro five-star.

The coves and remoter parts are a mix of the homeliness of the More and the heavy doors of the Cala San Vicente, which one takes it were the model for Son Brull (same people) where the doors are even heavier and larger, like gates to a castle, and where one expects a Swiss Guard to be standing to attention.

Then there is Puerto Pollensa. More modern, purpose-built tourism hotels there may be, but it is the grand old dames of Pollensa bay that are emblematic of the resort – from the Uyal to the Illa D’Or. I happened to be in both yesterday. In the latter, there is rarely ever a sound to be heard, save for the ticking of a clock. The hotel’s connections with Agatha Christie are unsurprising. In the Illa D’Or everything probably stops for tea and a Miss Marple will be served her Earl Grey and scones, while reminding the waiter of her six o’clock gin and tonic order. As I left, some pink-faced old buffery was stumbling out of a taxi. The Uyal, like its twin great aunt, the Pollentia, has the feel of a southern England seaside hotel from the ’60s. It seems perfectly suited to the pith-helmet, straw-hat home from home of Puerto Poll-esra. It is hard to reconcile the fact that Puerto Pollensa once had something of a Bohemian reputation.

The Uyal also has a smell. It is reassuringly musty and antique; in the lounge at any rate. It is also poignant. I had forgotten about hotels and their smells until yesterday and was transported back to the sixties and indeed to southern England seaside hotels which had a smell I couldn’t explain then but was probably the accumulated, cloying and trapped odour of beef, Yorkshire pud and gravy.

Other hotels around and about have smells. Two of the sweetest are the air-conned fragrances of the Alcúdia Beach and Molins. There is little more pleasant than to enter a fresh reception and whiff vanilla. While hotels can define resorts, it is their receptions which define the hotels. And it is these, the receptions, that, more than most aspects of the local hotels, are changing. Moreover, like the default style of the “new” architecture is straight-lined, neutral-coloured, steel, so the receptions are being interior-designed to complement this contemporary landscape. The Playa de Muro Village went space age a few years ago. The Las Gaviotas, or what we must now call Las Gaviotas Suites, is similarly a showroom reproduced from the pages of the latest design bibles. The receptionist could be in touch with Houston. Even the Sol Alcúdia off The Mile (not to be confused with the Sol Alcúdia Center opposite) has been made over with the faux-industrialism of Kraftwerk receptionism. None of it looks bad. Far from it. It all looks fantastic, but it is also clinical. And is it comfortable? One hardly dares to sit on a sofa at Las Gaviotas for fear of marking the white light of the upholstery.

J’adore the Illa D’Or for its bonkers colonialism. I want more of the More and its permanent smell of old breakfast. Do you-yal? You should do, before it ceases to be pinafored into its Upstairs Downstairs old civility. The problem is that the drive is towards renovation and upgrading. All receptions may one day be out of a catalogue. While this will often be no bad thing, the fear is that a loss of charm follows. President Antich is calling on the hotels to reactivate their investment, reminding them of the funds available to do so. Much is made of the ancient nature of some hotels and of the resultant lack of competitiveness with other destinations, but renovation needs to be sympathetic. And if you want the best example of a reception that was modernised in tune with the atmosphere of the hotel and indeed the previous reception, then take a look at the Niu in Cala San Vicente. It can be done, and done very well.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

I Did It Moll Way: All-inclusive in Puerto Pollensa

Now here, you might think, would be something that would send tremors coursing through the shaky old bones of the Puerto Pollensa indignant. Tagged on to the end of reports about Mayor Cerdà forming a “table”, around which other indignants and he can sit and talk about dog shit, is this little old mention, as in the one from “Ultima Hora” – “the possible repercussions of all-inclusive in the Moll (port)”. Has there not yet been a call for a great protest to storm the fortresses of hotel chains? People should be careful what they wish for. When the revolutionaries took to the streets on 2 June, one complaint was that no new hotels had been built down Moll way. Maybe there will be. Club Mac comes to Puerto Pollensa. God forbid. Tattoos and karaoke follow. Even more than now in the already dumbed-down PP. The perverse streak in me says “bring it on”, but that is utterly ludicrous, as is the entire discussion as to hotel development – Moll way.

They don’t need to sit around a table and discuss the repercussions. They can stand up, anywhere they like, and shout them out loud. Any fool could tell them.

Puerto Pollensa has been spared the ravages of the all-inclusive war that have razed much of Alcúdia, Playa de Muro and Can Picafort. But it is probably only a question of time. What tour operators want, they normally get, and they are doubtless eyeing up Moll way as the next big all the Saint Mick and pizza you can get through location. Or there might, instead, be the superior class style AI, the one with real drinks and without Johnny Vegas. But AI’s AI, however you want to spin it. Don’t think, by the way, that the town hall can do anything to stop the march of AI. It can’t. Tour operators. Tourism ministry. Hoteliers. These are what you need to be aware of; forget the town hall, except when they’re taking in the taxes.

All-inclusive in Puerto Pollensa, from what one can make out, is currently confined to Club Sol. Partial AI, maybe. AI that falls short of the full-on AI. Maybe it is full-on. You have to actually be a guest to know for sure. And that is how it is with AI. You don’t quite know. Many a hotel is engaging in some quasi-AI arrangement or other, designed to make the punter part with some in-hotel dosh. Yet it is absurd. The full-on all-inclusive not only doesn’t want to be all-inclusive, it also doesn’t want the punters anywhere near the free drink, or around the pool – if it can help it. Get ’em out; that’s the motif. Unlike the half-board or other non-AI hotels. They do everything they can to keep the punter strapped to the poolside bar or watching the World Cup (and the chances to watch the footy are limited in AI’s – why do you think that is).

All-inclusive in Puerto Pollensa? Repercussions of AI in Puerto Pollensa? It doesn’t bear thinking about, but it is easy to think about. Rather than the revolutionaries taking to clean the beach – as they’re meant to be in the next “protest”, and which will do even more to alert the hadn’t-ever-noticed-the-shit tourist than the march in early June – they should be shouting out loud about those repercussions. Trouble is that they may have brought them upon themselves. Go figure.

* Just in case you don’t get the title – the pronunciation of “moll” is “moy”; think rural English.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

All Night Long: Bar noise and music

Various municipalities across Mallorca share a similar problem, a similar “dilemma”, that of balancing night-time bars and entertainment with the need for some peace and quiet. “The Diario” yesterday looked at the situation in places such as Manacor and Andratx. It could as easily have gone to other towns and resorts.

The dilemma has existed for as long as there have been night-time bars. It is not just the bars and clubs, it is also hotels, though in the case of the latter the issue is straightforward enough. Noise ceases by midnight and is often self-regulating, as it is in Playa de Muro where there are not the same impositions in terms of limiters as there are elsewhere; the hotels act with responsibility without being dictated to. Playa de Muro is also, when it comes to other forms of evening or late-night music, a rather different case to many other resorts; there just simply aren’t the establishments.

The noise issue is at its most extreme in Magaluf where residents have been complaining for years and where the complaints have been getting louder. Nearby, in Son Caliu, there is an almighty row regarding the Pacha disco in what is essentially a residential zone, where the club would be open to early morning. On the other hand, the Mallorca Rocks hotel venue, which kicked off last night, keeps to the midnight curfew; The Kooks were due to have finished by 11.30, giving half an hour for those leaving to hopefully disperse.

It is the noise of people leaving (or arriving at) bars that is generally the issue. In Puerto Alcúdia, in the main tourist centre, one hears little by way of complaint, except about the shouting and whatever at three, four in the morning or later from those making their way from the likes of Cheers or Bells. Otherwise, the noise inside the establishments is contained; the midnight closure of terraces and doors is complied with.

The problem is far greater in the towns. Resort Puerto Pollensa may be, as indeed the port area of Puerto Alcúdia is also a “resort”, but both are also towns. Complaints about noise are more likely to come from residents than from tourists; residents who live in the towns. But again, it is not the music from inside that creates the problem, which is why it is so difficult to understand Pollensa town hall’s absurd stance on live music in bars in Puerto Pollensa, especially if this finishes by midnight.

There is no real solution, short of prohibiting anything beyond midnight, which would be a mistake and would be contrary to a culture of tourism (for some) and to a local culture which treats midnight as a starting-point not an ending-point for a night’s entertainment. It is unfair, though, to say to people living by bars that they have to just lump it. Unfortunately, however, this is probably what they have to do.

Noise is a facet of holiday life and of Mallorcan life. The best thing is to go and live in the country. Or at least choose streets in towns where there are no bars. Problem is, someone has to live in the streets that do have them. Not easy.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Sis Pins New Owners

The Sis Pins hotel in Puerto Pollensa, which will re-open on 12 June following its closure after the collapse of Globespan, is under the ownership of Britons Peter Buckley and Geoff Hopkins. The owners will also be taking on the Alexia Apartments and La Singala which will open on 11 June. Staff have also been retained.