Grim Up North: The problems of the season

It’s grim up north. It’s grim down south. No point beating about the bush, and there’s little point in going over the reasons. We all know them. Only too well.

In this week’s “Talk Of The North” will be a piece I have written. “Protest Is Futile.” Protest is never futile, even if it merely satisfies a psychological need to let off steam and to appear to be doing something. Anything. However, it was written because there is a drive in Alcúdia towards organising a petition. Its target would be all-inclusives. I know who the protagonists are. I wish them well. I hope it does more than I will be suggesting in that piece. Moreover, all-inclusives are the punch-bag for other travails. They aren’t the whole story. Of course they’re not.

Expressions by bars and restaurants as to the problems of early season are being echoed by the hotels. Ironic perhaps that the devils of the piece seem to be on the same side of those being cast into the hell of a fiery death by all-inclusive. But the hotels’ problems speak volumes for the wider issues, those we know all about.

To protest, by means of a petition, seems like kissing in the wind. Who do you petition in the first place? And what effect would it have? The sad fact is that bars, restaurants, hotels even, oh and myself are all controlled by factors that we cannot control. Petition is the attempt to gain some control.

But if matters are as critical as are being said in some quarters, then protest of a more significant nature is called for – maybe. Closing all establishments as a symbol of how things might be is one. Not that you would ever get a collective agreement to do so. Short-term self-interest will always rise to the top. Forget it.

Why not march? A great demo along the main streets of the resorts? Would tourists thank you? Would they thank you for closing for a day? Would they approve of outraged bar owners standing atop hotel blocks with banners? Some might. Some tourists are only too aware of what is going on. Some, plenty, aren’t. Some, plenty, have no wish to be informed. They are on holiday. They are not on holiday to bear witness to the apparent collapse of local tourist industries. Would it be fair on them? Maybe it would be. Tourists, we are told by some, should be more ethical. What are ethics when it comes to a fortnight in the sun? As that old managing director of mine once wrote, it’s a county in eastern England, a county that’s roughly the same size as Mallorca.

It is, we do have to remember, only the middle of May. A middle of May that has been preceded by factors (well, one) no one could have foreseen. Come July and if matters are bad, then this would be the time to protest. But there is some justification for the anger at present. And that is that the season is being compressed into ever shorter a period. This has nothing to do with all-inclusives. It has everything to do with what the regional government would consider to not be the principal problem with the island’s tourism – the summer season.

Protest. No, it’s not always futile. But protest against the right targets. The idiots in government should be the first. Not really that they can do much either. However, it is they who have been and are kissing in the wind and fiddling Nero-like while they faff around, endlessly pronouncing on less important tourism issues. And kissing? Well, you know, like you know the issues, what word I really mean.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Silly Season: British election and the new tourism season

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Early Doors: Shut on the first day of the season

Yesterday was the first day of the season – I think I might have mentioned this in the previous entry. First day of the season and the first day when tourists flock in. Or so one might hope. But even if they do or don’t suddenly descend on the resorts en masse, the instruments of tourism should, you might also hope, be fully functional.

It’s a Saturday in Alcúdia, the old town. I am passing what was the tourist office near to the town hall building. It has closed and will re-open some time as a health centre, or so I am told. There are notices informing visitors that there is a new office. This doesn’t prevent one set of tourists and then another, a few moments later, trying to get into the silent office. I am in full being-helpful-to tourists mode. I may not actually hug them, but I am on hand to give them a hand. Lucky them. There is a new office, I explain, and give directions, even if they are also on the notices. Thank you, say some Germans. Thank you, say some French. And off they go. I’m the tourists’ new best friend. I wish I hadn’t bothered.

I remembered that I had to go to the horror that is the redeveloped Can Ramis building, the one that houses the new tourist office, and take some photos. So off I go, thinking that I’ll have a word with the tourism folk while I’m there. Can Ramis may be a disaster in terms of architectural misplacement, but as I near it I think that the tourist office looks quite impressive. Big I’s in blue making it clear what it is. Lots of glass showing its interior. This is a good idea. Not intimidating. However … It’s the first day of the season, and the office is shut. To be fair, it does say, on another notice, this one on the door of the new office, that it is closed on Saturdays, but surely, I also think, they could have made an exception on this, the first day of the season.

Having taken a couple of snaps of the rotten building, having been startled by an art exhibition in one of the display areas that looked like it was stuffed full of merchandising for sports companies, having gone upstairs to another exhibition that might just as easily have been housed in a potting shed – given the number of pots that were the exhibits – I head off towards the auditorium. I walk past the reception to the Roman ruins. A group of Swedish tourists are trying the gate. They shouldn’t have bothered. There is, after all, a bloody great padlock on it. First day of the season, and Alcúdia’s main tourist attraction is shut. To be fair, there is a notice saying that it is closed on holidays, and the first of May is one such, but I can’t help but think that they might have made an exception on this, the first day of the season.

It has been remarked before now that at times an impression is given that Mallorca does what it can to put off tourists. This would be unfair to the Pollentia site and especially to the Alcúdia tourist office, but why close on this day, of all days? But them’s will be the rules. Working hours, union regulations, the stiff arm of bureaucracy. Yet here, with this closed office and this closed attraction, you have everything that isn’t quite right with attitudes towards tourism.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Dancing In The Dark: The Mallorca season 2010 starts

The first of May. Onto the pagan and Germanic roots of the day have been grafted a labour symbolism, originally an American phenomenon, now celebrated all over the place, including Spain. It is a day of demonstration as much as it is one of celebration; it also marks the month of “Mary” in more religious Spanish circles. For the Mallorcans, it holds another meaning – the first day of the summer season.

Paganism, the labour movement, the Virgin Mother and holidays. Four seasons in one day. And the most important is the latter. Few “seasons” can have been anticipated with more trepidation and uncertainty than this one, and that includes last year. Season 2010 was always likely to suffer the after-shocks of the quake of confidence collapse of 2009. There may be grounds for optimism, but try telling some and they’ll laugh – or more likely cry – in your face, while the damn volcano didn’t do anything to set the hats of business owners at a more jaunty angle. The deteriorating situation in respect of the Spanish economy and the breach of the 20% unemployment rate just add to an atmosphere of tension. Every season can seem like make or break, but in some instances things are already broken. They should erect some maypoles and let everyone have a dance to keep their spirits up, even if it might seem like whistling or dancing in the dark.

The season begins with the pathetic sight of hotels boarded up. The collapse of Globespan and the impact on its hotels in Puerto Pollensa is a fable for the current malaise and worries. Like consumers and businesses were caught out by and caught up in the incomprehensible workings of an out-of-control and distant banking industry, so the company was brought down by the e-commerce and distant banking tangles of a credit-card processing concern, one that was, to all intents and purposes, unregulated. The financing food chain has starved many, Globespan among them, and at the bottom of this chain, the small businesses of holiday resorts are forced to eat the thin gruel of a creditless holiday consumer market.

But there have always been collapses: Clarkson, Laker, Intasun, similarly the victims of recession if not of the pagan rituals of the current-day finance industry. We’ll get over it, like we always get over it. Hard though it may seem, when a psychology of fear takes hold, to smile in the face of adversity is what has to happen. For the tourists’ sakes, if no one else’s. They come to enjoy themselves, not to be told about “cree-sis” and how tough things are. They know this anyway.

However, one can predict, with some degree of certainty, that the season will be littered with stories of high prices, poor service, things not being as they used to be and the end of tourism civilisation in Mallorca as we know it. And some tourists will be the ones relating the stories, selectively, anecdotally and prejudicially. One can also predict that the tourism ministry and other authorities will issue statistics that no one believes; that there will be voices of complaint regarding all-inclusives; that the car-hire agencies will be the whipping boys of the price agitprop; that the authorities who must always do something will be pressed to act by a groundhog-day press.

Yet amongst all this negativity, one thing will be overlooked, and this is that thousands, millions of people will start arriving as of today, and that they will leave happy but also sad, because they are having to leave. But they will know that they can come back, and they do.

The first of May. Hug a tourist day. Hug a tourist every day. Today is when things get better.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Fools Gold: New Alcúdia beginnings and Barça’s cups

April the first fast approaches. Fools’ day. The fool season will start. Easter and then back into hibernation. But so much activity, so many of the “faces” re-emerging. Have I gone back in time? It’s the same. How’s it going to be? Who’s doing what? The same questions every year and the same cleaning up, painting, unwrapping, installing, frantic phoning, not enough-timing. Every year.

On The Mile. Wayne’s putting packs of cardboard into the paper container. Nobby’s shouting something. Linekers is back to just Linekers. No more disco. Twenty-two screens. Lunches at Foxes – Stuart from Goodfellows, Grizz from the hotel. Just how it was. Last year, say. For now. Until it gets really mental, everyone can but hope. Vamps have Finnish karaoke, in abundance, and Vamps TV. The Indian empire’s expanding – another Indian, the same name as the one that opened and then closed and became a steakhouse (Dallas) and now another steakhouse (Texas) in what was Venue 21. On a corner of The Mile, there is a piece of Alcúdia that will always be Indian or Texan. From nothing, new places spring up. That old shop – three days time it will be serving tandoori. Away from Alcúdia, in Son Serra, the big ranch. One day nothing at all, not even a shell. By 1 April, a new shop, so it’s hoped. There was a dirty great crane blocking the entrance, adding Restaurant Grill to the sign.

All of a sudden, things happen. Not enough-timing, but somehow it gets done – in no time. On fools’ day, the fool season begins. Here’s hoping.

Barça in Santa Margalida
It was the spring fair in Santa Margalida at the weekend. Food, feathers and farming. They held a procession – a job lot of a procession against corruption, for Haiti and Chile, and some old-time religion as well. Made them feel good, one supposes. There was an unusual exhibition at the fair – cups won by Barcelona football club in the past year. A show of the “blaugrana”. Their cups runneth over. In the blue and red of the Catalan club. Note, though, that it was Barça. It wasn’t Real Mallorca. Not that they’ve any cups to display. No, not the island’s team, but Barcelona. They wonder why hardly anyone bothers watching Real Mallorca. In Santa Margalida, you got your answer. Poor old Real Mallorca – a club that doesn’t deserve its own team. Fourth in La Liga and still a basket case. Heading for the Champions’ League. Perhaps. Assuming the club manages to keep going, the club that doesn’t deserve the team that has performed so admirably. The team that the island doesn’t deserve, because they’d rather go and gawp at Barça’s cups on the day that Barça were playing in Palma. Says it all.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Just Another Day – tourism scene and corruption

Here’s a potentially useful addition to the coverage in “The Bulletin” – a regular thing on tourism. You might wonder why there hasn’t been such a column before. If you haven’t wondered, I most certainly have. Amidst the pages of questionable relevance and of British and international politics, there are few that actually deal with issues of direct relevance to Mallorca. Tourism is not exactly irrelevant. But now there is a column, of sorts. It is in the form of an interview with the paper’s tame tour operator chappie, the guy from the Co-Op-Monarch-Cosmos group. The first one is not uninteresting, albeit that it says much that is fairly obvious or known.

The same chap was recently reported in the paper as saying that bookings to Mallorca were down by some 15%. At the time (25 January: I’m Anti, Fly Me), I questioned whether this would continue to prove to be the case, and continue to prove it has not – the current fall is around half that figure, while – in all likelihood – there will ultimately prove to be no fall and possibly even a slight increase. It isn’t really tourist industry rocket science to suggest that there will be later bookings that contribute to a reasonable, if not spectacular, tourism season. The Turkish situation is an interesting aspect that will play a part in this. There is under-supply in Turkey and, just as importantly, prices have gone up there. I read on a forum someone saying that prices were “outrageous”; that person was looking for a villa in Mallorca as an alternative. Something that may have escaped many of the doom-mongers is the enduring strength of the Mallorca brand and product, despite the tourism authorities’ best attempts at trying to undermine it or to not promote it adequately. One thing the tour operators know is that they can get that supply, which they cannot necessarily obtain elsewhere.

To have a regular feature is a good enough idea; to give some facts is a good enough idea. To have an industry insider supplying the information is also a good enough idea, but it is only one insider and one who represents a specific company. Inevitably, there might be a bit of a “take” on matters that are – how should one say it – skewed towards that company. But don’t let me get too critical. It is a useful addition, but even more so would be a real feature or column, one that takes the insider information and forms a discussion, one that might be – dare I say it – rather more journalistic. Heaven knows, there is enough cracking off in the island’s tourism industry to fill a paper, let alone just one page. And, slightly tangential but still within the industry orbit, comes the oh-no-not-more-of-it moment. Corruption. This time it is Inestur. Which is? The Balearics institute for tourism strategy, an institute within the ambit of the regional government’s ministry of tourism. An investigation is now under way into this institute. The facts are not yet clear, nor is it clear if any alleged corruption refers to the current ministry administration – under the Unió Mallorquina party – or the previous one of the Partido Popular. It hardly seems to matter any longer. Just another day in Mallorca. Another day, another corruption allegation. And this time, tourism’s in the front line. Regular feature. Yep. The daily scandal feature.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.