Palmanova and Magalluf decades together
In September last year, the mayor of Calvia, Juan Antonio Amengual, met the presidents of the five hotelier associations in Calvia. Between these five, as was stated, there were 44,316 hotel places (beds), and the largest was Palmanova-Magalluf (over 23,000).
For resorts joined at the hip geographically and forming a conurbation, the association had its origins in the founding of the Mallorca Hoteliers Federation in 1976. In combination, this association was one of the island’s most important under the federation’s umbrella. It had a powerful voice in support of a federation that was created, at least in part, to be a power in Mallorca’s economy and a means of lobbying, an aspect which only truly came into play when the regional government was established in 1983.
The existence of this association is central to an understanding of much of what is reported about both Palmanova and Magalluf. While the two resorts have their individual identities, they are almost as one in an administrative sense, while in terms of tourist profile they are as one. For instance, when figures are provided, they generally refer to both. Hence, the 23,000plus hotel places, and hence also the consideration of British tourism.
At the meeting it was observed that the British market can constitute up to 60% of the total tourist base. A high percentage, but not as high as the German market in Paguera - around 90%. Historically, and largely due to tour operators and arrangements they came to make with hotels, the resorts adopted strong, individual national flavours. There was a time when the Palmanova-Magalluf British percentage was higher, its reduction having come about as other European
markets gained weight. And the fact is that the hoteliers have long sought a broader diversity of market. Placing too many of the same eggs into the one basket can have its drawbacks.
But if the British percentage was 60% last year, it had actually increased. That’s according to what was reported eight years earlier. The then president of the hoteliers association, Sebastián Darder, pointed to 49% British segmentation of the market and noted that this had been 59% in 2012. The fact is that there can be and is movement with these percentages, an ingredient in recent years having been a fall in the Scandinavian market, observable for the whole of Mallorca and not just Palmanova and Magalluf.
What led to this fall? It was in part because of a negative perception, and this was primarily a negative perception of Magalluf.
In 2015, Darder and the then mayor of Calvia, Alfonso Rodríguez, were able to reflect on a tourism season that had generated positive results thanks to renovation and repositioning efforts on the part of hotel businesses in collaboration with the local authorities - Calvia town hall principally.
While the two resorts have their individual identities, they are almost as one in an administrative sense, while in terms of tourist profile they are as one.
They pointed out that the percentage of “young tourism” had dropped to under 25%, while family tourism had risen by almost three per cent to 34%.
They were reporting four years after Meliá Hotels International had announced its major plan for the transformation of Magalluf. Undoubtedly a success in terms of upgrading hotels and the resort in general, Darder and Rodríguez indicated that there had been a flight of “hooligan tourism” (or young drunken tourism) and a progressive replacement by “quality family, youth and adult tourism”.
The Meliá transformation, joined by other hotel companies and some other businesses and with public sector support, continued. But in early 2020, the Balearic tourism ministry found it necessary to introduce its tourism of excesses decree. Very limited in geographical scope, this applied to only a part of Magalluf, not all of Magalluf and certainly not any part of Palmanova.
It was fanciful to have believed that this hooligan tourism would simply have disappeared, regardless of bylaws adopted by Calvia town hall to tackle it. By 2020, therefore, something tougher was required. It wasn’t just Scandinavians who were exposed to a negative perception. The authorities were all too well aware of
the negative impact of certain “images” in the mainstream media and other channels of communication. And by and large, it was young Britons who were causing them.
The decree was to come in for criticism. It had been a failure, said the opposition Partido Popular as they looked to elections in May 2023. The reality was, as admitted by the PP’s José Marcial Rodríguez, newly appointed as the councillor for tourism at the Council of Mallorca after the election, that it had actually been pretty effective in Magalluf.
Nevertheless, the decree is being rebranded as responsible tourism. ‘Failures’ of the decree are being addressed, and this represents a further step along the road to the transformation that Meliá had been so determined to effect in 2011. At the meeting in September last year, Mauricio Carballeda, the president of the
Palmanova-Magalluf association, said that the hoteliers were “very content with the town hall’s attitude towards tourist excess”. “We are on the right track. The town hall has sanctioned those who break the law and it is the path that must be followed. We have improved compared with previous years. We must continue along this line.”
Mayor Amengual stated: “We are clear about our objectives. We are committed to quality.” But he accepted that “changes will not come from today to tomorrow”. Meanwhile, a change to the market profile, the mix of nationalities, was continuing to be somewhat elusive. Carballeda observed: “We are working on diversification, but it is very complicated.”
Indeed it can be, and this owes much to loyalty and to the history of tourist development since the 1960s and 1970s.
“We are clear about our objectives. We are committed to quality.”