Responsible tourism? Not at Bellevue there isn’t
For six nights up to last Saturday night, a mass group of 3.000 Portuguese students caused havoc in Alcudia.
If you go to the Iberostar website, you will see at the top of the home page a legend that reads “Leading responsible tourism”. Iberostar has a lot to say for itself when it comes to sustainability and responsible tourism. In this context, the Mallorcan hotel group mentions “social well-being”. But social well-being, as in coexistence between tourists and residents, appears to be singularly absent, if the example of Alcudia’s Bellevue Club is anything to go by.
07 Hotels is the hotel management division of World2Meet, which is itself the travel division of the Iberostar Group. As of the start of 2024, 07 Hotels assumed the management of Bellevue under a deal that sees it managing nine BlueBay hotels. Let’s just assume, shall we, that 07 inherited certain arrangements, because I can’t believe that Iberostar’s chief sustainability officer, Gloria Fluxá or her sister, Sabina, the Iberostar CEO, will be in the least bit happy about what has just occurred at Bellevue.
This requires a further assumption - that either of them are aware. If Sabina Fluxá is, then there is a contradiction to what she said in an interview in December last year. Sustainability, she noted, “is key to finding the formula to attracting quality tourism
that generates value and contributes to the social and economic development of the local community, improving coexistence between the resident and the tourist”.
Ah yes, the coexistence panacea, much referred to by hoteliers, the Council of Mallorca and the Balearic government. It is a key to the future of tourism, they all say. Unfortunately, the practice doesn’t necessarily match the talk. How can it when a mass of Portuguese students, said to have numbered up to 3,000, has been on the rampage?
For six nights up to last Saturday night, these students, not all of whom were at Bellevue (or so I understand), caused havoc every bit as bad, if not worse, than the Spanish students in June. The noise from the nightly party and then for the rest of the night until around 7am was hard enough for residents, but there were also regular tourists, family tourists, some of whom, courtesy of sheer idiocy, had been booked into the same Bellevue blocks.
Tripadvisor offers an instructive insight. The recent reviews for Bellevue, it should be pointed out, include praise, especially for the staff. But these are alongside other reviews. Here’s an example. Amoni V, writing on April 7: “Absolutely terrible. We were forbidden to use certain restaurants and bars due to the hotel booking in 2,000 rebel students who were having a five-day stay for a ‘rebel festival’.
“The students didn’t go to sleep until 7am. They were up all night chanting, screaming, openly doing drugs, throwing used condoms, drug bags on the floor, drawing graffiti all over recently painted road signs and carving rude things into the trees on the complex. The staff did nothing about the noise. We phoned many times complaining and they just weren’t bothered.”
To be fair, I don’t know what the staff could have done. In another review, David L. reckoned there was “a simple solution”. “They should get their security to control them and warn them. If security have to visit them again, then simply kick them out of the hotel, which would set an example.” Good suggestion, David, but there is a question - what security? And what could security really have achieved anyway, when confronted by so many youths off their heads? The same goes for the police, which makes all this fairly and squarely a matter for Alcudia town hall, as also does the shattering of any semblance of resident coexistence in the immediate Bellevue area and elsewhere; as also does any damage caused to public property.
Bellevue respond to reviews. Initially, and in the case of David L. (a review dated April 4), there were remarks like “we are doing everything possible to prevent the student group from interfering with our guests’ day-to-day life”. By the time it got to Amoni V. on April 7, they’d given up even pretending that they were doing everything possible: “Bellevue Club would like to apologise for your negative experience of our resort.”
Sabina Fluxá referred to “economic development of the local community”. Well, here’s an example of that. Or should one say non-development. The Enjoy Club, which is by what most people still call the Magic Centre, posted this on Facebook on April 4: “Attention to all our customers! We want to inform you that Enjoy Club no longer works with the group of Portuguese who have exclusivity in several locations in the Alcudia area. We appreciate your understanding and apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.” Enjoy, it could be said, realised they had to adopt a responsible course of action.
To return to David L.’s point about security and expelling unruly guests, this brings the whole discussion about tourism of excesses (renamed responsible tourism by the government and the Council of Mallorca) into focus. The reformed law has yet to be presented, but it is understood that measures will be extended island-wide and so won’t only be applied in Magalluf and Playa de Palma.
Legislation has placed greater onus on businesses like hotels, and the number of expulsions for bad behaviour has increased. But these expulsions are typically of three to four people; not hundreds or even thousands.
The simple solution, David, lies not with hotels expelling guests but with hotels not accepting bookings in the first place. It is obvious what will happen, so obvious that one is left with an impression that borders on wilful neglect - that of care for residents, other tourists and indeed for Alcudia.
Responsible tourism implies the involvement of all agents - tourists themselves, residents, administrations, businesses. If responsible tourism is to be taken seriously, then we need to see some evidence. Last week in a different column (Tourism Focus), I quoted Andy Stalman, who has been contracted to rebrand Mallorca by taking account of social coexistence. “Coexistence between residents and tourists, it’s a crucial strategy for the future of tourism in Mallorca. The harmonious coexistence between residents and tourists is a fundamental pillar for the responsible development of tourism in Mallorca.”
Bellevue, 07, Iberostar, Alcudia town hall, the Council of Mallorca, the Balearic government need to all take these words to heart. Responsible tourism? Ok, now prove it.