Where's the passion for improving Mallorca's mature resorts?

Allied to all this passion, there was much talk about so-called mature resorts, with Magalluf and Playa de Palma topping a list that also included Paguera, Palmanova and Santa Ponsa. Much talk, and much of it was lost on a general public who had no idea what it meant or was supposed to entail. Here was a selection of resorts that excluded others with similar degrees of maturity and which had been earmarked in some sort of regulatory fashion in order to turn back time and make them less mature - positively youthful even, always excluding a youth tourism market likely to engage in mamading on Punta Ballena, that is.

Calvia town hall, proudly (or perhaps not) the overseers of more resort maturity than anywhere else in Mallorca, did kind of hint at what this was all about. There was cash on offer to smarten up premises. Some cash; not very much. Reports appeared concerning these grants and soon disappeared. Meanwhile, a much-hyped, state-sponsored plan for sweeping away Playa de Palma maturity was drowning in the bay. The grand plan for the rehabilitation of Playa de Palma was being swept out to sea by a storm of indifference and recrimination as to investment cash ill-spent.

This was at a time when Biel Barceló of Més was Balearic tourism minister. However, all was not lost in the passionate cause of mature resort cosmetic surgery, as Jaime Martínez and Carlos Delgado had between them come up with a tourism law that allowed the private sector to plough in millions of euros in upgrading hotels. The 2012 tourism law had addressed the matter of mature resorts and in rather more successful a manner than the 1999 tourism law had. The resorts were thirteen years younger then and still, comparatively speaking, in their youth.

Success though there was, it wasn't spread far and wide. It remained within the grounds of hotel establishments. The public sector wasn't pulling its weight, as was most evident with the miserable failure of the Playa de Palma scheme. While it would be unfair to say that the public sector hasn't got its finger out over more recent years - Calvia, for example, has made progress - it remains the case that there is a contrast in terms of private and public financial commitment to resort improvements.

Mature resorts, and what to do with them, is a problem that the Spanish government has been grappling with. But it has been criticised for not doing anything like enough, and where funding has been available, e.g. through EU Next Generation funds, critics have said that all this has involved have been some new benches and street lighting.

In Cala d'Or, two million euros of EU funds have been secured for a project to renovate four streets. So funding is getting through in addressing issues that have their origins in haphazard planning in the 1960s and 1970s and today encounter obstacles such as ownership rights, land classification and abandonment.

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The Calvia attempt at smartening up premises was symptomatic of the creation of unattractive commercial units that have continued to look unattractive unless someone (a private-sector someone) is prepared to do something about them. There are instances where this has happened. Playa de Muro is one. Drab and neglected units have become bike shops and other outlets for serving the cycling tourism in the resort.

But all too often there isn't this sort of initiative, which in a way is understandable. Hotel groups like Meliá and many restaurant businesses have access to funding. Small businesses do not. And then there are plots that have become appalling eyesores because no one appears capable of finding a solution. One such is an area of Puerto Alcudia that was once tennis courts. The buildings have squatters; the place is an absolute mess.

Against this background, we return to the substantial and passionate figure of Jaime Martínez. Before the election last May, he stated: "We owe a debt to Playa de Palma, so we will invest in its revitalisation and modernisation." The "we" were the town hall, but other administrations had to be involved in ensuring that the "enormous profits" Playa de Palma generated were reinvested. By profits, one assumed he meant tax revenue.

The would-be mayor promised that there would be something known as the Commissioner for the Reform (sic) of Mature and Obsolete Tourist Areas. As ever, "reform" in this instance is Spanglish - it should be rehabilitation - while the promise wasn't for a single commissioner but for some sort of consortium; a commission, one might venture.

Following the election, the new mayor spoke passionately about this commissioner at a meeting with hoteliers in July. Several months later, the hoteliers in Playa de Palma have expressed their support, having also done so last summer. The town hall will be presenting its commissioner idea to Spain's tourism ministry, as the mature and obsolete tourist areas are those of Spain as a whole. And where will the HQ for the commissioner be? Palma, it is hoped (presumed).

The president of the Playa de Palma hoteliers association, Pedro Marín, says: "This will be a fantastic opportunity for investment in and the conversion and positioning of the resort." He is clearly enthusiastic, passionate even, but will this scheme (whatever it actually entails) be any different to previous half-baked initiatives? And why, as ever, does this only appear to have Playa de Palma in mind? Goodness knows there are enough other candidates in Mallorca which, for some unknown reason, don't get classified in official terms as mature.

Investment is required in improving many resorts in comprehensive fashion. But the ambitions for improvement never seem to stretch to this. Will they ever?