Seven Days

Yes and No    
The final stages of the Scottish referendum on independence were extensively covered in the Bulletin pages with reporting, analysis and opinion throughout the week and with references also to the keen interest in it in Spain because of current ambitions for independence status in Catalonia. On polling day the Bulletin took front page advantage of the event to vote for “More winter flights to Majorca”, pointing out that “Scottish residents and tourists may differ over independence but they have two things in common, their love for Majorca and their desire for more winter flights.”

Passion for Culture
“Nit de l’Art" (The Night of Art) in Palma is a special occasion when art galleries stay open until very late to encourage residents and tourists to wander through the city centre and visit the variety of exhibitions that are a feature of the area. The Bulletin devoted four pages to a preview with summaries of what each of the twenty participating galleries would be showing. This event is supported financially by local authorities and is the kind of attraction which appeals to tourists whose interests extend beyond the beach. A logo of the Ajuntament de Palma reproduced in the Bulletin feature -- “Passion for Culture!! Palma de Mallorca. Open 365” -- is presumably part of the effort to identify Palma as a city of many attractions for short visits the year round.

Language learning
Almost one hundred members of the British community on Majorca will be taking part in a pioneering voluntary pilot scheme to help local teachers and pupils across Majorca with their spoken English. The idea was first floated in the Bulletin earlier this year by Kate Mentink, the director of the department for European citizens in the Balearic government, who was “amazed and deeply encouraged” by the response. Initially the scheme will be confined to primary schools and no teaching, as such, is involved but the volunteers will be on hand to help both teachers and pupils with the spoken word. The scheme has been approved by the Ministry of Education and will be reviewed later this year; if it is successful it could be extended to secondary schools and other educational institutions.
As a new term started the news about language teaching in Balearic secondary schools was almost a repeat of one year ago -- insistence by the government that the trilingual TIL curriculum
 should be used and opposition to it by many teachers on various grounds including the lack of their own adequate preparation for it. A demonstration by teachers and some parents in Palma showed that the issues remained the same and that no negotiations have taken place; again, strike action by the
teachers cannot be ruled out and calls for the resignation of the Balearic president Jose Ramon Bauza and the Minister for Education, Maria Camps, are being repeated.

Majorca Movies
The attraction of the Balearics for film producers has been established for many years. Majorca especially has a remarkable range of scenery and buildings which can satisfy even the most ambitious visual requirements of a producer within a small area. Currently a large part of a “British Zombie thriller/ is being made on Majorca by Matador Pictures with the local involvement of Palma Pictures whose chief executive Mike Day spoke to Humphrey Carter about his company’s role in encouraging and facilitating international film and TV production. He said that two or three big feature films are being made on Majorca every year and the local audio visual industry is growing to match their technical requirements. There would be more if the Balearic Film Commission were able to offer the incentives which producers expect and can obtain elsewhere. Unfortunately, said  Day, “When it comes to incentives, it is a national mechanism, so we are having to wait on Madrid to make a decision. ”

Costly Hotels
Not for the first time hotels in the Balearics were named as the most expensive in Spain in the latest Hotel Price Index survey. The average of 163 euros per night (a rise of more than twenty per cent since last year) is probably affected by especially high costs in Ibiza but even excluding those the figure is 134 euros (also an increase since last year of fifteen per cent) against a national average of 107 euros. However, costs of this kind do not apparently protect tourists from being turned out of their hotels without notice. In his “The week in tourism” article Andrew Ede said that some two hundred guests at the Vita Delta resort in Puig de Ros (Arenal) found that their four star hotel had closed and had to find alternative accommodation. The staff could not help and may have been as badly treated by the management as the guests.

In Brief

• Expectations that the recent London registry office marriage of James Bluntand Sofia Wellesley would lead to the presence of Prince Harry, an army friend of Blunt, and of several personalities, at the Wellesley home at Campanet were dampened when a press statement was released saying that no royalty or celebrities would be present at a private family blessing ceremony at Campanet.

• Nigel Stimpson, the new Chaplain for St Andrew’s Puerto Pollensa, takesup his duties this week just in time for the church’s annual “singing on the beach”. The Revd. David Waller, the Anglican Chaplain, said that he and Stimpson will “form a team approach to the Chaplaincy for the whole island”.

• Seventeen cruise liners were due to dock in Palma during the week , suggesting that the slight fall in visits experienced earlier in the year was not permanent. Among the seventeen was the Norwegian Epic with four thousand passengers.