Your weekly news catch up in Mallorca

There have been reminders that the Balearic government is currently operating in an acting capacity and that its individual members will be looking for new jobs, if they haven’t already been nailed on for one. While Francina Armengol is destined to swap the presidential chair in the Consolat de Mar government HQ for a comfy seat in Congress, whither Iago Negueruela?

The acting tourism minister has been offering virtually solitary evidence of the last days of eight years of progressive, leftist politics in the Balearics. He gave a stout defence of the tourist tax - 692 million euros raised since 2016 that would have been higher had it not been for Covid - and he was also on the invite list for the official opening of Rafa Nadal’s hotel in Palmanova. Rubbing shoulders, not too closely, with president-in-waiting Marga Prohens and the new mayor of Palma, Jaime Martínez, he was among some 300 on the guest list for the opening of the first Zel hotel, the joint venture between Nadal and Meliá Hotels International.

It was said that this was the business event of the summer and therefore more of an event than the official opening of Richard Branson’s Son Bunyola had been. Quite so, as Branson can’t rival Nadal in terms of Mallorca interest. Every move he makes is assiduously photographed for posterity. The day before the Zel opening, Rafa had been with wife Mery at the Mallorca Country Club in Santa Ponsa for the ATP 250 Mallorca Championships. He was only a spectator, as he’s recovering from hip surgery.

Prices in Mallorca - ever upward

The Zel hotel is the latest example of the ongoing process of pushing Mallorca further upmarket. A four-star superior with features such as the gym - Active MED by Rafa Nadal with exclusive activities recommended by Rafa Nadal himself - the prices reflect this status, and these will feed into future monthly reports regarding hotel prices in the Balearics. The latest report, for May, indicated that the average daily rate on the islands had climbed by 26.7% since the same month of 2019 to 104.50 euros. In the specific case of Mallorca, the increase had been slightly more - 26.9%.

Given how buoyant the tourism season is, it’s clear that prices aren’t denting demand for Mallorca. Iago Negueruela alluded to the positive season by explaining that estimated tourist tax revenue for 2023 had been revised upwards. “We will therefore leave an amount greater than that which had been budgeted for the party or parties that come to govern.”

Even so, there are prices which many tourists will decide are beyond their budgets. The new Lío club on Palma’s Paseo Marítimo is due to open on August 3. On the site of the old Tito’s club, this very upmarket Pacha Group brand will have a restaurant under the supervision of Mallorcan Michelin-starred chef, Andreu Genestra. The restaurant is fully booked for the first three nights, and it has been announced that the minimum for dining will be 200 euros.

Noises of the Tramuntana

The interior design for Lío, we have learned, has been inspired by the Tramuntana wind. Lázaro Rosa-Violán is one of the most in-demand designers in Spain. He and his studio have come up with a concept guided by “wind that reaches all corners of the island, ruffling its waters, caressing its fields and dancing between the mountains”.

Very good, but residents of the Tramuntana have become all too accustomed to something else that dances between the mountains - the echoing noise of vehicles with souped-up engines being driven (or more usually ridden, as in motor bikes) at excessive speeds.

To the traditional noise generators can now be added buggies and quads. Cala San Vicente is at the northern end of the mountain range, and its residents are sick of the noise of buggies and the dangers they pose on the roads. Having had no response to their calls for action from the previous administration at Pollensa town hall, they hope that they might get somewhere with the new one. They want buggies to be banned from Cala San Vicente.

It’s possible that the mountains’ residents may have to get used to more noisy vehicles. Aston Martin say that they are looking to establish a base in Mallorca to deal with enquiries. “What better car than an Aston Martin to drive around Mallorca,” said a company source.

Well, one could propose many alternatives, ones that don’t make as much racket and aren’t capable of speeds that shouldn’t in any event be driven anywhere on the island. As Fernando Alonso is enjoying a Formula One rebirth with Aston Martin, one imagines that there are boy racers (rather older than boys) who would fancy doing an Alonso on the MA-10 in the Tramuntana.

The Can Picafort festival

In Can Picafort, anxiety about noise is one reason why residents and hoteliers are dreading the staging of the two-day Reggaeton Beach Festival on July 15 and 16. Hoteliers, especially those with hotels right by the festival site in Son Bauló, have been trying to get Santa Margalida town hall to call the event off. They’ve had no joy.

In rejecting the demands, Mayor Joan Monjo has said that the town hall gets many a complaint about noise from hotels. A fair point, it must be said, though the festival is a rather different beast, one that will attract some 15,000 people. The chief of Santa Margalida police has explained that, apart from security, they are faced with “a big traffic problem”.

Getting tough in Palma

Santa Margalida is one town hall where there hasn’t been a change of mayor because of the elections. Palma is of course one where there has been a change. Why Jaime Martínez was at the Zel opening one can’t explain, especially as he has so much on his plate. Mayor of Spain’s eighth largest city in terms of population, Martínez has identified graffiti (and a general lack of cleanliness), scooters and security as being at the top of his list of priorities.

He reckons that the ex-administration has left behind the dirtiest city in Spain, so he’s going to have a clean-up crash plan and will amend municipal ordinance and toughen sanctions. Graffiti vandals can expect to be on the wrong end of these sanctions, Martínez also proposing criminal prosecutions. As to scooters, he is declaring war: “Absolutely. What is certain is that pedestrians cannot coexist with bicycles and scooters; they are incompatible.” He wants segregated lanes for scooters and bicycles.

With security and cleanliness being the themes that they are, hoteliers in Playa de Palma (the Arenal part in particular) will be keen to find out what the new mayor will be doing for them. Hardly for the first time, they have been critical of a town hall that has practically abandoned the resort. The president of the hoteliers association, José Antonio Fernández de Alarcón, insists that Playa de Palma is “dirtier and more unsafe than ever”. The police, he argues, “have not been up to the task” of dealing with problems. Martínez has been keen to stress that one of the first things he did on becoming mayor was to hold a meeting with local police force representatives in order to “learn what is needed so that objectives can be met”.

Controlling the students

Over the municipal border in the Llucmajor part of Arenal, the chief of police says that things have gone very well in respect of the control of Spanish students on end-of-course holidays. The mayor, Xisca Lascolas, backs this up; there has been a decrease in the number of incidents. And even residents are inclined to agree. The fencing-off of the beach at night has made a difference in that students can still go onto the beach through one controlled access point but they’ve been checked for alcohol and stopped from taking any onto the beach.

No heat wave but the sea is very warm

Students and all other tourists have been enjoying some fine weather. The Aemet met agency has explained that temperatures have been above normal for the time of year but has also stressed that Mallorca and the Balearics haven’t experienced a heat wave. Talk of this was largely due to very high temperatures on the mainland, where Aemet was forced to issue a red alert earlier this week for parts of Andalusia - highs of up to 44C. As yet, there hasn’t been big heat in Mallorca. But July and August are to come.

Even so, the temperatures have been such that on Monday the average temperature of the Balearic Sea was 24.97C, 2.63 degrees higher than the historical average. These high sea temperatures come with a warning about, for example, the potentially harmful effects on marine life and on sea levels.