The president of the Acotur tourist businesses’ association, Pepe Tirado, and representatives of businesses in Alcudia’s main tourism centre met with mayor, Toni Mir, deputy-mayor, Pere Malondra, and the councillor for trade, Catalina Moll, today midday to discuss various concerns, the principal one being hotels’ all-inclusive offer.
What they would not have been expecting was that the mayor would announce that there had been an earlier meeting with representatives of the Bellevue hotel complex (from Blue Bay) at which a comprehensive plan for the re-development of the complex was outlined. The precise details have yet to be fleshed out, but Mir was able to say that there is to be a four-year project, in four phases, that will transform the whole of Bellevue into four-star accommodation and that, as part of the strategy for the complex, its all-inclusive element is set to be reduced to roughly 40%.
The Bellevue team had apparently acknowledged that the complex suffers from a “lack of prestige,” and that it requires major re-development that will involve upgrades of all rooms and other interior installations, with air-conditioning likely to be introduced as well, in addition to improvements to the various pools and outdoor facilities.
Bellevue can, at current maximum occupancy, house over 5,000 guests in its seventeen blocks. Its deterioration, and that of the tourism centre, has been an issue for many years, and on the latter, Mir added that the town hall will be seeking collaboration with local bars, restaurants and others in effecting an improvement to the image of the area through enhancements to their appearance. He spoke of this also being a four-year project in line with that planned for Bellevue.
Asked by Pepe Tirado if Alcudia would be seeking to declare itself a “mature zone,” through which incentives can be obtained, Mir said that the town hall was studying this, as it will also study the possibilities of creating a pedestrianised area in the tourism centre near to Bellevue. On this, though, there was a recognition of the high volume of traffic that is required to service Bellevue and other parts of the zone.
The hotel complex can, at present, operate with almost 100% all-inclusive offer, though this is typically lower at around 80%. A halving of this offer plus the expectation of a tourism of higher quality was news that was welcomed by the business representatives.
On other issues, Mir reiterated that the town hall was working on trying to reduce the negative impact of seasonality and lack of tourist activity in the low season, while he confirmed that work by the Costas Authority on renovating the 28 bridges over the canals in the tourism centre, which is being undertaken this winter, is due to be followed by a further project for an upgrade of the lakes.
In conclusion, the meeting heard from Francisco Baeza, a rival to Mir at May’s election and one of the local business representatives, that the mayor was the first one he had ever known to take a close and genuine interest in the tourism centre.
He and Pepe Tirado thanked the mayor for the support that he is demonstrating.