Welcome to this week's top news stories in Mallorca. Stay informed with the latest developments, events, and happenings shaping the island. Here's a concise summary of the week's highlights.
The Indian summer calm after the storms
Friday, September 29 is Michaelmas, the feast of the Archangel Michael. Sant Miquel in Catalan, his Spanish title has given us a global beer brand. San Miguel is also the bearer of good cheer in that he is responsible for the 'veranillo', the little summer, if you like. The Spanish Indian summer, tradition has it that the archangel acts favourably in late September by producing the necessary meteorological conditions for clear skies and very warm days. San Miguel has certainly been on the top of his game this year.
September is most definitely a month of contrasts - the same can be said of October. Stormy weather one moment, benign and glorious weather the next. This September has been a perfect case in point. Rainfall records in Palma preceded the Indian summer. But before September there was of course August, a month which can also produce storms. There was the mother and father of a weather event towards the end of August; there had been a storm earlier in the month as well.
Mallorca and the Balearics were not alone in suffering the storms. Various Spanish regions were affected. The Spanish government has therefore approved a declaration of Civil Protection emergencies in regions that were hit by bad summer weather. This declaration is a means of releasing special financial aid for individuals, businesses and local authorities.
Record number of winter flights scheduled
Autumn upon us, it's time for the aviation industry to confuse us all by reducing the year to two seasons in much the same way as the Mallorcan tourism industry does. Airlines' winter starts slightly before the tourism winter - the last week of October rather than the first of November - and ends well in advance of the tourism summer (from May 1). In 2024, the airlines' winter will suddenly switch to summer in time for Easter Sunday (March 31). The summer schedules are of course much heavier - for Mallorca at any rate - but this winter will see an increase in the number of flights at Palma Son Sant Joan. A record number has been programmed - just short of 48,000 flights, an increase of 2.4% compared with 2022-23 and of 15.4% by comparison with 2019-20.
As ever, though, the winter flights will be dominated by national routes and those to and from German airports. Meanwhile, it wouldn't be UK air travel without a spot of "chaos", Gatwick flights having been hit this week because of air-traffic controller sickness, Covid in particular.
More road deaths in Mallorca
Rain may well have contributed to a road fatality in Banyalbufar at the end of last week. The road into Port des Canonge was wet. A 68-year-old motorcyclist lost control and fell several metres down an embankment.
It wasn't raining in the early hours of Tuesday when the driver of a car on the road from Palma's Can Valero industrial estate to Puigpunyent lost control and crashed into a tree. He and his female passenger, both aged 21, were trapped in the car. When firefighters extricated the driver, he was dead. Medics attempted to revive the woman, but in vain. Excessive speed was blamed for the accident.
These latest fatalities came at a time when the traffic directorate released figures for July and August. The Balearics registered the second highest number of road fatalities after Madrid. There were fourteen, mostly all in Mallorca. These were six more than in 2022 and the highest number since 2016, when there were seventeen.
Speed limits and fines
Accident prevention was one reason why the previous administration at the Council of Mallorca decided to reduce the speed limit on Palma's Via Cintura from 120 kilometres per hour to 80 km/h. The new administration, headed by the Partido Popular, made an election pledge to raise the limit again. But it doesn't appear that it will return to 120. Taxis and transport operators believe that 100 would be reasonable.
The Council's roads department is waiting on reports before making an announcement as to the revised limit some time in October. Rather than a limit for the whole of the Via Cintura, it is understood that the Council is considering variable speed limits for certain sections. This, for now, is as much as we know. It may be a sensible approach, but it is one that might catch drivers out. Would fines' revenue increase?
Scooters come under traffic regulations, and in Palma there are demands for tighter regulations. The new mayor, Jaime Martínez, has made sorting out these regulations something of a priority. The town hall is therefore contemplating a specific bylaw for scooters and other personal mobility vehicles, an aspect of which will be tougher fines.
While understanding why the town hall might wish to fine scooter offences more heavily, the city's Ombudsman, Anna Moilanen, argues that there should be a focus on police surveillance and road safety rather than "persecution".
The mayor and the police
Jaime Martínez has celebrated his first one hundred days in office, a period which has been characterised by urgent interventions, such as major cleaning operations in the city's neighbourhood. "The aim is for Palma to cease being the dirtiest city in the country."
The first meeting he held on becoming mayor was with the city's police, whose morale had been shaken by the corruption charges that had surrounded the collapsed 'mega' trial of the owner of BCM, Bartolomé Cursach, and others. "I wanted to show support for the police force, which needs it so much."
Security very much at the top of the mayor's agenda, he will nonetheless be aware that parts of the city have greater problems than others. One of these is Playa de Palma, where the tourism of excesses law has been applied with less success than in Magalluf.
The tourism minister, Jaume Bauzá, said last weekend: "We have problems such as the lack of police, difficulties in keeping reinforcements coming from the mainland (National Police in the case of Palma) due to the cost of living. It is a wide-ranging problem but we are committed to an eradication of these elements." And by "these elements", he was referring to those engaged in crime and anti-social behaviour.
Further change in Magalluf
The minister was doubtless delighted to hear plans for the transformation of Magalluf's largest tourist complex - BH Mallorca Resort.
When the Cursach Group first hooked up with the Palladium hotel group in creating BH, there was the promise of greater quality and a new type of youthful tourist. To an extent the promise was met, but Palladium (the owners) and the Fergus Group, who will manage the new complex, have seen the necessity to alter the profile. There will be three elements aimed at family tourism and a "premium" tourism. The largest element, to be called Fergus Club Mallorca Waterpark, will add to the existing waterpark and have 656 four-star rooms.
Higher tourist spending and higher prices
The ambition for tourism in Mallorca and Spain, as we have been informed often enough, is for a tourism class with higher spending power. In this regard, the CEO of Spain's national tourism agency, Turespaña, might be said to have ruffled a few feathers. Speaking at a meeting for German consumption, he called on the German market to overtake the British, pointing out that Spain is not a destination that competes on price with others, but focuses on "quality and the travel experience".
In a way, this didn't have anything to do with Mallorca or the Balearics, as the German market is larger than the British in both respects (vastly more so in the case of Mallorca). He was therefore referring to the rest of Spain, such as Valencia, which was where he was speaking. But an implication that the German market outspends its British counterpart isn't always backed up by the statistics. In the Balearics, for example, average spending is very similar.
Wherever tourists come from, the CEO of the Avoris travel company, Vicente Fenollar, has suggested that they will have to become accustomed to higher prices. Speaking at a Palma conference on risk management in the tourism sector, which considered the challenges of climate change and sustainability, he observed that if these lead to a price increase, "we will have to accept it". "Demand will not be affected by this, because everyone is nowadays aware that we must be sustainable."