Mallorca: 2017

There was an interesting travel piece on ARD (German public network) today....on Mallorca, the island off the coast of Spain (in the Med).

If you've never been there....a short description.  If you added up Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens....then multiplied it by seven....that's about the size of the island.  Up through the 1950s....tourism was marginal.  In the 1960s and 1970s....because of air travel and cheap hotels....Mallorca became this magnet for German tourism.

The weather was right for a seven-month long period.  It rarely rained.  And the beaches were inviting.

It's safe to say in the 1980s and 1990s....Mallorca boomed.  Massive hotel development occurred.  Germans sensed a party-environment, and consumed a lot of booze....and created love-hate relationship with the Spanish locals.

Over the past twenty years.....a lot of Germans have identified themselves to the isle, and become permanent fixtures.  They bought property and condos.  They built up drinking establishments, cafes, ice-cream shops, and restaurants.   The love-hate relationship with the Spanish locals?  It's become about 75-percent hate and 25-percent love.  I know....that's a risky mixture.

An odd thing occurred in 2016....Turkey had their coup, and Germans came to view Turkey as 'out', and needed to find a place for their summer vacation.  With the millions who used Turkey before....the Germans basically split their new destination between Greece and Mallorca.  Folks in Greece are exceptionally happy with their new-found clients.  Mallorca?  Less so.

Hotels in Mallorca say they had close to 90-percent occupancy for July and August.  It'd normally be great moments for business people, but this meant the streets were filled with people and things were overflowing on the isle.

Things reached a stage this summer where a new law came up on the isle....a ceiling was created.  NO NEW hotels....construction permits prior to the law will continue but there is zero development to continue for the next couple of years.  Home owners interested in renting out their house?  No....there's a freeze on this practice.  In essence, there's a complete lock-down on hotel rooms on the isle.....430,000 rooms.  That's it.

A politicized environment?  Much so.  Various Spanish political groups are hyping up the problem and some are creating a anti-German theme.  It's not massive, but it's enough that it's noticeable.

The thing here is that eventually....at least people hope that....Turkey will dissolve the Erdogan issue in some fashion and positive views will return.  Then a lot of Germans.....especially those who feel the slant of things on Mallorca....will go and return to Turkey.  Then folks around Mallorca will look around in July and realize that there are empty hotel rooms, and profits have fallen by a third.  Jobs will resettle to where they were a decade ago, and normal times will return.