Mallorca Today
It's a mixed bag for sure, but Mallorca is looking sunny-side up. The island weathered the austerity storm better than many other parts of Spain, and even recent corruption scandals have failed to deflate a generally buoyant mood. More than 23 million passengers touched down in Palma in 2014 and arrivals continue to break records, while the property market experienced 17% growth in 2015. New hotels are flinging open their doors and restaurant chefs hop to keep the tourist influx wined and dined.
The Tourist Toll
With a registered population just under 900,000, Mallorca's residents are outnumbered more than 10 to one by visitors, who annually constitute an army 9.5 million strong. That's a lot of sunscreen. Fleeing the terrorist hot spots of Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey, holidaymakers have turned their attention to the sun-kissed Balearic Islands. Locals, however, complain the island is coming apart at the seams during the peak summer crush. Sewage systems have been overwhelmed. Water resources (sucked dry by golf courses and hotels) and electricity supplies have been pushed to their limits, while overflowing rubbish bins and congested roads add to the woes. The tourist tax, launched in 2016, is partly aimed at controlling the huge numbers of arrivals, but servicing the huge influx while protecting the island's resources, environment and infrastructure is an ongoing headache.
Corruption and Sleaze
Linked inextricably to the cash-cow tourist economy that feeds around 80% of Mallorca's GDP, corruption has a ceaselessly corrosive effect on good business practice and public confidence. Illegal property construction and infrastructure contracts for roads and flyovers to nowhere have long sapped public faith in political leadership, while corruption has worsened labour conditions at the pointy end where 45% of under-25s are unemployed (in the Balearic Islands as a whole). The left-wing, anti-austerity Podemos party has pledged to weed out corruption, but it's a tall order battling something so deeply ingrained within the island's business culture. In 2014, the former Balearic Islands' President and Popular Party minister Jaume Matas was sentenced to a six-year jail term for fraud. Since 2010, 16 former PP politicians have been jailed for corruption. Even Princess Cristina and husband Iñaki Urdangarin stood trial in 2016 in Palma, accused of tax fraud and corruption.
An Image Change
An image change for Mallorca – from the slightly seedy, booze-fuelled and resort-infested picture of yesteryear – has repositioned the island in the travelling consciousness. Mallorca is increasingly appealing to a broader cross-section of visitors, as hikers, cyclists and birdwatchers arrive in greater and greater numbers. The mushrooming population of fincas (farmsteads, or estates) converted to hotels has transformed holidaymakers' enjoyment of the island, while the Palma restaurant scene continues to refresh itself with new openings and an influx of creative chefs.
Despite the pressure of visitor arrivals, black vultures (Aegypius monachus), Europe's largest raptor, have established new records in their breeding season in the Serra de Tramuntana, where the species has been gradually growing over the last three decades, before which the bird almost disappeared from Mallorca. Hemingway would have been appalled, but the pressure group Mallorca Sense Sang (Mallorca Without Blood) succeeded in having bullfighting banned in Palma and campaigners hope the ban will extend to the entire island.
Winter tourism is another big focus, with more hotels opening earlier and closing later every year to cater for growing numbers of out-of-season visitors. And it is working: more and more operators are adding outdoor-focused holidays to their portfolio. Boozy Magaluf still casts the occasional shadow, but the horizons are looking bright.
Best on Film
The Night Manager (2016) Very popular BBC series based on the novel of the same name by John le Carré, with many locations filmed in Mallorca.
Woman of Straw (1963) Stars Sean Connery with Artà as the backdrop.
The Magus (1968) Features Anthony Quinn, Michael Caine and Candice Bergen with Mallorca standing in for a Greek island.
A Winter in Mallorca (1969) Relives Chopin and George Sand’s ill-fated stay on the island.
Presence of Mind (El Celo, 2000) Stars Sadie Frost, Harvey Keitel and Lauren Bacall; a private tutor comes to the island to educate two orphaned children.
Best in Print
Mañana Mañana (Peter Kerr) The pick of the books about trying to live like a Mallorcan.
Bread and Oil: Majorcan Culture’s Last Stand (Tomás Graves) Food-dominated book centred on traditional Mallorca’s greatest passions.
British Travellers in Mallorca in the Nineteenth Century (eds Brian J Dendle and Shelby Thacker) An intriguing anthology of Mallorcan travellers' tales.
A Bull on the Beach (Anna Nicholas) One of several lively yarns by the same author about the life of an expat in rural Mallorca.
Population
869,067
78 would be Mallorcan
9 would be from mainland Spain
3 would be German
10 would be other
GDP per capita
€24,394
Unemployment rate
13.9%
Number of Passengers through Palma Airport (2015)
23.745 million
