Viewpoint

“Just what is happening to Puerto Pollensa?” This is a headline which has appeared a lot in the Bulletin over recent weeks. The Pollensa council and the local ministry for tourism should be most concerned at the large number of complaints we have received over the last two months. These are tourists who are so annoyed and upset they claim they are never going to return. What I think has happened is that the council has failed to make the necessary improvements needed to keep Puerto Pollensa at the forefront. In fact the area has declined while other places such as nearby Puerto Alcudia have improved. The council was given a warning two years ago when the beach failed to win the coveted blue flag. Soller was in the same boat but the council reacted and this year it regained its lost flag. Not so in Puerto Pollensa. It is flagless yet again. The general decline has been noted and tourists are not impressed. The area has still not recovered from the storm which hit six months ago. Added to this, traffic in the centre of the port is a nightmare and plans for a ring-road are still very much on the horizon. All in all it is a sad state of affairs, because Puerto Pollensa has always been one of Majorca's premier holiday resorts. To all those people who are abandoning Pollensa, I would ask them to say loyal. I am sure that the council will take note of their complaints and of their threat to go elsewhere. They would be very stupid to dismiss what tourists are saying. Majorca, at the moment is in a very difficult position. Tourism is falling and tourists are not happy. I think island-wide the local authorities should start listening and come down to earth.