Puerto Alcudia beach. | Andrew Ede

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If you have ten to fifteen minutes to spare, you can help to improve tourism in Alcudia. Or so the town hall hopes. If you go to its website, you will find the link to a form developed by some consultants. Ten to fifteen minutes, they say; I spent at least half an hour.

A problem with this questionnaire is that it appears to presume a degree of knowledge about tourism businesses that I suspect the majority of people don't have. Why would they, unless the further presumption is that everyone in Alcudia is active in the tourism industry? Even then, the knowledge would surely be confined.

Otherwise, there is the opportunity to assess various aspects of the general tourism offer and to make comments and suggestions. It's fair enough and it's good to be asked. But what will they make of the results, they being the current town hall administration alongside, one imagines, the same or some other consultants?

I could have spent way longer than half an hour going into - as examples - the housing issue, the consequence not just of illegal lets but legal ones that should never have been permitted; the total neglect over many years of the main tourist centre (Bellevue to Tucan to Magic); the lack of parking; the state of the roads; the poor coexistence with residents as a consequence of establishments (Bellevue) that couldn't care less; the focus (again over many years) on the old town and the port to the detriment of everywhere else, but which even manages to neglect certain issues in the town; the abandonment of certain areas; the collapsing sewers (there's more work being carried out on the Carretera Arta) ... .

But then, I suppose, one can always say that there are faults wherever you are. True enough, and there are things that one must praise - a fabulous beach; an old town at night in the summer with a marvellous atmosphere; a history that nowhere else in Mallorca can compete with; a top-class marina; a reputation for sports tourism ... .

Yes, I know, there are issues pertaining to these. Occasionally, though, one has to pause and say it ain't such a bad place. And irrespective of protests (not that there have been any in Alcudia, though Mallorca Platja Tour say they will be coming), regardless of complaints about prices, people keep returning year after year.

Expect to spend longer than 15 minutes. Think it out and let them know. In English if you don't do one of the natives? Maybe. They can always Google Translate. Can't they? The link is ...

Vols ajudar a millorar el turisme a Alcúdia? (alcudia.net)