This article was written by Nathan Dobson, and first appeared in the Mallorca Daily Bulletin, 09 March, 2008.
With the age-old debate about year long tourism on the island seemingly going around in circles, local government and hotel owners have increasingly turned their attention to the benefits of the golf season.
Starting in the slow tourism months of January and February, easing off during the summer when the island is full of tourists anyway, and picking up again in Autumn, golf offers a potential source of year round income.
The current difficulty is that Majorca is not really known as a golfing destination. Golfers back in the UK flock to the Algarve or the Costa del Sol, and despite events such as the Mallorca Classic, the island does not immediately spring to mind for golfers.
One of the ways to increase the golfing profile of the island is to build more golf courses. Yet with the local government recently having been forced to freeze construction projects around the island it is unlikely that they will be prepared to build more golf courses. But the point, as James Arnold, area director of three golf courses on the island, points out,the way to make Majorca a well known destination for golf is not to build lots of courses.
"The focus must be on quality." Arnold told the Bulletin, "existing local courses cannot compete with those of the Algarve and the Costa del Sol with a mediocre product.
"They need to get themselves up to a high enough standard and keep it that way. They need to be in great condition, well managed, friendly and value for money.
"The UK is the biggest golfing market for Majorca, but UK golfers expect quality.
"No one minds paying a high price and getting value for money. They just don't like getting poor quality.
"Quality courses like ours, the Arabella Spa and resort courses, and the Son Gual course, are forcing others to pick up their game, and you can see that they are working hard.
"We at Arabella have worked very hard to get our courses in peak condition in March. It usually takes until May or June to achieve that. In this way we are making the other courses work harder and stay at the top with us.
"No resort in Europe has as many golf courses as the Arabella Spa and Resort Mallorca. We are one of the top ten leading golf destinations in Europe. The reasons are to do with the geography of the island and the quality and proximity of our courses"
"We have three courses, (Son Vida, Son Quint & Son Muntaner) all within two minutes of each other. The courses have great international access being only 20 minutes away from the airport. They are tied into three top quality hotels and they also have the great city of Palma just nearby.
"The closeness of everything makes it a great resort.
"In order to attract golfers to the island the product that we offer has to be the best in Europe."
Arnold has a wealth of experience from all areas of the trade to draw on. He was a touring pro-golfer for a number of years. Unfortunately 4 hole in ones were not enough to dissuade him from leaving the game when he realised he was not going to be the next Tony Jacklin.
He took to running two golf schools in Germany and Italy and setting up a buying group in golf shops.
After that he moved into the public sphere and started running a company that built and owned 4 public golf courses in Hamburg.
One and a half years ago he came to the island to take over as area director for the Arabella spa and resort Mallorca.
Now managing courses that accommodate roughly 100,000 rounds a year he is enjoying the challenge of making Mallorca a top year-round destination for golf.
"We get people on the courses from January to the summer months, and then with the slow down over the summer we offer people a chance to play earlier, before it gets too hot," explained Arnold. "we introduced early bird specials with competitive green fee prices that mean people could have a round of golf before going to the beach. That had never been done on the island.
"Golf resorts need to sustain a level of quality; not just sit back because they are full for a few months. They need to be constantly working to maintain standards."
"It is the same with Majorca tourism on the whole. The rest of the world is not sleeping. "The Dubais" and the Canary Islands are always thinking of new markets and Majorca needs to be doing the same."
