The island’s golf courses claim their role as an important tourist asset and wealth generator while fighting to demystify beliefs about their environmental impact.
Text: Raúl Beltrán. Palma.
Mallorca is a paradise for golf world. Its 25 golf courses, very well distributed throughout the island -you can check the full list below-, offer an oasis for a type of tourism whose multiplier effects of wealth are demonstrated year after year. Its economic impact and its high value as a tourist asset that, in addition, helps to achieve the long-awaited seasonal adjustment of visitors, have caught the eyes of the institutions, aware of the strategic role that this sport plays for the Mallorca destination.
Hole with the silhouette of Mallorca, in Golf Santa Ponça. Photos: Mallorca Golf Island.
Golf in Mallorca and its importance
Bernardino Jaume
FBG President
“Through work, we have managed to get institutions to believe in golf and see it as an element that helps to de-seasonalize tourism and generate wealth outside the courses”
Luis Nigorra
AECG President
“Having 25 golf courses positions Mallorca as an ideal golf destination. This allows the average stay of visitors to be longer, because they want to play on one course every day”
Xisca Fornés
Mallorca Golf Island Manager
“For Mallorca as a destination, golf offers a fundamental channel to advance in the much desired seasonal adjustment, since our occupancy peaks are in the middle and low season”
Bernat Llobera
Arabella Golf Director
“Mallorca is a golf destination like few others in the Mediterranean due to the variety of its courses, to which we must add the hotel infrastructure, the good air connectivity and the climate”
Dismantling myths
“They see us as consumers of territory and water, but this is not the case”, explains Bernardino Jaume, president of the Balearic Golf Federation (FBG). And it is that 100% of the golf courses of Mallorca, which occupy 0.3% of the island’s surface, use only treated water. “We have managed to get institutions to believe in the world of golf and see it as an element that helps to de-seasonalize tourism, because our high season tends to go the other way, with peaks from March to June and from September to November“, adds Jaume.
For the Arabella Golf’s director, Bernat Llobera, Mallorca “is a destination like few others in the Mediterranean. The tourist, looking for around 5 rounds in a week, can go through the different golf courses in less than an hour. And for the local there is much more supply than demand, so they have a great variety to choose from”. Llobera details that Mallorca attracts, above all, German golfers, followed by British and Nordic golfers, “who are on the rise.”
Golf Alcanada.
Mallorca competes in quality
Luis Nigorra, president of the Mallorca Golf Courses Association (ACGM) and now also of the national association (AECG), assures that the island “has an excellent product. While other destinations compete on price, we compete on quality, and I think that is positive. We get a good score and the tourists who come are happy”.
The benefits of sport and its impact on the island economy is clear. Xisca Fornés, in charge of representing Mallorca as a golf destination at Mallorca Golf Island, provides several data to take into account: “Golfers have a higher average stay than the visitor who does not play this sport, 11.9 compared to 7.4 days; they spend more than a sun and beach tourist and 7 out of every 8 euros are invested outside the green. In addition, we provide quality work, since 89.2% of workers have a permanent contract”.
Increase in fans
“We have been growing for four years. We close 2020 with 7,350 members and this year we will easily surpass the 7,500 barrier”, predicts Bernardino Jaume. Partly due to the pandemic, because it is a safe, non-contact outdoor sport, but also because of the actions carried out, such as the FBG campaign #silopruebastequedas. Many of the new fans are young, “although there are people of all kinds, from liberal professionals, older people…”, adds Nigorra.
The final of the Challenge Tour, the second division of European golf, will elevate Mallorca in November as the capital of golf. ‘Road to Mallorca’ is going around the world through 23 tournaments “that give a very important visibility, because the name of the island appears in each tournament”, Nigorra concludes, whose full interview you can consult in this link.
Female presence rises
Golf continues to be a sport practiced mainly by men, “around 65-70%”, points out Xisca Fornés from Mallorca Golf Island. In addition, of the 18 managers who are in the Balearic golf clubs, only 4 occupy the position of owners or directors. The Balearic Golf Federation organizes an exclusive circuit for women “that every year grows in participation”, says Ricardo Moralejo, manager of the FBG. The luck of having such outstanding Majorcan athletes on the island as Nuria Iturrioz (winner of 3 European Tour tournaments) and Luna Sobrón (champion of Spain for several consecutive years) can act as a lever for more women to get closer to this sport.
Golf Son Vida.
List of golf courses in Mallorca
* Son Antem has two golf courses: East and West.
Did you know…
- Mallorca accounts for more than 500,000 green fees a year.
- In 1964 the first golf course in Mallorca was inaugurated. Golf Son Vida.
- Some celebrities who have played in Mallorca are Jack Nicholson and Michael Douglas (Son Antem) or Rainiero de Monaco and The Beatles (Son Vida).
- On the 15th hole of Golf Son Muntaner there is one of the oldest olive trees in Mallorca: ‘Na Capitana’.
- The 10th hole of Golf Santa Ponça is one of the longest in Europe with 590 m., where Ballesteros, Langer, Olazábal, Woosnam, etc. have played.
* Report included in the magazine Mallorca Caprice by Mallorca Global. Access the full magazine in pdf here.
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