The Luxury Revolution

Hoi An Tourism Map The Luxury Revolution Hoi An Tourism Map

Never mind new auto pistas, rail routes and transferring the ferry terminal to somewhere more convenient for cruise ship passengers, what Mallorca needs desperately, in the opinion of some high-flying travellers is a proper VIP-handling facility at Palma Airport. Anyone who visits Son Sant Joan cannot fail to notice the growing squadron of Lears, Gulfstreams and Pipers sandwiched onto the executive jet concourse. So, it must be a truly dispiriting experience for the ultra well-shod, not to say those whose celebrity is so stellar they require outsized burquas to shield themselves from prying lenses, to come down to earth with a bump at somewhere that lacks haute grandeur, landing-strip status. Now, though all this may appear to mock those with indecent dollops of cash, there is a serious message contained within. And it's one which Mallorca's powers-that-be should heed, before another island paradise, vying for the title of the Med's most des res location, does. Because the mega-rich are coming, many have already pitched up here and they demand and require all the accoutrements to accompany their eye-popping bank balances. In its efforts to balance the needs of mass, hoi polloi tourism with the extravagances of the affluent, ever since the turbo-prop set first put Mallorca on the great-escape map in the Fifties, this place has witnessed more transformations than Michael Jackson's plastic surgeon. Currently, as the island strains to be all things to all pockets, it is undergoing another. What's so very different about this one is that it's market-led -- and fed -- by that archly catchall term 'globalisation'. Whereas, historically, this bejewelled Mediterranean outcrop has proven an irresistible lure to those who have made their fortunes and merely want the time and place to spend it in sublime retirement, today's generation of moneyed migrants are leaner, keener and younger aspirants, still accumulating their piles of riches. The legion of dot.com billionaires, private equity tycoons and City whizkids seeking refuge here are the high-net-worth by-products of a global economy where nothing is impossible. And location, location, location are their buzzwords. Today, for instance, some tycoon cashing in on the pork-belly boom, needn't be sitting with his laptop at a Pingxiang piggery, counting units on the hoof. Similarly, there's no necessity for a spread-better, aiming for a killing on copper in Cururupu, to be at the smelter noting the number or railway trucks offloading ore. Years ago the really cute smart alecs rumbled the fact that the point of manufacture has no bearing on the location where the profit is realised -- and spent -- so they might as well set up their wi-fi gizmos wherever in the world that takes their fancy. And it takes little savvy to realise Son Vida or Santa Maria are infinitely more appealing habitats than anything Hamburg or Hampstead can offer. Which is why they're here, still busy amassing trillions, but in the sun. And why a growing contingent of likeminded, entrepreneurial free spirits are queuing up to park their exec jets on the Son Sant Joan tarmac, while they recce the island for suitably superb homes, shops, offices, schools for the kids and mach-10 broadband systems. The component parts of the infrastructure needed to service the whims of Amex Black Card-holders are already in situ -- or almost. A planned, seven-star hotel in Soller, scheduled for opening in 2009 -- the best and most luxurious in Spain, claim the owners -- will add to Mallorca's lustre. And so will other hostelries, like one in Puerto Andratx, which are undergoing uber-upmarket facelifts that can justify rocketing B&B prices from 250 per night to 1,000. We already possess chic eateries, dishing up every, imaginable cuisine, and trendy boutiques so voguish they'd even melt the frozen pout of Posh Becks into a reluctant smile. And big boys toys are available by the Ferrari-load or Ferreti-full. There is even a timeshare development, near Cala Calonge, so exquisitely deluxe, it requires a down payment of 250,000 to join and 15,000-a-year membership. Meanwhile, the overabundance of tantalising properties has prompted one enterprising immobiliaria to dedicate an entire department to servicing only those worthy of Mallorca's most lavish pads (and if you have to ask the price, dah-ling, you simply can't afford it -- though, just for the record, opening bids start at a beggarly 15 million). All this may sounds faintly familiar to old island hands, who've seen more Mallorcan false dawns than they downed bottles of Faustino I reserva. And they may have a point. Despite this island boasting the most intensive cultivation of exclusive real estate anywhere in Europe and a myriad of other, glitzy charms, there are impediments facing even the upwardly mobile in their quest to find a ghetto for the stratospherically super-rich. Like Manifest Mallorcan reticence to offload much more of their prize real estate and a bureaucracy that, some say, does not include the local equivalent of Yes or Ja in its vocabulary. Money, you see, can't buy everything here. And even if you have buckets of the stuff, attempts to bend the system -- as, among others, Boris Becker, Michael Douglas and Claudia Schiffer discovered -- only meet with a wall of resistance from the town hall. Then, after you've returned to the drawing board to refashion your palacio into something humbler, doubtless some man from the ministry will call and suggest you might like to donate a million or two to a worthy cultural cause. Or, better still, if more than a dozen people on Portals beach recognise you from the telly, lend your name and presence to a local sporting event or promote the island at a tourist fair. It's an offer you can't -- and certainly shouldn't -- refuse. There are a number of other little, local idiosyncrasies to contend with too. Service may come with a smile here, but slick is hardly the word I'd used to describe it. And, however big the wad of euros you wave in their faces, don't bother trying to get a plumber/joiner/electrician/pool maintenance man between the hours of 2 and 4pm -- unless they're foreigners -- because siesta-time is set down in holy writ. And who can blame the Mallorcans for wanting to keep their God's little acre and way of life sacred? I, for one, don't. That's why I'm here. There are some things that shouldn't change, not even to suit the whims of billionaires and the laid-back essence of Mallorca, unfazed by time and not always moved to earn a fast euro, is one of them.

Draft Ting Kok Outline Zoning Plan approved Hoi An Tourism Map It is bounded by the eastern end of Ting Kok Road to the east, the foothills of Pat Sin Leng to the north, Tung Tsz Road to the west and Shuen Wan Hoi to the south. About 70.32 hectares of land within the Area is zoned "Village Type Development" to ... Hoi An Tourism Map [l]