Rafa Nadal & Co. have helped make the island a popular destination for both professional and amateur athletes, and many German athletes have made their second home there.
by Stefanie Claudia Müller
Spain is a sporting nation, and in many disciplines the Spaniards are world leaders. People like Rafa Nadal and Pau Gasol are also moral role models in society and this has also had an impact on tourism. According to the Spanish statistics authority INE some 10 million holidaymakers partake actively in sports during their stay in Spain. Many more come to watch the games and matches of their favourite clubs and tennis players in Madrid, Valencia, Seville or Barcelona.
Unique villa with private sauna, golf course and much more in Cala Murada
This Spanish success is also due to a very good network of public training centres throughout the country, and to the interest of parents who encourage the competitive spirit in their children from an early age often sacrificing much time and money to do so. Particularly in golf, basketball and football, Spanish talent development has become an international example. In summer, the youngest children are often sent to month-long sports camps where they play tennis in the morning and swim in the afternoon. These generally last from the end of June to the beginning of September and are now also visited by tourists. Many are held in English, enabling another language to be learned during the time at the camp.
Mallorca is one of the most popular destinations for these holiday camps as the facilities are available there and celebrities are never far away, sometimes dropping in for autograph sessions. Apart from tennis and sailing, golf is also very popular on the island. There are 22 clubs which sell around 650,000 green fees every year, corresponding to some 150,000 golf tourists according to data from the Federación Empresarial Hotelera de Mallorca and the business lobby CAEB. Here in particular the income generated is enormous as it also involves business and group travel, mostly by people with higher incomes.
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Mallorca offers all the facets of sport from climbing to sailing
In the 1990s, the various fitness facilities with their own properties were mainly supported by top German athletes. First came the tennis stars of the time, Boris Becker and Carl-Uwe Steeb, and caused a real boom in ball games and the corresponding hotel facilities. Now it is mainly footballers who train there and buy their own home on the island, like the 28-year-old national player Jonas Hofmann who bought a plot of land near Alcúdia and recently said in an interview:
“After my active career, I would like to spend a few weeks here each year”.
Beautiful villa with sea views in the golf community near the Santa Ponsa country club
The climate is ideal, and some hotels now specialise in this type of training camp and the infrastructure of public swimming pools, running tracks and tennis courts has been adapted to the growing demand over the years. Even in Palma, people can now jog for kilometres along the seafront and cycle zones are an integral part of the city.
Even competitive athletes need advice when buying property
Competitive sport in Mallorca has always been associated with luxury real estate, offered for sale near golf courses or tennis courts. “Bobbele” was one of the first, buying the large detached finca “Son Coll” near Artà in the island’s interior at the end of the 1990s. In the years that followed, his case was regarded as an example of the fact that, when purchasing of a property, even if the price seems low it should be carefully examined by experts. According to media reports, he paid 500,000 euros for 2900 square metres, which seems an incredibly low amount today. Only a few years later he offered it for sale for 15 million euros because he had experienced enormous problems with building permits, but exactly for this reason the property was not sold.
Modern, renovated finca with large plot in San Marineta
For Becker the only result was more costs and problems. The property fell into disrepair and from 2018, it was even taken over by squatters. A year later one of his creditors, the English private bank Arbuthnot Latham, confiscated the property which included a swimming pool and tennis courts. Even though the police ejected the “okupas” last year, according to media reports it has still not been sold which shows how important the history of a property is when offering it for sale. While his old friend Steeb is still sighted in Mallorca from time to time, Becker has seldom been seen due to the scandals surrounding his financial situation, although he was spotted again for the first time this year when his son was exhibiting his art there.
German athletes love the island
Meanwhile, many other German footballers, cyclists and swimmers live on Mallorca, and have helped to bring major sporting competitions to the island. This includes German Telekom team cyclist Jan Ullrich. Like Becker, however, he too got on the wrong track and disappeared from Mallorca for a while, but came back for a cycling camp he organised which also included his former rival Lance Armstrong. Now it is autumn and the entire Balearic Islands are featuring sporting events after a year in which nothing was able to take place, including the cycling marathon “Mallorca 312”, the “Ironman Mallorca”, the “Ibiza Marathon, the “Zafiro Palma Marathon” and the “Volta en Menorca BTT tour’’ which are now in the programme. This not only positions the islands as an international sports location, but also brings in more and more tourists who do not want to party but, on the contrary, wish to be fit and active
on holiday, which is much better for the image of Ibiza and Mallorca in the long term and also brings in more revenue.
Spaniards are now the sports stars of Mallorca
In the past, it was mainly German sportspeople who promoted Mallorca, but now it has become the Spaniards themselves. Rafa Nadal, for example, trains sports talent in his own internationally renowned academy in his home town of Manacor, which has given the island’s interior an enormous boost, just as Becker and Steeb’s tennis activities did in the past in the area around Artà. This, in turn, has also influenced the real estate market as sea views are no longer the deciding factor for many buyers who are also interested the sports infrastructure around the property. Nadal himself believes that tennis is a great promotion factor for Mallorca. The “Rafa Nadal Academy by Movistar” is currently probably the best ambassador for hosting competitions on the island and is also a link between the local Mallorcans and the millions of international visitors coming to the island.
Rafael Nadal Academy
When parts of the island were flooded in 2018 he personally helped with the cleaning-up and also donated money, at the same time launching the Rafa Nadal International School. This now attracts many families from the USA, India and Europe to Mallorca as young talented players can better combine competitive sport with necessary school commitments, and can meet like-minded people from all over the world. The school is based on the American school-system.
The Balearic Islands are on the right course
Although the Spanish monarchs made sailing the flagship sport of Mallorca, and it has attracted millionaires to the entire south-western part of the island, Nadal has made Mallorca an unrestricted tennis paradise. Now there are even efforts to make the island an attractive place for motorsport and in autumn Mallorca’s first “550 Challenge” was held. With such events the Balearic government wants, above all, to strengthen year-round tourism which is independent of what is happening in the rest of Spain. Rosana Morillo, general director for tourism in the Balearic government, sees sporting holidays as one of the most important areas to develop further:
“We have been working on this concept for years, and it has become clear that it is an element which contributes to the seasonal development at the present time”.
This has also incidentally effected the real estate market, which in Mallorca is already less dependent on economic fluctuations and tourist preferences and is booming despite the pandemic.