The Throwback: Why all-inclusives might have a point

In Playa de Muro there are 32 hotels. Depending on your definition, there are roughly the same number of restaurants. One restaurant per hotel. You might think that this was a pretty decent equation when it comes to there being adequate business for restaurant owners. Not so, when you take into account the impact of all-inclusive offers.

One restaurant owner was talking about a protest against all-inclusives. It’s a familiar theme, is it not? There was similar talk along Puerto Alcúdia’s Mile earlier in the season. But there is a difference in Playa de Muro, isn’t there? It’s a different market.

Playa de Muro does not have the same sort of vast all-inclusive ghettoes that Puerto Alcúdia has, but all-inclusive it most certainly does have. A trawl through some websites of hotels in the resort confirms this. From the more economy Continental and Lagotel to the more exclusive Vivas and Iberostars, you will find that all-inclusive is available. Playa de Muro may be a different market in that it is generally up-market, but what’s up-market when it’s still subject to the same market conditions created by all-inclusives. That restaurant owner was scathing not only about the existence of so much AI, he was also critical of what he saw as an undermining of the apparent “quality” in at least one of the more up-market hotels. Plastic glasses. Re-used. Or so he says.

Playa de Muro is a curious resort. It is a complete invention of the tourism boom. There was no Playa de Muro until the late 60s and early 70s. The development around Las Gaviotas and the Esperanza hotel started it all off, and then along came a handful of restaurants and ultimately the coastal colonisation as far as Alcúdia Pins. The resort has nothing of the past of a Puerto Alcúdia or Puerto Pollensa, or even Can Picafort: it just emerged.

But as with other resorts, those who started businesses there enjoyed some good times, some very good times indeed, buoyed also by the residential tourism of Mallorcan-owned second homes and foreign-owned holiday homes, of which there are a not insignificant number. However, Playa de Muro and its businesses, save for the hotels, is a victim of that old success. Many places have simply never moved with the times. And now that times are not so good, it’s hard to justify the sort of investment that might be said to be required to make places seem less, well, old-fashioned.

In the resort there are two five-star hotels. I was once told by someone at a car-hire firm that it, the car-hire agency, does good business with those from the five stars who head off in the search of restaurants, Pollensa perhaps; but not in Playa de Muro. I can recall forum comments from guests at four-star Iberostars preferring to stay in the hotel and eat because they weren’t much taken by the restaurants nearby. There is nothing wrong with the restaurants nearby, quite the contrary, but many look what they are – throwbacks. For a market that has grown more sophisticated, even one that goes AI, there is an image crisis in Playa de Muro. And to this one can add the fact that there is so little differentiation. Where, for example, can one eat Mallorcan cuisine? Mar Petita, yes. Meson los Patos, yes. But the latter isn’t actually in Playa de Muro. Otherwise, it’s a mix of burgers, steaks, grills and the odd touch of the Orient.

The counter-arguments that the hoteliers make when faced with complaints about the impact of all-inclusive include one that businesses should make a greater effort to improve or change their products. It’s not always easy, and in certain instances, e.g. along the Mile in Puerto Alcúdia, it’s especially difficult because of the nature of the market. But despite the all-inclusive, Playa de Muro is an example of somewhere, because it does benefit from a more exclusive market, where greater attention to product, to image, to marketing would probably go a long way.

There won’t be a protest because there would be a lack of will to effect one, and it would be of no value in any event. One can sympathise, and I do, because I know a number of these business owners, but try telling them that a change might benefit them and they’ll pooh-pooh the idea. Fair enough; they know better than I what their business is. I don’t run a restaurant. But I do hear and read a lot of comments, and I can observe for myself, as others observe and choose to stay in their 32 hotels.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Smoke And Mirrors: Why friendliness is spurious

Alcúdia friendly, so it was said on 16 June. It’s not the only resort in Mallorca that is friendly and not the only resort where tourists can expect excellent hospitality. “The Diario”, as it did when interviewing tourists in Alcúdia, following tour operators’ arguments that greater friendliness needed to be shown to visitors, has gone on another walkabout – to different places across the island. Again the impetus was what tour operators were saying about service and that all-important friendliness, or the lack of them. And what they have again discovered is a situation quite removed from what the tour operators have been alleging.

While one has to get into perspective a few sources being cited in a couple of articles, the paper’s findings – including the fact that tourists come back year after year – does make one wonder quite what has been behind the tour operators’ suggestions as to a lack of friendliness or poor service. Maybe, just maybe, they’re using them as a smoke-screen.

There was an interesting letter in “The Bulletin” yesterday. The points it raised were well-made, and it came from someone who was behind a movement in Calvia to correct the problems faced by bars and others. Among the points was the fact that tour operators are saying that were bars and restaurants to stay open – in winter – and support hotels that get their prices right, then they would arrange packages. Yet they also say that Mallorca needs more all-inclusive, as the market wants it.

Forget the winter tourism element, the point about all-inclusive says it all. Bars and restaurants staying open while all-inclusive gets cranked up are mutually exclusive. The tour operators’ line of thinking is thoroughly illogical – and they surely know it to be so. Which is why they may be raising that smoke-screen of friendliness and service; it’s a red herring.

It is the tour operators that have caused the problems with Mallorca’s tourism, just as – for the most part – they also brought about the success. True though it may be that bars and restaurants had it easy, thanks to the benevolence of hotels and yes the tour operators, but as the letter-writer points out these bars and restaurants were needed, encouraged. Not now they aren’t. Saying that bars and restaurants should stay open, while simultaneously taking away their business because of a growth in all-inclusive is a fatuous and idiotic argument.

England’s humiliation
It was embarrassing. It was quieter than Slovenia. Of course it was. And now the bars will be lamenting the defeat. No great troupes of Rooneys and Gerrards. No great sales of foamy. Sadly I feel I may have been prescient when I said on 17 June that “England will prove to be rubbish, and Germany will win it.”

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

I Did It Moll Way: All-inclusive in Puerto Pollensa

Now here, you might think, would be something that would send tremors coursing through the shaky old bones of the Puerto Pollensa indignant. Tagged on to the end of reports about Mayor Cerdà forming a “table”, around which other indignants and he can sit and talk about dog shit, is this little old mention, as in the one from “Ultima Hora” – “the possible repercussions of all-inclusive in the Moll (port)”. Has there not yet been a call for a great protest to storm the fortresses of hotel chains? People should be careful what they wish for. When the revolutionaries took to the streets on 2 June, one complaint was that no new hotels had been built down Moll way. Maybe there will be. Club Mac comes to Puerto Pollensa. God forbid. Tattoos and karaoke follow. Even more than now in the already dumbed-down PP. The perverse streak in me says “bring it on”, but that is utterly ludicrous, as is the entire discussion as to hotel development – Moll way.

They don’t need to sit around a table and discuss the repercussions. They can stand up, anywhere they like, and shout them out loud. Any fool could tell them.

Puerto Pollensa has been spared the ravages of the all-inclusive war that have razed much of Alcúdia, Playa de Muro and Can Picafort. But it is probably only a question of time. What tour operators want, they normally get, and they are doubtless eyeing up Moll way as the next big all the Saint Mick and pizza you can get through location. Or there might, instead, be the superior class style AI, the one with real drinks and without Johnny Vegas. But AI’s AI, however you want to spin it. Don’t think, by the way, that the town hall can do anything to stop the march of AI. It can’t. Tour operators. Tourism ministry. Hoteliers. These are what you need to be aware of; forget the town hall, except when they’re taking in the taxes.

All-inclusive in Puerto Pollensa, from what one can make out, is currently confined to Club Sol. Partial AI, maybe. AI that falls short of the full-on AI. Maybe it is full-on. You have to actually be a guest to know for sure. And that is how it is with AI. You don’t quite know. Many a hotel is engaging in some quasi-AI arrangement or other, designed to make the punter part with some in-hotel dosh. Yet it is absurd. The full-on all-inclusive not only doesn’t want to be all-inclusive, it also doesn’t want the punters anywhere near the free drink, or around the pool – if it can help it. Get ’em out; that’s the motif. Unlike the half-board or other non-AI hotels. They do everything they can to keep the punter strapped to the poolside bar or watching the World Cup (and the chances to watch the footy are limited in AI’s – why do you think that is).

All-inclusive in Puerto Pollensa? Repercussions of AI in Puerto Pollensa? It doesn’t bear thinking about, but it is easy to think about. Rather than the revolutionaries taking to clean the beach – as they’re meant to be in the next “protest”, and which will do even more to alert the hadn’t-ever-noticed-the-shit tourist than the march in early June – they should be shouting out loud about those repercussions. Trouble is that they may have brought them upon themselves. Go figure.

* Just in case you don’t get the title – the pronunciation of “moll” is “moy”; think rural English.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Nowhere To Go: Parking and all-inclusives

A Tuesday. I’ll be in the office. Not me, someone else. Another little meeting. Another little waste of time. Ho hum. But being a Tuesday, it was worse than it might otherwise be. A Tuesday. Alcúdia old town. Oh, oh. Market day. I thought that I should park up by the primary school, where you can always park, market or no market. But then I thought. Nah, don’t fancy the walk. I’ll risk it.

By the side of Eroski, back of the auditorium. Nowhere. The streets are full of cars. Sod it, I’ll go to the finca opposite the church, the overflow parking which is more THE parking, given that the proper parking by the church is inadequate. Bump, bump, gravel, gravel. Nowhere. It takes a while to even get out of the scruffy and stony dustbowl. Not just because of the number of cars exiting.

The exit to the parking finca. It has always been like this. No one seems to have ever thought to do something about it. There is an incline and on top of the incline is a ridge. It has never been flattened. It causes problems. To get over the ridge you have to give the accelerator some. The some can sometimes be so much that you shoot out onto the road, unable to stop. Or you manage not to do this but then realise you can’t see left because of the parked cars. So you edge out, thus adding to the delays in exiting. Why can’t they level the bloody exit? Is it really that difficult? No, it isn’t. The answer why they haven’t is probably because no one (town hall-wise) has had the sense to sort it out.

Having escaped, there is only one solution. The parking by the primary school. Where I should have gone in the first place. The walk was, despite everything, quite pleasant. But the office. Ah yes, the office. The door was shut. What a surprise. How does anyone get done in this damn place?

Oh, and remember what I was saying yesterday about people not phoning. I drop by somewhere else. All I need to know is whether or not I can include one line in a design. Chap’s not there. What a surprise. So I leave the design with the mother. Maybe he can give me a ring and let me know. “Oh, don’t count on that,” she says (in Spanish). “He doesn’t ring anyone.” Didn’t believe me yesterday? Well maybe you now do.

My head is exploding. What the hell is it with people here?

More evidence of the coming end of tourism life. Down The Mile way. Talk of a petition. Against what? What do you think? Yep, all-inclusives. Why? Because it’s getting worse, it’s being said. Now you’re getting folk coming into bars – well lagered-up already – and watching the footy while taking on just a Coke during the match before returning for more lager, courtesy of the wristband. But more than this, there are complaints about behaviour, and remember we’re talking The Mile here. The lagered-up ones coming to bars, falling over pissed, being abusive. And not, of course, spending much.

Away from the north, I hear that Santa Ponsa is a ghost town. It’s going to be interesting to hear how the authorities talk their statistical way out of the miseries of May.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

True And Fair? The number of all-inclusives

A restaurant owner in Playa de Muro said to me the other day that he had read that 65% of hotels in Mallorca were now all-inclusive. Give it another three years, and that number will be 100%, so he reckoned.

Always believe what you read. What can you believe? If the trend towards all-inclusives was this strong, it would already have been clear two years or so ago. This particular restaurant opened two years ago, some time into the season, following months of expensive work on converting one premises and re-modelling another. Why do it if the trend was already observable and if it was likely to be as great as it is now being claimed? Why do it, if all you do is moan about what the hotels are up to?

I am afraid you do have to wonder as to some business decisions, given the changes in market conditions. You do also have to wonder as to what people are prepared to believe and as to what they should make of the figures which get bandied around by various bodies. Take a piece from yesterday’s “Ultima Hora”. Reporting statistics from the tourism ministry, this says that the total number of hotels in Mallorca which offer all-inclusive only – the “exclusive” all-inclusive – is 48, representing a mere 3% of the total number of establishments. The figure is highly misleading, as it takes no account of size of hotel. More relevant is the total number of places in these 48 hotels – a bit under 23,000. Which sounds a lot, and may indeed be a lot, but there is no figure given as to the total number of places in all hotels.

Even allowing for this 3% to be correct, there is another confusion, and this has to do with the so-called “partial” all-inclusive, i.e. hotels which offer all-inclusive as an option in addition to other forms of accommodation. The hotel federation in Mallorca says that 165 establishments have this offer. Not that this gets us very far.

We are regularly subjected to these statistics, but never do we get a true and fair picture. You do have to wonder if “they” would rather “we” didn’t get it. Or perhaps an accurate picture is not available. Can the ministry or the federation be sure about all those “upgrades” that take place when a holidaymaker is checking in at reception?

But it is only when and if a complete list of hotels and the precise number of all-inclusive places is published, and by resort, that we will ever really understand the extent of all-inclusive. And it is this which is lacking. The 3% figure, for example, is irrelevant as it takes no account of local conditions – by resort. As I have mentioned before, Puerto Pollensa cannot compare with Puerto Alcúdia, Can Picafort and Playa de Muro when it comes to all-inclusive offers, as they barely exist in Puerto Pollensa.

Until such information is made available and is truly transparent, which it is not at present, restaurant owners (and others) will continue to believe what they read, even if it is not accurate. And they will continue to bemoan their luck. But they should also take a look at themselves and at their decisions. In Playa de Muro, which does have a number of all-inclusive places, the bad-luck stories all centre on these places, except in the case of some businesses, such as Boulevard and its Dakotas. They have opened a second Dakota in the resort, and the boss has told me that all-inclusives have not affected them. And if this is true, then you do have to further wonder as to factors like marketing and trying that little bit harder, especially at a time of changed market conditions. Whither, therefore, one might ask, the traditional restaurant?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

All For One, One For All

What will be the theme of the coming season? Let’s hazard a guess, shall we? How about all-inclusives? No prizes for guessing this. They have formed the theme for the past several seasons and they will be again – more so. And then again next year, and the year after.

There are two main hotel federations in Mallorca, one that is simply the federation of hotels and the other which is for the hotel chains. Not that the distinction really matters, certainly not when they are saying the same things: that the percentage of hotels offering all-inclusive is at a particular level and that the future growth is “unstoppable”. Whatever one thinks of all-inclusive hotels, it is hard to disagree with the head of one of the federations when he says that the sale of beds is what the hotels are in business for; it’s all a question of market demand and competition. This same hotels’ boss admits that is not an ideal system for any hotel, but ideal or not, all-inclusive is going to continue and to continue to grow.

There is always some question as to the exact amount of all-inclusive on offer. Partly this is because of the amount of upgrading that occurs once holidaymakers are in situ; it is partly also because of definitions. When the federations speak of 15% of hotels in Mallorca that are all-inclusive, do they really mean the percentage of hotels or the percentage of places? It would seem to be the former. On the face of it, this doesn’t sound that high, but it is misleading as well as being debatable. To restate – my estimation as to the total number of all-inclusive places available in Alcúdia, out of some 25,000 or so, is around 50%. The number of hotels is largely irrelevant; it is the figure for the number of places that is. And even then, one cannot be entirely sure because of those upgrades.

The situation with all-inclusive differs from resort to resort. Alcúdia, Playa de Muro and Can Picafort all have high levels; Puerto Pollensa has virtually no all-inclusive, and where it does exist – Club Sol** (and I don’t think it exists anywhere else in Puerto Pollensa, though I might be wrong) – it is an option as opposed to being the regular or only offer, and at these apartments one can also go for an all-inclusive drinks arrangement on top of, say, self-catering. It’s that definition issue.

Meanwhile, the federations have been having their say about the proposal that has come from the tour operators that there should be some sort of “mixed-offer” all-inclusive that involves outside bars and restaurants. What do they think about it? Not a lot. Indeed they consider that the suggestion is not viable on account of the complexity of administering such a system. And it isn’t just the hotels who think this. So also do the association of small- to medium-sized businesses and even the restaurants’ association.

Where such a system is already operating – apparently – is in Playa de Palma, but in this instance the outside establishments and hotels have the same owners. This is not unusual. In the resorts in the north there are examples of hotel groups which own restaurants: the Giardino restaurants in Puerto Alcúdia and Playa de Muro, for instance, are part of Garden Hotels and are located next to, respectively, the Alcúdia Garden and the Playa Garden. There are also examples of restaurants owned by hotels groups that are physically separated. Attached or separated, it makes no difference; if the hotel wishes to make an all-inclusive arrangement with restaurants it owns, that’s the hotel’s business. The system in Playa de Palma is not what the tour operators seemed to be on about, but unless they have got something else in mind, the idea would seem to be a dead duck; it is difficult to see how – in practice – such a system could function where different owners are involved. And no-one, apart from the tour operators, seems to think that it could.

** Putting this together, I did a little internet-looking, which is often quite illuminating in unearthing some peculiarities. For Club Sol, more than one site, including Holiday Watchdog, says that the apartments are a “few minutes’ walk from many bars and cafes”. I suppose it depends what you mean by “many bars and cafes” and by a “few minutes”. Twenty, thirty?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Battlefield: Hotels go on the all-inclusive offensive

There we were thinking that some new model of all-inclusive might be on the horizon, one that embraces bars and restaurants into the system. We might have been thinking this; the tour operators might have been suggesting it. The hotels don’t seem in any mood to go along with it. This is the impression formed by statements from heads of hotel associations in Menorca and Ibiza; there has not been a similar statement from Mallorca, only ones that are more veiled in their sympathy with views in other Balearic islands.

The other impression is that the hotels are going on the offensive in defending the all-inclusive offer. Or perhaps this does all tie in with the tour operators’ mixed-offer all-inclusive (discussed on 12 March) in that positions are being adopted, with the hotels taking an assertive high ground from which they might be seen as the good guys in admitting outside bars and restaurants into their all-inclusive “club”. The tour operators are demanding an increase in all-inclusive while at the same time wanting the so-called “complementary offer” to be a part of it. The hotels, seen as the villain in the all-inclusive piece, seem to want to play hardball.

The picture of bars and restaurants being painted by the hotels is one of complaining and of a failure to do anything to attract tourists. It is the hotels, so the argument goes, that assume all the risk and that make the effort; the complementary offer is being challenged to step up to the plate in attracting tourists. Moreover, the hotels’ line is that they have every right to challenge incentives such as happy hours and “menus” (presumably they mean menus del día) offered by bars and restaurants. This challenge comes and has come in the form of all-inclusive.

We seem to be heading to a state of all-out war between the hotels and the complementary sector. The hotels, in addition to all-inclusive, have been moving ever more into the territory once secured by the outside businesses – more entertainment, TV (Sky and football), even Sunday roasts. Entertainment may actually be cut back this summer as a way of reducing costs, but in mostly all other ways the hotels are attacking the complementary offer. This war could be a precursor to some truce or negotiated settlement, e.g. the mixed-offer all-inclusive, but what the hotels are angling at is that it should not be they alone who assume the costs and risks of marketing to get tourists to come in the first place.

The hotels are overstating the case; they are but one aspect of promotion. Nevertheless, they have a point when accusing bars and restaurants of only complaining and apparent inaction. And ever more, the complementary sector is seen as leeching off of the efforts made by the hotels. But this growing antagonism can also be seen as the result of shifting circumstances: economic conditions, stronger competition from other destinations and so on. For years, there was a symbiotic relationship between the two. This has gone or is going. It might only return if the tour operators are genuine in wishing to establish the mixed-offer.

One could accuse the hotels of being disingenuous. They are, together with government, town halls and tour operators, the frontline assault forces in tourism promotion. Clearly they are, and they know it, hence the possible disingenuousness. They are also, generally speaking, far better resourced than businesses in the complementary sector. (It might also be noted that some hotel groups run their own outside restaurants.) Their self-interests are served by co-operation, such as in being parts of local hotel associations which conduct their own marketing, but at least they do engage in co-operation. Does the complementary sector act in a similar way? Self-interest is even more extreme here. Do bars and restaurants band together to push a resort? Well, do they? I’m unaware of this happening. Where co-operation does exist, it tends to be as a means to kick against something – all-inclusives, the latest regulation. Negative rather than positive. And when something comes along which might require some co-operation, such as with the estación náutica concept in Alcúdia, self-interest comes to the fore; what has ever happened to this idea?

The hotels have thrown down the gauntlet. To quote, in translation, from yesterday’s “Diario”, the president of the Menorcan hoteliers says: “we do not see any effort at any time by the restaurant sector to bring tourists to the Balearics.” There is, in all of this, a horrible sense of bitching and bickering as the great edifice of tourism threatens to collapse around the hotels and as all the supply that has risen around them also tumbles and falls. Yet for the hotels to attack the complementary sector is – though they wouldn’t admit this – the consequence of their being beholden to the muscle of the tour operators; the reverse of the situation that once used to exist, a situation that used to allow for mutually beneficial co-existence with the complementary sector. The hotels are, therefore, going on a bullying offensive while simultaneously they are being rendered less potent by the masters of the industry – the tour operators. They are hitting out at the weakest link in the whole tourism supply chain, because it suits them to be able to try and cling to a power that is diminishing in a market that has changed fundamentally; they are less the victims of the all-inclusive war initiated by the tour operators than the complementary sector, but they are victims nonetheless, clutching at the spoils of war and abandoning their one-time compatriots in the bars and restaurants. Lines drawn for the battlefield.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

In The Mix: The new all-inclusive concept

Word coming from the tour operators gathered at the ITB travel fair in Berlin is that there is a noticeable recovery in terms of bookings to the Balearics. Another word is that Turkey, as has been previously noted here, has limited capacity and will also see prices rising this year. All of which seems like good news, to which can be added word locally from some hotels, to the effect that bookings are indeed buoyant. This summer may witness healthy occupancy numbers and plenty of tourists passing through the airport, but the key issue is whether these tourists will be spending.

There is a further word emanating from Berlin. And that word (or words if you prefer) is all-inclusive. The level of all-inclusive bookings is set, according to one source, to rise to around 50 per cent, something that is likely to send tremors of fear coursing through the nervous systems of bar and restaurant owners. It’s that spending thing. However, there are yet more words. “Nuevo concepto.” New concept. The nuevo concepto is a concept that is referred to often. Even I use it when referring to things I do. Nuevo concepto is part of the everyday Spanish lexicon of business. There is now a move towards creating a new concept of all-inclusive. The idea isn’t really new as it has been one that I, and others, have wondered about for several years. What this new concept would mean would be the inclusion of bars and restaurants within the all-inclusive system. While I may have wondered about such inclusion, I have never explored it as a serious option. In theory it sounds good, but in practice?

The tour operators do at least seem to get the idea that tourists, despite their opting for all-inclusive, do not necessarily want to stay within the confines of their hotel. That they do is the result of the fact that they have already paid. It is this that has created the all-inclusive ghettoes and a ghettoised, bunker mentality among tourists who have little incentive to leave the hotel. It’s perfectly understandable. But these same tourists do not want their resorts stripped of the atmosphere generated by bars and the rest, which is the long-term, logical conclusion of all-inclusive that forces exclusion of these businesses and ultimately closure.

The new concept would, therefore, be a mixed offer. One such basis would be that the hotels continue to provide half board whilst embracing the guest in a system of all-inclusive which would enable the guest to enjoy the convenience of all-inclusive outside the hotel, thus bringing a benefit to the guest and to bars and restaurants. It all sounds very sensible. But.

Why are the tour operators coming up with this now? And indeed why is it that it seems to have fallen to the tour operators to raise it? Are the tour operators demonstrating hitherto unseen altruism towards bars and restaurants affected by all-inclusive? Possibly. There may be another reason. Depending on the hotel, the standard of what is on offer via all-inclusive can vary. Some of it is poor. Service can be slow, the food is not necessarily great, the drinks are local and not international brands. None of this is really the hotels’ fault. In the Bellevue interview last summer, I got an insight into this. The hotel would like to do more, but physically it is difficult. Physically and financially.

Opening up the all-inclusive offer to outside concerns may address the standard issue, but it raises all manner of questions. Could these bars and restaurants actually cope? Might their standards suffer? How would they be recompensed, when and by whom? Would all bars and restaurants be involved or might it be only a select few? This latter question could be a minefield. Let’s say restaurants “tender” for a contract with a hotel. What might this tender actually involve? “Incentives” maybe? Might it be the bigger, long-established restaurants that get the business, or those which already have aggressive marketing procedures linked to individual hotels? If only certain establishments were to benefit, the minefield would explode with the fury of those excluded.

Why would the hotels do any of this? Only if the tour operators tell them to. They, the tour operators, do not want low standards. But, and again it depends on the hotel, the whole point of some all-inclusive is that it is cheap. Restaurants would need to be paid. The consequence might well be an increase in price, though not in all instances. The hotel might be able to reduce some overheads directed at what is currently less-than-brilliant service or quality. It would also not be forced into making the sort of investment required to convert to full-on, higher-grade all-inclusive.

Ultimately, such a mixed all-inclusive offer would demand a collective responsibility on behalf of different parties, especially the hotels. I would take some convincing. In that interview with Bellevue, the notion of responsibility to local businesses, grown fat on the back of the hotel in the good old days before all-inclusive, was dismissed. Only if the hotel (and I’m talking of any hotel, not just singling out Bellevue) can see a business case in terms of lower costs but similar or increased profit levels, despite the transfer of some income to outside bars and restaurants, would the mixed offer work. Even then, there would be questions. If the hotels retained half board, which traditionally many have offered anyway (so this should not be contentious), what about things like all those free “Cokes” for the kids. One of the strongest arguments in favour of all-inclusive is the convenience factor. Would guests then be forced to leave the hotel grounds in order to water the children?

The mixed all-inclusive is an idea well worthy of exploring, and it would need a great deal of exploring. But it could, say could, be a remedy. And could, say could, be the salvation for not just bars and restaurants but also whole resorts. This has a long way to run though.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Out Of Time

Let’s just assume for a moment that you are asked what might happen on the tourist front next year. You could probably make some educated guesses, or you might take the evidence of what has been reported, including – I have to say – on this blog. Your answers? Increase in all-inclusives? Yes. The average tourist will have a limited budget? Another tick. Businesses might find themselves suffering and perhaps having to close? Three in a row. Have a banana boat. 

Having got all those right, you can now apply for the job as a professor of applied economics, because these obvious truisms have been given by a professorial expert at the university in Palma. Under a front-page banner headline in “The Bulletin” that reads “Majorca goes all-inclusive”, these are hardly earth-shattering discoveries. 

Setting aside the questionable grammar of that headline – Mallorca went all-inclusive a number of years ago – the depressing nature of the professor’s expertise is that he is merely telling us what we already know. TUI, for example, have told us the all-inclusive offer will increase. We also know that the increase in AI has been driven partly by lower-cost competition elsewhere. We also know that the hotels are likely to have shorter seasons next year because of economic hard times, just as many have had this season. None of it is new. 

Confirming evident truths seems like a good way to earn a crust, but the far greater challenge for academics, such as the prof, is to model the future effects of changes (applying some economics, in other words), of which the all-inclusive is fundamental. This is work that should have been undertaken years ago. It is just this sort of model creation that justifies academics’ existence, and for findings to be presented to government and to tourism, industry and employment authorities – to be applied, possibly. Maybe such work was undertaken. If so, no-one seems to have taken much notice. Or perhaps they did, but realised there wasn’t a lot they could do about it. Having, however, got to the position of a quarter of the island’s hotel places being AI (and that is an average; the numbers are considerably higher in some resorts), the academics should now be doing further research, some that hopefully is paid attention to, as to the ongoing impact of all-inclusives and other shifts in the tourism market. 

There is, from what I have ever tried to find on the internet, a genuine dearth of academic enquiry into this subject. Yet it is of paramount importance. Of course, decision-makers can choose to do with findings what they will – witness, for instance, the British Government’s sacking of its drugs expert – but let’s just further assume that the local academics concluded that, in five years time, the 25% will rise to 50 or 75%. What then? It is no use arguing the counter view that businesses grew fat and wealthy on the back of the old-style hotel offer, and so tough, or that these businesses will have to work that much harder on improving their products. 

The whole economic model, that which considers the wider economy, would, if not collapse, then be on extremely shaky foundations. The professor says, accurately, that the tourism industry has a “greater ability to survive” than other sectors of an economy under recession. Well yes, survive it will do, but in what form? And what shape will the supply side be in? These are the sorts of issues that the academics should be addressing and giving publicity to, not the reiteration of what is known to already be the case. 

The professor continues by averring that the “sun, sea and sand” holiday is “outmoded”, while there are plenty of other destinations that offer it. He is obviously right where the other destinations are concerned, it’s known as competition, but outmoded? Ask yourselves this, and perhaps the professor could do likewise, why do all those Brits, Irish, Scandinavians, Dutch, Germans, Belgians, northern French come to Mallorca? A bit of culture? No. It may have to do with something that is apparently meant to be outmoded. And if you follow the logic of his argument, what are you left with? Indeed, where would any of the competitor destinations be if beach tourism was so old-fashioned? I can’t help but feel that there is just a hint of propaganda here, a knowing nod in the direction of the tourism authorities and their much-spoken-about but elusive “alternative” tourism. One could also interpret this as his suggesting that Mallorca should not try to compete, which would be a nonsense.

The typical tourist still wants his sun, his sea and his sand. But he has become more discerning, better informed, more demanding of entertainment and convenience, the latter a further reason for the rise of the AI. You have to be extremely careful in making such assertions about the decline of the traditional beach holiday. There is tourism, and then there is family tourism. And which family members are the most important when it comes to choice? Yep, the kids. Precisely the ones who want the sand and the sea, the entertainment. It is family tourism, more than any other sector of the tourism market, upon which Mallorca’s success has been built. The AI is an extension of this. And even if it were not, then why do family tourists still come? Because of the sun, sea and sand. Sorry, prof, can’t agree with you.

November Rain

The first cold winds blow. Like the sudden leap in temperatures in spring can catch you by surprise, so the transformation from pretend late summer takes you unawares. But unlike the spring, the change makes you wince and you remember how houses’ heat retention in summer gives way to the inadequacy of insulation and the chill of interiors. Storms have different consequences. In November, they bring a fast descent in temperature and what can even look like snow but is in fact hail. 

The air that in summer engulfs and smothers now just hangs, damp and rheumatic. Though the sun and warmth will return during the winter, the dampness is now a constant, insinuating into bones and brickwork. The floods of storms leave the streets and roads mud patches of piled sand turned a constituent of cement. Yet, the storms wash away and clean the sky of the last haze of summer; it becomes bright and transparent, late-afternoon sun wrapping the peaks of the Artà mountains in a fire glow, beacons across the bay where in the other direction the Tramuntana tops, in their barrenness, look to hold snow but is just light on grey that can make them seem snowy even in summer. 

There is a smell of wood-burning. It competes with the shifting sulphurous scents of the wetlands, drifting into cracks and lying on the liquid atmosphere, awaiting a further smack of thunder and an avalanche of cleansing rain. Winter comes now. It makes moss and algae the flagstones and walls, a sign, though, of the purity of the air. The first cold winds of winter. And you think of spring and that first assault of heat and wonder how it can ever be winter.

 

TUI price reductions

TUI may not have had anything to add to the reprimand issued by Thomas Cook to the Spanish Government over the rise in IVA, but the company has reacted to the uncertain economic circumstances by announcing that prices for holidays to Mallorca will fall by some 5.5% next year. In Menorca, where the tourism market is considerably less favourable, prices will go down by 10%. Good news you might think, and it is, but the boss of TUI Germany, making this announcement (he was the one, you will recall, who helped to plant the first pine in the TUI forest) admits that there will be more tourists coming on an all-inclusive basis in 2010. But not all is lost as there won’t be anything like the numbers travelling all-inclusive as there are to Turkey. 

While there is all the angst about all-inclusives in Mallorca, one does wonder at the impact of such a style of offer across Europe and into Turkey. Greece, for example, has been hard hit by the increase in AI. Consumers may be demanding this undoubtedly cost-effective way of holidaying, but what type of tourism will this all lead to? It is becoming increasingly clear that holidays are being sourced less on the basis of resort or country but from the point of view of the best AI deal. The actual destination is becoming less relevant. It is often said, in criticism of AI, that the holidaymaker who stays largely within the confines of his or her AI complex, could be anywhere. And so it would seem. Mallorca, Greece, Turkey – it’s all the same, just varies in how hot it is and what brands of booze can be obtained. Is this really what tourism should be? Destinations as dumping grounds for northern Europeans who hand over most of the holiday cost to tour operators and airlines? Most of Mediterranean Europe becomes a collection of resorts, polarised by those who live there and the wristband brigade who pay no attention to their surroundings. I’m not sure that this was how it was meant to be.