Never Mind The Quality: Meaningless systems for tourism

There are certain words which, because of their widespread and widely unthinking usage, have lost any sense of meaning. Quality is one of them. Everyone does quality. “Our meat/fish/desserts/full Englishes/beers (use as applicable) are of the highest quality.” Oh, for the bar or restaurant which advertises its quality as being rubbish. Or the resort which promotes itself as being the worst or most maligned: “Everyone hates us, but we don’t care.”

None of this applies to Alcúdia, Pollensa or, mystifyingly, Artà. Quality abounds in all three, unlike, at present, anywhere else in Mallorca, other than Palma. Each can boast of quality. The whole of Menorca can also do some boasting, as can Formentera and Ibiza. Soon, you would imagine, everywhere in Mallorca will be proclaiming quality, and so the meaning will go out the window, if there was any to begin with.

I am not making this qualitative assessment of the three towns/resorts. It is being done by something called SICTED, the Sistema Integral de Calidad Turística en Destinos. It’s an unfortunate acronym. Is sick Ted pervy Edward or infirm Eddie? Sick Ted, Father Ted: “Would you have a look at this quality here, Ted.” “Not while I’m vomiting, Dougal.”

SICTED is, so says its website, “a project for improving the quality of tourist destinations that is promoted by the Spanish tourism institute (Turespaña) and the Spanish federation of municipalities and provinces”. I’m sure you feel better for knowing this, as you will feel better – less sick – for knowing that the sick note from SICTED is a sign of a destination’s “commitment to tourist quality”. And signs you can get, it would appear. One with a T with a gap and a sort of Smiley curve that brings to mind the TUI logo.

They should mind the gap. If it’s quality they’re after, then they should learn to cross their Ts properly. But a broken T is, I suppose, all the more aesthetically and graphically-designed pleasing, and it would seem that it will be making itself known outside “distinguished establishments” in the SICTED towns: the odd restaurant or hotel and, in the case of Alcúdia, its police station.

I confess to being utterly confused. Not so long ago, there was all this stuff about the Q quality mark, something also to do with Turespaña. Now there’s this one. Destinations and businesses can apply to be assessed for receiving their sick note and subject themselves to surveys of customer satisfaction. So convoluted does SICTED appear, the FAQs (frequently asked questions) on the website run to 102 in total. If you can wade through this lot, then you probably deserve to get what you’re meant to – your commitment to tourist quality and your broken T.

But as the mere word quality loses its meaning, so do exercises in granting quality. How many more of them are there? And what on earth do they mean? And for whom?

Alcúdia’s SICTED, so says the citation on the website, is on account of, among other things, “beautiful beaches with fine sand”, “hidden coves”, and “very diverse peoples who form a tranquil environment”. These will presumably be the same diverse peoples whooping it up in the bars and entertainment centres of The Mile of an evening, scratch-card touts, and lookies selling dodgy DVDs and/or crack on the streets.

Pollensa “combines sea, countryside and mountains”. It has “solitary coves” as opposed to hidden ones; someone’s been at the thesaurus. No mention of dog mess on the streets, not getting the management of the beaches sorted out on time for the start of season or protesting business owners marching through Puerto Pollensa.

Then there is Artà. Its inclusion is a bit mystifying, as it’s not exactly a place with a lot of tourism. It’s off-the-beaten-track coastal Mallorca, but it does, like Alcúdia, so goes the SICTED blurb, have beaches with “fine sand”. There is, possibly though, more of a reason for Artà having its SICTED than Alcúdia and Pollensa, and this is because it isn’t particularly known for its tourism. Otherwise, what really is the point of all this?

The answer, one guesses and obviously so, is a desire for a general lifting of quality, a response to the threats posed by perceptions of greater quality in rival destinations. Fair enough, but does this require the rigmarole that SICTED and the Q mark demand? It should be obvious where quality failings may exist, and failings there are, even in Alcúdia and Pollensa, despite their having passed the sick test.

Who takes any notice? Tourists? It’s very doubtful. And were all other towns/resorts in Mallorca to apply for and be awarded the same status as Alcúdia, Pollensa and Artà, then even less notice would be taken. It is quality becoming meaningless because everywhere has it, or so it is claimed.

Never mind the quality, because no one’s paying any attention.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Walk On The Wild Side

If you thought things might currently be a bit difficult in Mallorca, tourism-wise, spare a thought for Menorca where tourism has been spiralling downwards, and not just as a consequence of recent economic hard times. The island’s tourism board has decided to suspend its activities for the foreseeable future, meaning that it will not engage in promotions until such time as there is a discernible recovery when it would apply for further funding from the regional government. While Menorca will still be a beneficiary of the generic Balearics promotions undertaken by the government, it will not, for the time being, have its own. This is an extraordinary state of affairs, one blamed, in part, on tour operators who seem to have turned their backs on the island, or so it is said. 

The tourism board is in a Catch 22. It says that promotions will be renewed when there is a recovery but that it cannot fund promotions that might actually speed up the recovery. Furthermore, the board says that Menorca needs a modernisation of its tourism offer, which, one presumes, means upgrades of its hotel stock and resorts. Tellingly, the board also says that it acts not just as a promotional vehicle for tourism but as a “lynchpin” for the island as a whole, by which it means that tourism is fundamental to the island’s economy. Even more so than Mallorca, Menorca is almost totally reliant on tourism, and it is a tourism, moreover, of pretty much one sort – summer, i.e. sun, sea and sand. The island does not have the sort of landscape that Mallorca has that might make it attractive to what little winter tourism is knocking about, while the airlines and, yes, the tour operators largely ignore the island out of season. But the season itself has become increasingly difficult, and one seriously has to ask what the future may hold for Menorca, sidelined even within the Balearics, let alone the rest of the Mediterranean.

This story was one of three shorts of interest in “The Bulletin” yesterday. The other two dealt with efforts by the municipalities of Manacor and Artà to extend their own tourism offers. Manacor, in which the best-known resorts are Porto Cristo and Calas de Mallorca, is planning on promoting more rural tourism, while Artà, which has little by way of tourism, is the recipient of funding to promote its environment to a tourist who might be attracted by walking and trekking in that natural environment. I am slightly confused, as the report speaks of half a million euros being advanced for promotion, but almost exactly a year ago (22 November, 2008: I Keep Quiet About It), I explained how the town was to get some seven million euros. Well, whatever, the plan now being spoken of is to concentrate on this nature tourism and not to create more hotel stock. The town, apparently, has adequate numbers of hotels as it is. And you might ask where they all are, as Artà’s only real resort is the hardly-bustling Colonia Sant Pere. 

With Manacor promoting its rural hotels and therefore its interior and Artà its walks and landscape, both towns are engaged in their own marketing but one that is a part of a general desire for tourism diversification. It’s all very worthy, but does it, will it, amount to a great deal? In Artà, they are saying that they can promote all-year tourism with what they have. Maybe they can, but it does rather depend what size this is. Very small, I would think, and not just in winter.

 

Weather in November

For over a week or so, the weather has been extremely benign, indeed the temperatures on Mallorca have been 1.5 degrees above the average for the month thus far. There have been occasions when it has seemed particularly warm, though, as always, there have been some crazy exaggerations. 23, 24 has probably been tops, and certainly not 30 or more. Of official numbers, the average for Palma airport for the first half of the month has been 18.4.