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.

Accentuating The Positive: Friendly Alcúdia

Once more “The Diario” has gone out talking to tourists where other papers sit in the air-conditioning and pen pieces about the cost of a coffee. Tourists the paper spoke to were in Alcúdia. The impetus for doing this was the visit of the representatives of 25 tour operators who came to Alcúdia (and Can Picafort) on Friday and an observation that was being made during that visit that greater friendliness needs to be shown to tourists.

A lot is said about friendliness (or lack of it). But it is not a factor that has ever struck me as being much of an issue; only if someone wants to make it so. As always one can pull out an example of poor service or surliness, but generally speaking … ? I’m not convinced. Nor are the holidaymakers to whom “The Diario” spoke. Friendliness, helpfulness were the positive aspects of the paper’s investigation. Less positive were prices (more expensive than Malaga or the USA, according to a family that was spoken to) and the absence of good transport, i.e. the absence of a train to Palma. Some American visitors had expected that there would be one. Many people in Alcúdia had expected that there would be one – before the politicians proved themselves incapable of arriving at a compromise. Another visitor said that she thought that taxis were expensive and not always easy to find. The paper does point out something which most visitors would be unaware of, and that is that taxis in the different municipalities along the bay of Alcúdia – Alcúdia itself, Muro and Santa Margalida – cannot pick up outside of their municipalities. One can understand that this might cause some frustration. An empty cab goes past and keeps going past. Maybe the issue needs to be addressed, and not set aside only when Muro taxi drivers are called in as reinforcements by an Alcúdia taxi brigade which gets overwhelmed by demand on market days.

But overall the paper was pretty positive, albeit that it spoke to less than a handful of visitors. So, proves little, but at least it was trying.

Also positive is the word that business appears to be on the increase in bar world. The past week seems to have witnessed a significantly higher level of trade, and not just because of the football, although this has had an impact, an impact that does make one wonder. One bar, Mile-based, reports that Saturday last week was the second best day in ten years. Ok, England were playing (after a fashion), but so they have also played over the past ten years (when not failing to qualify). So, what of those fears that the hotels would gobble up the Sky footy trade? And moreover, what of all-inclusives and their effects down The Mile? The protests against all-inclusives seem to have been forgotten amidst a burst of recent good business.

* The Diario article is here: http://www.diariodemallorca.es/part-forana/2010/06/15/amabilidad-problema/578954.html

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.