The Invisible Station

I’m making an apology on behalf of “The Bulletin”. If you had gone along to the ferry terminal in Puerto Alcúdia on Sunday and had expected to find some free watersports activities which you could have enjoyed, you would have been disappointed.

I showed a short news item (from Thursday’s paper) to someone in Alcúdia who, how can I put this, is in the know. The jaw dropped, followed by an expression of understanding as to how the mistake had been made. I understood it as well, as it’s a mistake many people are making.

What happened on Sunday was that there were indeed free watersports activities, but they were nothing to do with the terminal or the commercial port. They were part of a promotion, in the form of a “fiesta”, for the estación náutica. And it is this which caused the mistake and causes other mistakes to be made.

The estación náutica doesn’t exist. It is not bricks, mortar, aluminium, glass or any material. It is a “station” without physical manifestation. It is an un-thing. But the concept, and that is all it is – a concept, begs an interpretation of the physical. Of course it does. A station is a thing not an abstraction; hence a not unreasonable confusion with the terminal.

Since the estación naútica concept was first raised in Alcúdia – at the start of 2009 – I have written about it on a few occasions, and I keep making the same point; it is not understandable. The concept is elusive, it doesn’t translate into anything sensible in English (even watersports centre doesn’t work because this can also imply something physical), and it doesn’t even mean much to the Spanish; they also expect to find an actual centre.

This is not Alcúdia’s fault as such. There are other such stations in Spain and in the Balearics. But the confusion that has existed in Alcúdia with regard to the concept makes you wonder if it hasn’t occurred elsewhere. It must have done, and the same mistakes and misinterpretations are surely being made there.

In Alcúdia, however, to make matters less clear, there is a website for this station. It doesn’t work. For a time at the weekend it didn’t even load. Yet, there it was, proudly mentioned on the publicity, assuming it was seen. There was another website, for the “Fiesta del Mar” which is what occurred on Sunday and which was one of a series arranged by the estación náutica people in their different resorts, but it was in Spanish only. At least it worked though.

As part of this fiesta, there was also an evening event. The “orange fiesta”. Nice poster, shame about the language. Catalan only. I had an exchange on Facebook about this. Catalan is an official language and the fiesta was directed at locals. Well yes, up to a point, but Puerto Alcúdia is a tourist resort and why was the tourist office emailing the poster to those, such as myself, who have a stake in the local tourism industry? Moreover, the estación náutica concept is meant to be a way of attracting more tourists, of the so-called quality type.

But Catalan-only material appears all the time. In all sorts of resorts. The estación náutica concept, the publicity in Catalan are different types of example that raise the same question: what thought process lies behind any of this? Is there one?

I had a chat with a tourist about this. Is it stubbornness that results in the Catalan-only publicity? I don’t know that it is. It’s more likely a case that no one stops to really think who they are meant to be marketing to and what they are marketing. But who makes these decisions?

Alcúdia is a tourist resort with a highly diverse market. It would be impractical to put out material in all the languages necessary. But at a minimum it should be in English and German; more so than even Spanish, where tourists are concerned, as the level of Spanish tourism in Alcúdia is well below that of either the UK or Germany.

The counter argument is that Catalan (and Spanish) are the local languages and so this is how it should be. Sorry, but it isn’t much of an argument. Not if the market doesn’t understand either language.

Poor marketing occurs because the starting-point is the wrong way round. It should be the consumer, the intended market or markets, and it is this fundamental thought process that seems to be lacking.

I don’t know that there should be an apology for the mistake in “The Bulletin”. The apology should be coming from somewhere else. The trouble is you don’t where that somewhere else is.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Pile ‘Em High: Hotels

Pile ’em high, sell ’em cheap. Remember this? It’s your starter for ten. Whose phrase was it? To give you a clue, he founded a supermarket chain that in the late ’60s and early ’70s no self-respecting, middle-class housewife would be found dead in. You know who it was. Of course you do. Jack Cohen. Tesco’s.

Tesco used to be a by-word for total naffness. Back in the day it was the loon pants and platform heels of retail; the Noddy Holder and Slade of grocery. What saved it was Lord (then plain Ian) MacLaurin’s makeover of sophistication, matched by an aspirational style of marketing, as well as its product expansion; Tesco was the first supermarket to become a petrol station as well.

Pile ’em high, sell ’em cheap. Tesco as it once was (and also as it has become) is a metaphor for much of Mallorca’s hotel industry, both all-inclusive and conventional. A guest at one of Alcúdia’s all-inclusive ghettoes was telling me how he and his wife (they were grandparents) were squeezed into a room with two double beds along with their two grandchildren (girl and boy). The arrangement was not exactly satisfactory, nor was the size of the room. Barely enough space to swing a cat (and there is probably, as an aside, a fiesta event somewhere in Mallorca which involves swinging a cat; but I digress).

A correspondent of mine was telling me of the situation in a Magalluf hotel. Two-bedded rooms have increased in size by 100% in becoming four-bedded rooms. At the prices they’re being charged, the guests shouldn’t have grounds to complain, went the hotel’s explanation.

In the Alcúdia hotel, they were and are being piled in high. But are they being sold that cheap? Three grand for the four of them, I was told. Maybe this is cheap, but when you take into account their circumstances plus the time it takes to get served with a drink or to manage to get into a lift plus the cost of add-ons (this is an all-inclusive, remember), then maybe it isn’t.

More than the cost, however, is the philosophy. Pile ’em high with scant regard for any sophistication or aspiration. Some of Mallorca’s hotels are locked in a timewarp of old Tesco days, and some of them were built around the time that Tesco was reaching its early-70s, pre-MacLaurin nadir.

Tesco discovered that in order to change its entire business and marketing philosophy some of its older supermarkets had to be done away with or greatly improved. It was no use having outdated stores that didn’t stack up with the new aspirational message and which weren’t fit for purpose. And in addition to building new supermarkets, Tesco became, in effect, an all-inclusive retailer; everything from petrol to music.

The Tesco metaphor is pertinent because in terms of philosophy and bricks and mortar, a good part of Mallorca’s hotels are in precisely the same situation that Tesco once found itself. A key difference is that many moved into the all-inclusive line quite some time ago. So they attempted product expansion but did so without considering any of the rest. Or if they did consider the rest, they were unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

The result of this was, and remains in many cases, that the hotels are not fit for purpose. They were not built or designed with all-inclusive in mind. The facilities simply aren’t there. Moreover, some hotels are little more than human processing plants. A mechanistic approach, predicated on the pile ’em high philosophy, induces a mindset which is the antithesis to sophistication or aspiration.

Of course some of the market to which the hotels pander, let’s be frank, is or can be low rent. And the low-rent market perpetuates a low-rent attitude among hoteliers, even if, as the Alcúdia case suggests, the rent isn’t so low that it can truly qualify as being categorised as cheap.

The problem is that the market, be it low or higher rent, has witnessed for itself or learnt of what exists elsewhere. Mallorca’s hotels have not responded, very often because they have been unable or not allowed to respond, to the brand spanking new out-of-town, indeed out-of-Mallorca competition; that of the eastern Med and north Africa.

An expectation has therefore grown, and it is one that is more aspirational and demands greater sophistication. For this reason, plans for hotel renovation, if they ever see the light of day, or changes to use cannot come soon enough. What some of Mallorca’s hotels need is to undergo a process of Tesco-isation. The punter can’t continue to be piled high.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Tradition Industry

There was this flyer in the letter-box. “Traditional Mallorcan cuisine.” The words were in Spanish. You might think that advertising traditional Mallorcan cuisine should demand that the blurb is in Catalan and not in Spanish, but maybe the restaurant is owned by a staunch supporter of the Partido Popular. Anyway, let’s not go there again.

The flyer was less a promotion for the restaurant and more one for a take-away service. “We will cook for you and bring our specialities to your home.” Which is sort of what you expect with a take-away service, but perhaps these things have to be spelt out, as traditional Mallorcan cuisine being ferried around in cardboard containers covered with aluminium on the back of a scooter (or however it is transported) doesn’t sound all that traditional. Contemporary meets the traditional, and it comes on a Honda 125.

Take-away is really pizzas, beef chow mein and tikka masala. Pork wrapped in cabbage? It doesn’t quite have the take-away ring about it. Traditional cuisine demands traditional modes of eating, as in sitting down in a restaurant. But there again, what is traditional?

This is a question I have been grappling with. Traditional – Mallorcan traditional – is referred to that often that is hard to know what is a tradition and what isn’t. The word is interchangeable with “typical”. Restaurants do typical/traditional cuisine, troupes perform typical/traditional dance and music, fiestas are typical/traditional. In the case of La Beata in Santa Margalida, this is the most typical of the lot – or so they always say. Girly saint rebuffs the attentions and temptations of the devil, good conquers evil and a whole tradition spawns demons with fire crackers, beasty masks and virgins of the parish parading in white.

The irony of tradition in a Mallorcan style is that it has created something that is distinctly of today – the tradition industry. There is marketing gold to be alchemised from a dry-stone wall, silver to be sold from the singing of a Sibil·la, bronze from coins clattering in the tills of the most ancient of the island’s traditions, the Talayotic.

The blurring of the lines between modernity and antiquity invites a question as to the degree to which tradition is forced and with the express purpose of creating a marketing benefit from the historical. The very promotion of tradition, with its narrative captured in the word itself and in the words typical or authentic, is sloganising. The words themselves are marketing tools, directed at both the native and the visiting markets.

The constant reinforcement of tradition for domestic consumption reflects a society still uneasy with modernity. Traditional Mallorcan society, by which one means that before the tourism industrial revolution of the sixties and one that was far more wedded to the land than it is now, still resides in the collective memory. This is unlike Britain, for example, where there is a general lack of tradition and an accommodation with its absence that doesn’t require an industry with its marketing plans to force it onto the populace or the tourist.

Of course, there are organisations such as English Heritage which maintain a connection with the past, but the promotion of English and British tradition and culture doesn’t have a sense of desperation; that of demanding that the past is held onto.

A key difference, though, between what occurs in long-industrialised countries and an island such as Mallorca where traditional society can be actively remembered lies in the capacity for a tradition industry to flourish. It could never have happened in Britain, for instance, because the wherewithal for such an industry simply didn’t exist. And by the time the wherewithal was discovered, it was far too late. Contemporary Mallorca, on the other hand, has that wherewithal, because the invention and development of marketing, and hence the tradition industry, pretty much coincided with the island’s industrial revolution.

Mallorca’s traditions aren’t invented, thanks to the temporal proximity to when traditional society started its decline, but they are an invention of the marketer who flogs them to a tourist market which has forgotten its own traditions.

Tradition is good. That’s the message, even if what is described as traditional isn’t necessarily exceptional. So it is with much traditional Mallorcan cuisine. Yea, it’s ok, but then so are fish and chips. They’re traditional, but they don’t come with a label attached that demands that they are considered thus. And the constant labelling is the constant reinforcement of a marketing message.

The flyer in the letter-box was selling. But it was also selling, in its curiously contemporary take-away way, that is on behalf of one of Mallorca’s strongest industries, its tradition industry.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

To The Alcúdia Station: Estación Náutica

Never let it be said that things move swiftly. So slowly do they move that you can be forgiven for believing that whatever they are had been forgotten. As is, or was, the case with the Estación Náutica in Alcúdia.

You have to go back to February 2009 to be reminded of when this concept first surfaced in Alcúdia. In May of that year it was actually signed into being. And then? Silence. But the silence has now been broken. The business association behind the “estación” in Alcúdia has finalised the process of its candidature to become a part of the Asociación Española de Estaciones Náuticas (AEEN). A further meeting in January should seal this candidature and allow Alcúdia to call itself an “estación náutica”.

We can all breathe a sigh of relief. Put out the bunting perhaps. We would do if we really knew what the whole thing was about and, more importantly, what benefits it is likely to bring. I can go back to a meeting at Alcúdia town hall in February last year to remind myself of the degree to which attendees were unclear. I can recall a later meeting, one that I didn’t attend, but which was – as it was described to me – full of those looking to extract whatever benefits they could for themselves. Whatever the concept was, it appeared to be a recipe for self-interest.

Let me try and clarify. An “estación náutica”, and this description is aided with the words of the head of tourism in the town as expressed in May 2009, is “a tourist product with accommodation and water-sports activities sold as a tourist package that allows the tourist to engage in the likes of sailing and underwater activities and complementary activities such as golf and horse-riding”. Alcúdia will become the first such “estación” in Mallorca; others exist elsewhere in the Balearics and on the mainland. AEEN’s website declares that these centres are the “best nautical destinations in Spain”.

There is a lengthy document which lists the requirements for becoming an “estación náutica” and the benefits of doing so. If I try and put them in a nutshell, they demand levels of quality and service of all participating members, of whatever type of business, and the use of the “estación náutica” brand as a mark of quality. There is also a requirement, one to tackle seasonality, which demands a minimum of the principal offer of accommodation and water-sport activities from March to November; a requirement that should be a benefit.

The concept does not necessarily mean creating anything new – Alcúdia has plenty of water-sports activities plus all the complementary activities and offers. It is largely a marketing exercise.

Anything that might assist tourism in Alcúdia (or anywhere else that fancies branding itself in this way) has to be welcomed. But questions do arise. One is why it requires an outside agency, AEEN, to bring parties together in establishing a “brand” that already exists? Or rather, could have existed if parties had been minded to put their heads together to come up with something similar.

Secondly, would it really help with lengthening the season? Menorca has such centres. Are they operating for the minimum period set out? Maybe they are, but whether anyone is going to them or indeed can get a flight out of season, I couldn’t honestly say. Thirdly, there is the matter of organisation.

What you will have is a further agency involved in tourism, one separate to the town hall but which will presumably work alongside the town hall. There will be a separate website, a separate office (like a tourism information office, I guess) and separate promotional material. Duplication is everything in tourism promotion.

This could all be a great success, and innovation is not to be sniffed at, if success does follow. But what would be useful to know is what hard benefits have accrued to those resorts in the Balearics and the mainland that already operate as an “estación náutica”. Does this marketing have a positive bottom-line effect? Well, does it? I have searched for examples which might indicate this, but without success.

However, one does also need to consider this in the longer-term. Establishing a reputation as a water-sports centre doesn’t happen overnight, nor does one for high quality. So in terms of measuring benefits, some patience is necessary.

There remains, though, one final question. The name “estación náutica” might mean something to the Spanish, but what does it mean to those from other countries. How is it translated? A nautical destination in English, according to AEEN. Sorry, this doesn’t cut it. Water-sports centre or resort? Better perhaps, but isn’t Alcúdia already known as this? Maybe it isn’t, in which case fine, but water-sports resort conjures up an image of something different, of something specific, of something new. And unfortunately, apart from the “brand” name, it is none of these.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Ten Per Cent: The role of discounts

Money off, money off!

The question is, is price the most important thing? To read all the gripes and anecdotes, you would think that it is. There is no doubting the fact that the holidaymaker is a whole load more price-sensitive than may have once been the case, but is price the most important thing?

There are certain alleged truisms from the management/business world that not everyone is inclined to believe. One is that workers are not motivated by money; another is that businesses should never “sell” on price. Depending on your point of view, you will think these to indeed be true or bollocks. The real answers are, as always, far from black and white.

Which leads us to money off. To discounts.

Via Facebook, one of the local tourist office people asked me if I had thought about discount coupons in HOT!, and then went on to mention the bag of popcorn that’s doing the rounds, together with some cards for discounts at some restaurants. The answer to the question was, well, no. If a business wants to offer a discount, it’s up to them. The wider question is how effective is the discount approach?

On the face of it, you would think it was a no-brainer. 10% off, in flood the tourists. But it’s not as simple as that. If, for example, you get a whole load of places in an area making the same or similar offers, then where’s the difference? A business feels almost compelled to match the offer, even reluctantly. If the result is a load of repeat business, then ok, but that’s really the issue. It may be attractive to the holidaymaker, but how good is it for the business?

The argument against discounting is that it elevates price to the top of the marketing mix tree. Price becomes the selling point, and this runs counter to pretty much all marketing theory. But what you are unlikely to find in all that theory is any study of discounts in a temporary market – which is what a tourism market is. Unless you take into account those visitors who return year on year. You don’t build a business, long term, on discounts. You may do so through price, as part of the overall package, but this assumes that the prices are right in the first place. A customer doesn’t become loyal on the basis of a discount; he is loyal only to the discount, not to the bar or restaurant.

A Mallorcan restaurant owner was umming and ahh-ing about a discount. In the end, he decided against because he was worried that other Mallorcans would come in and take advantage – never underestimate the Mallorcan desire to pay as little as possible. Even without some local free-ish-loading, the point is that he would stand to lose 10% that he might have got anyway. Which does also assume his package is right – in terms of the food, service and the price.

I’m not convinced about the discount as an incentive, partly because the tourism market is too diverse to be sure. At the low end, a restaurant with relatively high prices is unlikely to attract business even with a discount. At the high end, why would you offer a discount? At the low end, a place with lowish prices might get additional trade and experience an erosion in margin, with no guarantee that the customer would spend more than they might otherwise have done, or will come back, especially if the place next door is doing likewise.

It’s an interesting subject though, and one – where the temporary market is concerned – that is deserving of investigation. Sounds like something else I’m going have to do. But if anyone has any thoughts on the effectiveness, or otherwise, of discounting in tourist resorts, it would be good to hear from you.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Never Mind The Quality – Ever more on so-called quality tourism

There was a very good letter in “The Bulletin” yesterday. It came from Ian Morrison, a name some of you will be familiar with. You might also be familiar with some of the sentiments. They are ones you have heard many times on this blog. Mr. Morrison and I appear to share a similar past-time: banging our heads against the brick-walled numbskulls that populate the tourism authorities in Mallorca.

Here was an “open” letter to the new tourism minister. Another day, another tourism minister. Another tourism minister, another set of statements of the pointless and even the insulting. Here were references to “quality tourists”, the hackneyed, pejorative but ultimately meaningless term used to describe, one supposes, bulging-pocketed tourists who eschew karaoke and lager unlike the poor sods at the “bottom end” of the market. The minister’s bottom end, not mine. This is a massive and not infrequent affront. Here too were references to the promotional spend directed at this quality market and to the irrelevance of it. References to spending some of this promotional money on incentives to tour operators, on promotion via the big online agencies. References to things you will have read here before. References to things that are, if you like, common sense.

Times change, of course they do, but it remains the case that what made Mallorca in the first place still holds true. And that is the sun and beach holiday, one for families, not all of whom are necessarily loaded. This is the Mallorca brand, as I have said so often, one that they try to diminish by alternative marketing and the pursuit of this mythical “quality tourist”. And what is this person anyway? Who knows? The tourism people certainly don’t. It’s just a term, an utterly meaningless and insulting one which has the effect merely of potentially alienating the thousands, nay millions who made and continue to make Mallorca what it is. It is the regular tourist who makes Mallorca. Not some niched ones who might prefer cultural experiences. Who the hell would fill all the hotels otherwise?

The new tourism minister, Sra. Barceló, is simply singing the same old song, as has been sung so many times over the past several years. There must be a script somewhere in the tourism ministry with certain stock phrases and words that must be trotted out at all times, even if the one uttering them hasn’t a clue what he or she is talking about. The revolving door at the ministry may have raised some eyebrows among tour operators, but it doesn’t really matter who’s occupying the ministerial swivel-chair. It is the tour operator who decides what type of tourist comes and when. Elsewhere in the paper, the tame tour operator “inside tourism”, he from the Monarch group, says that discussions are taking place with the same Sra. Barceló to offer more by way of winter tourism. On the face of it, this sounds quite encouraging and is evidence, if more is needed, that it is in the tour operators’ gift to make winter tourism work. Encouraging, except that is when you read the list of the same old stuff that comprises this winter tourism. You don’t need me to tell you again what this is. The tourism ministry is not irrelevant in all this, because it would be the ministry that is charged with much of the promotion that might persuade hotels to bother opening and thereby make winter tourism work – for the tour operators. And so you come back to that promotion and that spend and, in all likelihood, to the so-called quality tourist. And chances are the money would be wasted, if it’s no longer being siphoned off into a political party’s coffers – allegedly.

A different type of encouragement comes from the fact that the Spanish tourism ministry has a Facebook campaign. It’s something. All the resorts should do the same. Using social networks would be an inexpensive alternative and arguably as effective if not more than the Nadalist corporate advertising. I spoke about this back in November (8 November: Same Old Story). Rather than increasing promotional budgets, they should be cut as a way of exercising minds gone flabby with the default thinking of celebrity marketing.

But to come back to winter tourism, you might recall an exchange about cultural (winter) tourism (27 November: The Coffee Culture Club). In this, the points were made that there are high costs associated with its marketing and selling and with the hire of coaches etc, as well as there being the need for volume to make it work for an island with a culture and history which aren’t actually that remarkable, certainly when set against the fact that so many other places offer “culture” which is often more interesting. The point was also made that none of the big tour operators would think it worthwhile and for a very good reason. The ratio between the high costs of marketing and the actual returns would be poor. Here lies the rub. The business rub. Marketing spend for summer, for regular sun and beach holidays may well also be high, but so also are the returns. The ratio is highly favourable. Is Monarch, therefore, willing to lavish money on the marketing? Or would it be the tourism ministry, whose efforts might be better devoted to ensuring that the bread and butter of summer continues to feed Mallorca?

And finally … The guy from Monarch also said the following: “Forget the sun, the Balearics has to give up going down that road.” I’m struggling. Did a representative of Monarch, Cosmos and Co-Op really say this?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Let’s Play Risk – The closure of Riskal

“Too risky.” Remember that catch-phrase? Some of you would probably prefer not to, but it came from the “nick-nick” time when Jim Davidson was any good, i.e. for a brief period when he first found fame. Too risky. Risk all. Riskal. Know what Riskal is/was? A grand centre for entertainment, culture, events and gastronomy, not far from Palma. It was the vision of one Joan Gelabert, ten years in the development at a cost of some 50 million euros. It opened in December 2008. In keeping with pretty much any new establishment, there was an inauguration, though Riskal’s was in the stratosphere of the lavish. Among the guests was Miquel Nadal, then the tourism minister. Maybe that was a fate of bad omen. Riskal seemed to risk all, it was hugely ambitious. It closed on Monday.

One needs to appreciate the scale of what was risked. Occupying 26,000 square metres and with 4,000 additional square metres of gardens, Riskal, technologically at the state of the art, comprised an art gallery, an auction room, a bookshop, a jazz club, a disco, three function areas, restaurants and cafés and a catering facility. Two hundred jobs were envisaged. The thirty employees are now out of work. The owner hopes it’s not the end, that Riskal may not be closed permanently, that it might be possible to sell it on.

It was rotten timing of course and was not the first grand Mallorcan project to open just when the world’s economy was in freefall. Hotel Formentor was another, back in the days of The Depression; it financially crippled Adan Diehl who had arranged its construction. Fifty million euros were splashed on the Riskal pleasure dome, and slap bang in the middle of economic chaos it opened to considerable publicity; full-pages ads in the newspapers and so on. The problem was, what was it? Perhaps it was some overblown vanity project. But such a description would be unfair to Gelabert’s vision. Riskal was intended to be a location that would show off the finest of talents, a location for conventions (achieved for example with staging a congress for the UGT union), a location for residents and tourists alike, well those with some money to throw around. It was intended, one guesses, as symbolic of a different type of Mallorca, a sophisticated Mallorca, one in keeping with other visions, those of government and authorities keen on an image of the island elevated from the sun and beach.

No, Riskal was not vanity. It was virtuous, too much so perhaps, but it defied simple definition. A maxim of business is to be able to sum something up in a short sentence. Riskal needed several, or certainly that was the impression its publicity gave. It was difficult to get a handle on the place. Whether it caused much impact among tourists last year is hard for me to say, but the name never seemed to crop up. Or maybe I just move in the wrong circles.

It’s a shame. Of course it’s a shame that Riskal has closed. New, different projects are just what Mallorca needs. Take another one, due to start this summer – the Mallorca Rocks Hotel in Magaluf. This sounds a fantastic idea, one that builds on the success of the Ibiza Rocks Hotel. The opening of the new hotel will feature The Kooks and DJ Zane Lowe. Apart from the obvious, namely the differences in markets and entertainment offered, Mallorca Rocks is also different to Riskal in that it has a clear focus and identity. It is a music destination. It is easy to understand and therefore easier to market.

Recession clearly played a part in Riskal having to close barely a year after opening, but maybe it was just too broad a concept. Too ambitious and too ill-defined. Too risky.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.