Is The Customer Satisfied?

The Balearics received 11% more international visitors in the first seven months of this year than last. Let joy be unconfined. Put out the bunting.

5.75 million people up to the end of July, but have they been happy? Loads of people doesn’t automatically mean loads of satisfied people or indeed loadsamoney. At the same time as the statistics of joy are being sung about arrivals into the airports and ports, the latest tourism satisfaction survey compiled by the research organisation Gadeso offers a less upbeat tempo.

The overall index of satisfaction where Mallorca is concerned is down. Only fractionally, but down nevertheless. Of the four key measures of satisfaction, only the quality of the environment shows a slight upward trend. Satisfaction with public services is unchanged from 2010, while satisfaction with both accommodation and the so-called complementary offer (bars, restaurants etc.) is down.

A caveat in all this is that the results are based on a mere 400 interviews, and these 400 have been conducted across the Balearics. There have been more in Mallorca than anywhere else, but the number still isn’t great, and there is no indication as to the backgrounds of those interviewed. So, is the survey of any use?

Its value does rather depend upon whether you believe that results from a limited survey can be extrapolated into painting an accurate picture of attitudes more generally. Tourists are a highly diverse bunch with a highly diverse set of expectations, and when a survey asks for making a ranking between one and ten, the decision of the person being surveyed can be fairly arbitrary.

What you get, at best, is an indication. No more. You can choose to use the results as evidence or not. If, however, you are inclined to take them as evidence, then certain findings do rather jump out at you. One in particular. That of the satisfaction with the price-quality ratio of the bars and restaurants. It has the lowest rating of any factor in the survey – 3.4 – which is the same as last year and down from 4.0 since 2009. It is the one factor that Gadeso describes as “deficient”.

If one interprets this as meaning that prices are too high and quality is too low, then the bars and restaurants of Mallorca are not performing well. One suspects the ratio is, in the minds of those surveyed, skewed more by price than it is by quality; that the assessment is an assessment of price as opposed to what actually appears on a plate. Why might one suspect this? Because prices are known. Quality is intangible. Providing a ratio between the known and the unknown will place a greater emphasis on what is known. Simple.

Consequently, can we assume that prices are too high? Anecdotally they are said to be. But what are the benchmarks? One also suspects that a benchmark is an historical recollection of what things cost in the good old days or is a completely unrealistic expectation that because Mallorca is “foreign” it should automatically be cheap. Prices vary so markedly that is almost impossible to come to a conclusion. How, for instance, does one reconcile the fact that in Puerto Pollensa you can pay three euros for a coffee and a bacon sandwich in one establishment, then go to another and pay 4.50 for the coffee alone? Yes, the quality element kicks in, but if you go solely on price then a reconciliation cannot be made, other than the fact that one place is cheap and the other isn’t.

The singling out of price, be it by anecdote or by survey result, is a headline maker because price is arguably the most important issue to the tourist. Indeed the Gadeso survey reinforces this, but in doing so it raises an apparent contradiction. Since 2009 price as a motivation for tourists choosing Mallorca has shot up by over 12 percentage points. 61.8% of those surveyed said it was the main motivation. So, how does this square with the finding regarding the price-quality ratio?

Perhaps it is a reflection of what tourists expect of Mallorca and is also a reflection, as noted by the survey, of low-cost travel. It may also represent expectations of first-time visitors, those who opted for Mallorca this year because of problems elsewhere in the Mediterranean region. The percentage of those who had previously been to Mallorca is down quite significantly, while the percentage of those saying they would return is also down.

Surveys are notorious for enabling whatever interpretation you want to put on them, but the message from this one is that price is the overriding factor in coming to Mallorca in the first place, and that price, once on the island, is not quite as was expected.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

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.