The Most Precious Time Of All

Have you seen the Thomson ad? You must have done. Watch “X Factor” and you can’t miss it, which will probably be why I have. Or had.

The Thomson ad is being given added prominence among the Spanish media for two reasons: one, that Tenerife reckons that it is benefiting from it specifically; two, because Thomson (i.e. TUI) is making as much play as it can out of the travails at Thomas Cook.

The ad is one of the most remarkable pieces of holiday promotion you could wish to see. Unashamedly and gut-wrenchingly sentimental, if it doesn’t move you, then you have no soul. It does everything an advert should do, with an emphasis on playing with the emotions.

Break the ad down and you appreciate just how effective it is. Take the language used. Key words and phrases such as “those close to you”, “share with them”, “cherish”, “the people who mean everything in the world to you”, “holidays are the most precious time of all” make you well up just by reading them; they are the art of a neurolinguistic programmer who has got right inside the heart, head and mind of the audience.

The words are those of a child, just to add greater poignancy to the whole thing, but they are spoken by a child for a hard-nosed reason: children are massively important when it comes to family purchasing decisions and especially where holidays are concerned. Advertisers know this and exploit the fact for all it’s worth.

Then there’s the music, a plaintive reworking of The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind” with a distinct nod in the direction of Coldplay. It is recognisable without being known.

And finally, there is the imagery: Tenerife, because that’s where the ad was filmed. The island may not be mentioned, but Tenerife is doing all it can to cash in not just in summer but also this winter. Hard luck, Mallorca, the Canaries win again, both because they were the location and because they are open for winter business.

Behind the creativity of the advert, before it was even first worked up and story-boarded, was something much less slushy. BMB (Beattie McGuinness Bungay), the agency which created the ad, was set a “business problem”. From the agency’s website, I quote: “Consumers see little difference between any of the large holiday operators, resulting in low brand preference and attribution”. The “idea” to address this problem was to “remind consumers of the importance of spending quality time with your loved ones and how Thomson truly facilitate this”.

The campaign will end up costing Thomson five million pounds, which equates to over two million euros more than the Balearics have in total for tourism promotion in 2012. But were the tourism ministry to embark on television campaigns in the future, it could learn an awful lot from the Thomson ad.

Look at the business problem again. You can easily substitute “large holiday operators” with “leading holiday destinations”. From this, you can change the idea to “how Mallorca truly facilitates this”.

The advert is generic, not that it has prevented Tenerife from working it to its advantage, but there are important lessons. Firstly, the ad is believable, and this, unlike Mallorcan (Balearics) attempts, is partly because there are no celebrities, which has been a Mallorcan obsession for too long. Secondly, though the imagery of Tenerife is obviously integral, it is also incidental. Shots of landscape and what have you, another usual obsession, do not sell like emotion sells, especially when you want to grab a television audience by the throat.

I have been highly dismissive of adverts such as the Nadal one. They have been ineffective in all sorts of ways, which is why the small promotion spend for 2012 is a blessing in disguise, as it stops the same mistakes being made; mistakes that have centred on a belief that you sell through “place”, which translates as landscape scenes. Yes, you can, but not initially. You sell, most powerfully, through emotion, which is exactly what BMB have done for Thomson. They have taken the simple concept of the family holiday and the simple and familiar representation of the family on holiday and come up with something really rather wonderful.

I am not suggesting that Mallorca should imitate the Thomson ad, even if it had the money to do so, but if an appreciation can be made of the power of emotion then future promotion might just become more effective and might also go some way to demonstrating how Mallorca can truly facilitate the spending of quality time and can differentiate itself from other leading holiday destinations.

 

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Don’t Just Book It … (24 November)

Mr. Thomas Cook does not quite fit with the image of the current-day tourism industry. A follower of the Victorian temperance movement, Mr. Cook organised trips for fellow abstainers (or those who did in strict moderation). His first excursion was from Leicester to Loughborough, which must have been exciting.

Mr. Cook will probably have long been turning in his grave. Though by no means all the tourist descendants of the Loughborough excursionists are on the extreme binge-drinking wing of the tourism market, some are and are therefore very much not adherents to the concept of temperance, even if they knew the term or understood it; for example, Club 18-30 is part of Thomas Cook.

More than just the devils of drink, Mr. Cook would doubtless be alarmed to learn that his name is associated with a company that finds itself in dire financial straits. Moderation in everything, money matters included, would have been the Cook mantra.

The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, as a prominent Victorian didn’t say in that he didn’t first come up with the expression but most likely did declare it, repeatedly, from a pulpit of the times. And money has been the root of Thomas Cook’s contemporary problems. It owes a mere one billion quid to lenders. Remarkably, only four years ago, the company could brag that it had nearly four hundred million sitting in the bank.

The tour operator has had a number of issues to confront, so its problems are not solely down to financial imprudence, but a lot of them are. A share buy-back and a series of acquisitions have helped to push the company to the brink. It is hanging on through the largesse of banks, which it hopes will continue to stump up around a hundred million a month, if current financing requirements persist.

One of Thomas Cook’s more recent ventures into expansion was the protracted merger with Co-Operative Travel. Finally agreed to earlier this year by UK competition commissioners, the combined operation now finds itself having to plan the likely closure of some 200 travel agency shops.

The name which regularly crops up in discussions of Thomas Cook’s troubles is that of its former chief executive who left in August: “Super Nova”, Manny Fontenla-Novoa, often described as “colourful”, which is shorthand for all sorts of things. Super Nova had raked in only 14.5 million quids worth of salary and shares in the four years prior to his somewhat sudden disappearance.

There is no small amount of schadenfreude among some elements of the Mallorcan tourism industry at both Thomas Cook’s woes and the downfall of Super Nova. This stems, in part, from a dislike of the power that one of the Big Two tour operators wields, which can manifest itself in different ways, such as the way in which Thomas Cook decided that it would apply a so-called discount to hotels’ invoices in late summer 2010; the discount was in fact a reduction by 5% on what was due.

The schadenfreude is misplaced, however. The power of the Big Two may not be liked by all, but the local tourism industry would be in a fine mess without them. So if the Big Two became the Big One, and Thomas Cook went under, where would the industry be then?

It’s unlikely that this would happen. Thomas Cook does operate profitably. Special financing arrangements are normal in the winter period for tour operators, so there is nothing unusual in Thomas Cook seeking loans. The problem is the accumulated debt.

It is the uncertainty that its financial woes arouse that is troubling. Despite its operating profit and reassurances from the company, holidaymakers are likely to think twice about committing themselves to booking with a tour operator whose troubles are being given such a public airing. This may just slow down bookings to Mallorca for next season, while it might also be noted that a loss of consumer confidence caused by the Euro crisis has been one of the very recent and uncontrollable factors that have affected Thomas Cook.

In the circumstances, therefore, it wouldn’t be surprising were holidaymakers disinclined to “book it ” with Thomas Cook. Not just yet anyway. This might be good news for other tour operators, but, and schadenfreude notwithstanding, it isn’t particularly good news for Mallorca.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Needing Sympathy?: Hotels

Hotels full, record numbers of passengers passing through Palma airport. Oh what a summer. A great summer for the numbers-games players, especially the regional government, which loves the numbers more than most.

The hotels bursting at the seams, and so how do the hotels respond? They intend to put their prices up by 6% next year. It’s cashing-in, payback time. A few years of keeping prices down and of seeing margins squeezed, the hotels want their money back.

Whether they get it is another matter. The tour operators, as ever, will have something to say about it. This summer of relative fortune has presumably seduced the hotels into believing that 2012 will be a golden summer as well, so they sense the opportunity to harvest some of the gold for themselves; the only problem is that north Africa will probably bite back and will be pricing competitively.

The hoteliers will argue that, having held prices down and despite the high levels of occupancy, their profitability has either plateaued or gone down. They, like bar and restaurant owners, complain about a lack of in-resort spend by tourists. But put prices up, either of direct sales or through a tour operator’s package, and what do they think will happen? The tourist mentality is firmly and primarily wedded to the cost of the holiday itself; spend in-resort comes a poor second in the budgeting process, hence the attractions of the all-inclusive.

Should, though, one feel any sympathy for the hotels? They bring a lack of it on themselves. The constant attack on the residential tourism market and the at-times failures to deliver what it says on the tin and contemptuous attitudes make it hard for anyone to be sympathetic.

This is unfair on those hotels that play fair and treat their customers with respect, but as a body the hotels attract little compassion. The bad apples have the bad experiences they give their guests (or those who might have been guests had they not been turned away and sent elsewhere) plastered all over Trip Advisor, giving themselves a bad name together with resorts and the island as a whole.

Yet the bad experiences are not necessarily all down to failures on behalf of hotels; they can be a reflection of arrangements with tour operators, some of which can change in between holidays being booked and being realised.

The hotels, one cannot emphasise enough, form part of a distribution network in which they are independent of tour operators but also highly dependent on them. This network has four heads: the tour operators, the airlines, the travel agencies and the hotels. In certain cases, three of them are one and the same thing. Guess which one isn’t.

Common ownership of three of the key elements in the network is all good business integration stuff, facilitating the regular mantra of “customer demand” to be put into good practice. However, there is another side to it.

Let me cite you the example of holidaymakers who wished to book a particular hotel. They went along to their local travel agency which informed them that the hotel in question was fully booked. This was for a holiday in May. The holidaymakers were offered and accepted an alternative hotel, one that is exclusive to the tour operator, the same tour operator that owns the travel agency. Once on holiday they went to the hotel which they had wished to book in the first place and spoke to people there. The hotel had of course been nothing like fully booked.

The point of this example is that, unless the relationship between hotel and tour operator and therefore travel agency is that strong, hotels can find themselves losing out. So what do they do? Put their prices up in order to compensate?

The hotels with the stronger relationships, which usually means exclusivity, have at least been guaranteed their sales and their money. Or have they?

There have been reports this summer of hotels being unable to meet monthly salary payments because they haven’t been paid by tour operators. Which could well be hotels that, prepared to take a tour operator’s shilling exclusively, have pared back prices to the bone.

It’s hardly surprising therefore that the hotels might want to put their prices up. They can try, but whether they succeed is another matter. And even if they do succeed, getting paid on time is another issue entirely.

Do they deserve any sympathy? Through partially gritted teeth, I’m prepared to say that they do.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Join Our Club: Youth tourism market

Lloret de Mar is a Spanish resort synonymous with the growth of mass and packaged tourism. It occupies a place in tourism history alongside Torremolinos, Benidorm and Arenal (Playa de Palma) as being where it all really took off. In the late sixties, when my family swapped Hastings and Bournemouth for the newly exotic and cheap Spanish resorts, it was Arenal and Lloret that, probably through the pages of a Clarkson brochure, offered promises of a holiday experience alien to that of the south-coast end-of-the-pier variety.

Lloret has never shaken off its image. Try as it might have done, and like other resorts in Spain and Mallorca, it is still considered to be essentially naff. What it has also acquired is an image for trouble, one that it shares with resorts such as Magalluf.

This summer there has been disquiet among hoteliers, businesses and town hall representatives regarding the portrayal of Magalluf on Spanish national television channels, and specifically what goes on along the “strip”. The head of the tourist businesses association Acotur has voiced his concern that Magalluf has been depicted as a lawless town.

Magalluf has had its share of trouble this summer; even a US marine managed to get himself hauled in following a fight. It has not been alone. In Arenal a bunch of German skinheads engaged in a spot of what was quite clearly racially motivated bother.

But the trouble in both resorts has been nothing compared with that in Lloret.

Earlier this month there was a battle involving some 400 tourists, French and Italian. A couple of nights later there were further incidents and twenty arrests, none of them, by the way, of British people.

The indignation felt by businesses in Lloret has led them to go further than those in Magalluf. The federation representing businesses offering recreational musical activities (which, one assumes, partly or totally means clubs) is considering asking a judge to look at whether tour operator publicity has in some way contributed to the incidents. The federation considers that this publicity, and also that of “intermediary agencies”, has branded Lloret as a destination for drunken tourism.

It is not clear which tour operators or intermediary agencies the federation has in mind, as it is also not clear what charge might actually be levelled against them, but if it is the case that tour operators have in some way contributed, then what does this say about their responsibilities?

If you are going to pitch a resort to a youthful market, you are unlikely to portray it as tranquil and sedate. Which doesn’t mean to say you have to describe it as somewhere you can go out, get off your face and have a good old bundle.

The tour operators do, when it comes to the youth tourism market, tread a fine line. It would be a strange tour operator indeed who didn’t know what the priorities for a goodly part of this market would be, and these don’t include “doses of local culture and scenery that gives you that serene feeling”. Don’t take my word for it, as these are the words of First Choice on its 2wentys holidays to Magalluf page: “not that we’re really interested in that side of things”.

Further down the page is a list of what things cost. Four items. A full English but otherwise a pint of beer, spirit and mixer and a bottle of wine. The 2wentys section on the website is headed with the advice to “join 2wentys for some serious party antics, with bar crawls, booze cruises and more …”. No suggestions of any drinking there then. And none at all on its Facebook page; apologies, Magalluf, but Gumbet in Turkey is apparently the place to get totally off of it this summer.

But what does anyone expect? What indeed do the good people of Lloret expect? They might not expect pitched battles with 400 tourists, but if your resort has a clubbing and youthful reputation, then I’m sorry but you are going to get people who like the odd cold drink or a hundred.

Ever since Club 18-30 first burst on the scene – its initial destination in its old, very much less raucous Horizon days was in fact Lloret – there have been “issues” surrounding the youthful, clubbing market. Yes, the tour operators do have to assume some responsibility, but they have also been responsible for a growth in resort supply, such as the clubs. In Lloret, to which neither 2wentys nor Thomas Cook’s Club 18-30 go, why exactly is there a federation representing clubs? Who are these clubs for? Senior citizens?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Hope Lies In The Proles

I was interviewed by the BBC the other day. The interview was about all-inclusives and was to form part of a feature for the “Fast Track” travel programme.

The background to the feature was two-fold: the announcement by First Choice that it will be only offering all-inclusive packages as from next year, and the impact that all-inclusives have on local businesses.

The location that First Choice had suggested for filming was the Holiday Village in Can Picafort. This is a fine complex. It is modern, offers a good range of services and generally speaking is well regarded when it comes to reviews on the internet. It is four-star, and herein may lie a tale.

On the First Choice website there are ten hotels which appear most prominently when you search for Mallorca. The Holiday Village heads the list. In the Alcúdia-Can Picafort conurbation, there are four hotels in all, and only the Holiday Village is four-star.

Fair enough though; why wouldn’t you pick the best that you have?

The presenter of “Fast Track”, Rajan Datar, was not overly familiar with Alcúdia and Can Picafort, so I took him for a bit of a tour one evening. A port of call was a hotel complex that had been dropped by First Choice during the 2009 season. Bellevue.

The level of all-inclusive offer at this vast resort in Alcúdia has increased substantially over the past four to five years. In 2009 it was around 50%. The word locally is that it is now 80%, though local word is often not reliable. Let’s just say that it would be a surprise had there not been an increase since 2009.

We went to a bar nearby. The owner is preparing to close at the end of this season, attributing this primarily to the impact of AI. He was happy enough to be interviewed for the feature. He was less happy when it came to the actual filming and choked up when reading from a poster that announces the closure.

A suffering bar owner is not the most objective of subjects for a report, but it can make for powerful telly. He displayed a lack of objectivity, understandable enough, when dismissing benefits that AIs might offer families on a tight budget.

For me, as I said during the interview, it’s a no-brainer. I can completely understand these families opting for AI. But you always come back to the same seemingly intractable problem; that of the effects on the wider economy and on bars and restaurants in the shadows of all-inclusives.

I don’t know what was said when the filming moved on to the Holiday Village, but I can guess. First Choice and TUI have been doing their best to put positive spin on all-inclusives, such as it being a myth that AI guests do not go off-site and do not spend outside. It is a myth, but then why do some guests find it necessary to go off-site and spend? Because the AI they have ended up at isn’t much good. Holiday Village is more the exception to the fifteen to twenty-minute rule; how long it can take to be served with a beer in a small plastic glass.

However, the spend of AI guests is low. It has been proven to be so by research conducted by the university in Palma. TUI, perhaps inadvertently, added to the proof when it revealed that only 11% of guests’ total spend found its way into the local community at a different Holiday Village, one in Turkey. And that is also a four-star.

This, the star rating, is relevant, because the higher the standard of the hotel and AI offer, then the more the myth of guests not spending off-site ceases to be a myth. I am at a loss to understand the logic as to why, if you get really good AI service, you would ever spend anything outside the hotel.

There is another reason for going off-site and that is because guests tire of what is on offer and also need a release to stop going stir crazy. And it is this which is perhaps inducing something of an AI backlash, together with a growing appreciation among many tourists as to the effects on the economy outside the hotel. There are plenty of tourists who will mock a bar owner saying hello in the hope of business by waving a wristband in his face, but there are plenty who are sympathetic. Without wishing to sound disrespectful, it’s a touch Orwellian. The hope lies in the proles.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Keeping Up Appearances: Travel fairs

The tourism ministry has decided to cut by half the budget for the three main travel fairs that take place over the winter. Good. It might have done even better had it decided to go the whole hog and withdraw from the fairs completely. But that would never do. How could it do when these fairs exist for existence’s sake?

Within the ministry’s explanation for the cut is a most germane point. The involvement of the tourism minister and the director-general for tourism at the fairs is to now be strictly limited to meetings with contacts in the industry – those with hoteliers, tour operators, travel agencies and airlines.

The point is germane because this should be one of the main points, if not the main point, of the fairs taking place. There has been plenty that has been extraneous and costly, and this will be done away with.

Important though the industry contacts are, does it really require a travel fair for them to be made? Of the three fairs, two are overseas, those in London and Berlin. The industry contacts being made at these fairs are not with hoteliers from the UK or Germany, but with Mallorcan hoteliers. They are also with the likes of TUI, Thomas Cook and Air Berlin. In the case of the latter, it is based in Mallorca, while TUI practically owns the island. So what’s the big deal with the industry contacts?

The travel fairs are more for appearance’s sake. Non-participation would equate to being conspicuous by absence and a snub to what has become a self-perpetuating merry-go-round, driven by fair organisers who know full well that tourism authorities, not just from the Balearics, feel obliged to attend.

The merry-go-round has had the trappings of all the fun of the fair. What appearances they have been; those made for appearance’s sake. The Balearics have dragged along a succession of celebrities whose involvement has amounted to little more than a drain on finances and a boost to the egos of former tourism ministers and presidents; Jaume Matas was the most culpable in seeking the reflected glory of co-opting a Schiffer or a Kournikova.

The merry-go-round has had all its extraneous stalls and attractions – the candy floss of some gastronomy, the dodgems of sports tourism, the Music Express of folk song and dance. This is what will be done away with, along with the “Balearics day” at the three fairs. The islands’ hoteliers, now fully engaged in their love-in with their new-found best friend, the tourism minister Carlos Delgado, approve heartily of what is to be concentration on business and on business alone.

A leaner and meaner, half-the-budget, smaller exhibition stand does not mean that those in the business will be unimpressed. Quite the contrary, one would hope. Tour operators, for example, will admire a more austere approach and the message they would trust that would be sent out to Mallorca’s hotels that they should be equally cost aware when negotiating their prices.

There is another constituency which will admire and approve. The public in Mallorca. Its approval is now the reverse of what was previously sought, that of grand exhibitions and celebrities which, because of the exhaustive press coverage given to the fairs, were designed to impress as to how much effort was being made, despite it having been unnecessary. The public now demands greater humility, even from the island’s main industry. To have not made significant cuts to the fairs’ budget would have been a political misjudgment.

Playing to the domestic market cannot be underestimated in the whole marketing mix that is and has been the selling of tourism in Mallorca and the Balearics. The fairs have been one way of demonstrating that politicians and the tourism industry are being active. So also have the adverts. Rafael Nadal on his boat was as much for home market consumption as it was for foreign markets.

Selling directly to the travelling public is only and has only ever been a secondary and relatively minor purpose to the travel fairs. Selling thanks to adverts is similarly only a small part of Mallorca’s tourism marketing. Far, far more important are the contacts. Though the fairs are largely irrelevant because these contacts are readily accessible all year round, for appearance’s sake it is necessary that there is a presence at the fairs.

The fairs are a necessary evil, but at least Sr. Delgado has had the common sense to realise that he doesn’t need to surround himself with a gaggle of celebs and a folk-dance troupe.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Groundhog Month: All-inclusives

I know it seems like it’s bad flavour of the month, but that’s partly because June is the month for all-inclusive angst. Why? Because the season is well underway and some businesses, finding that they are not thronged, have to reach out and blame someone or something. The all-inclusive. I am in all-inclusive Groundhog month. It’s been like this for years.

I seem to have spent a lifetime writing about all-inclusives. And another one reading all the familiar arguments and imagery that are used to discuss them. The poverty of the discussion, the recycling of the imagery bug me even more than all-inclusives bug me. So also does the implicit notion behind this impoverished discussion that any of this is new. Because it isn’t. But it hasn’t stopped it, once more, being the June flavour of the month.

I touched on the themes of this discussion the other day. One of them is that all-inclusives are appropriate only for remote parts of the world where no restaurants exist and where it is necessary to be holed up in a gated hotel complex because to leave it would be to risk having a machete taken to your throat. In other words, they are not appropriate for Mallorca.

We know all this. We’ve known all this for years. We’ve also known for years the imagery of resorts becoming “ghost towns” as we’ve known for years the analogy of the impact of out-of-town shopping centres on British high streets. We’ve known all this because the same imagery and analogies are used time and time again.

We’ve also known for years that it should be the job of the anonymous “authorities” to do something, when the truth is that there is nothing these authorities can do or are willing to do. We’ve known this because, without any suggestion as to how these authorities might actually do anything, they still keep being called on to do it.

Oh, sorry, there have been suggestions. Like banning all-inclusives. Ah yes, when all else fails, ban them, and bye-bye, TUI.  But there is the law. European law. All-inclusives might be considered anti-competitive (it’s been tried; Can Picafort, 2005), they might be subject to the services directive (and it’s questionable as to whether many meet it), but they are, by the same competitive token, a product of an unfettered market. And the tour operators would drive a coach and horses through any attempt to make them otherwise. Oh, and by the way, there was once an attempt at a ban. In The Gambia. It was dropped after a year because the tour operators objected and threatened to pull out.

We’ve also known for years that the hoteliers are meant to be to blame, when they are not. The president of the hoteliers’ federation has recently said that the increase in all-inclusive is out of the hotels’ hands. This is a rather disingenuous deflection of criticism, but it isn’t without some basis in truth.

So why does it all get dragged out, over and over again? Always the same points. Nothing changes, and hasn’t changed for much of the current century, with the exception that the number of all-inclusive places increases. And amidst all these same old points is the dire consequence of bars and restaurants closing.

Yet, at the end of 2010, the number of restaurants in Mallorca had increased. By 3.4%. The number of cafeterias had increased. By 6.1%. Only the number of bars had fallen. By 1%.

Of course, such catch-all statistics do not reflect precisely the circumstances of different resorts, but they are an indication. Perhaps this increase is a result of it being difficult to find alternative means of making a living or of the greater ease there now is in simply renting premises rather than paying a traspaso. Whatever the reason, though, and notwithstanding economic crisis and the onward march of the all-inclusive, there always seems to be someone willing to take somewhere on, thus continuing to spread business thinly.

The repetitious discussion and the repetitious imagery will be used again. Next June, in all likelihood. Nothing will have changed. The discussion will not have moved on beyond what have now become the clichés of the all-inclusive discourse. And it won’t have moved on, partly because there is nowhere for it to move onto. Unless the tour operators say so.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Smiley, Smile

“The Balearics (are) a summer destination and in winter there are not many alternatives.”

These are words that will not be music to the ears of anyone much in Mallorca or the other Balearic islands. And certainly not to a succession of tourism officials who have sought to promote Mallorca in the winter and to promote specifically its “alternatives”. We are treated, through the words of these officials, to an endless diet of gastronomy, to an endless round of golf, to an endless tour of cultural sites. But to no avail. There aren’t many alternatives. Who says so? TUI. And worse still, TUI Germany.

The moaning that occurs regarding the lack of winter tourism is primarily one inspired by the absence of British tourists and by the absence of aircraft belonging to airlines from the British Isles rumbling along the runway in Palma. There are tourists in winter, however, and they are mainly German, courtesy of Air Berlin’s regular services from all over Germany.

Notwithstanding the winter lifeline that Air Berlin throws Mallorca, for TUI Germany to state that the Balearics are a summer destination should make tourism officialdom and all others who claim that there are alternatives to “sol y playa” (sun and beach) squirm in the vacuity of their endless desires to promote the alternatives. The desires count for little or nothing, as do whatever is meant to have been happening to realise them. “There is a lack of initiative to give life to the (winter) season.” Who says so? TUI.

If it really wanted to, TUI could probably do something about the “many places that are dead” in winter (again, its words). But why should it? There are plenty of other places that aren’t dead. Anywhere but Mallorca, let alone Ibiza or God-forsaken Menorca.

TUI Germany’s director-general and his two able lieutentants were holding court the other day in Palma. The three wise men followed the ibero star to Mallorca, bearing gifts but unable to turn dross into gold. But what gifts they were. The level of all-inclusive will rise to 33% from its current 20. Gifts to the consumer who has driven the demand (says TUI). And the consumer is the gift to Mallorca this summer. “The level of sales is very, very good.” And guess what type of hotel is increasingly enjoying these very, very good sales.

At roughly the same time as the kingdom of TUI and its court was assembling in Palma, elsewhere in the city a different type of court was amassing. The new kingdom of Bauzá. It must be utterly disheartening for a Mallorcan and Balearic leader to know that his own court is largely irrelevant and that the real power has just arrived from the north.

You know that story about the German businessmen who wanted to buy Mallorca. I’ve never known if there was any substance to it or if it was simply an urban myth. It doesn’t really matter, because Germany runs Mallorca anyway. The castle and stripes are not the flag of Mallorca. The real one is a smiley logo. TUI’s.

When TUI puts in its court-like appearance, it is offered tribute by the media and the lickspittles of officialdom. When Völker Böttcher, the TUI boss, speaks, it is as though there were a papal visit and address. What TUI says is far more important than anything that comes out of the Balearic parliament or from the mouths of a Balearic president or tourism minister.

It is in the gift of TUI to do something about winter tourism, were it minded to. And were it minded to, it would simply reinforce the fact that Mallorcan officialdom has been incapable of doing anything. This officialdom talks a good game – of golf, mainly – but knows, or should know, as TUI knows, that the only real game in town and across the island is sun and beach. It always has been and always will be.

It is also in the gift of TUI to do something about summer tourism. Like turning its back on it. It wouldn’t do so, of course it wouldn’t, but it can do pretty much as it wishes. Hence, a 13% increase in all-inclusives. What’s to stop it? TUI can make or break the island. It’s the real power. You just have to lump it, and smiley, smile.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Market Forces: Inca and other markets

An item of news that probably slipped under your radar a few weeks ago was the seemingly non-earthshattering report that leading tour operators, e.g. TUI, were planning to put Inca market back on their excursions’ itineraries.

The market, for all that it boasts being one of the island’s most important, if not the most important, and for all that its best-known event is November’s “Dijous Bo”, has not been as good as the “bo” in “Dijous” might have us believe. Or indeed, have the tour operators believe.

Excursions to the market were dropped last year; some operators had done so before this. The reason was that the market, though huge, had lost much of its attraction. There was in fact too much of it, and much of this too much wasn’t much good.

Inca town hall, recognising full well that coach loads of tourists not turning up every week means less money in everyone’s pot, set about remedying the situation, and agreement with the tour operators was forged in early April. More local craft stuff, a bit of the old ball de bot traditional dancing and, perhaps most importantly, getting rid of some of the stallholders. A total of 49 have been told they will not be pitching up at their pitches any longer, and some of them have come onto others’ radars – those of the tax man and social security.

Seeking to maintain the standards of the market was fair enough. Complaints about its overall quality and ambience increased last year. The town hall was forced to act. But it had taken the tour operators to really shake up the market’s supervisors.

This goes to prove what should be a principle accepted by many involved in the island’s tourism business: that the tour operators can make or break an attraction, a hotel, or even a market.

Those in the front line of encounters with the tour operators do of course know this well enough. Recently, I happened to be at some apartments when the new owner was showing Thomas Cook’s representative around. Once Mr T.C. had gone, the owner, beaming and rubbing his fingers, said that they would be signing a contract for a third of the apartments.

Back at Inca market, the tour operators had a legitimate point about its standards. But the fact that they acted and thus threatened the enduring success of the market demonstrated that even Mallorca’s traditions can be influenced by companies from Germany or wherever. You do begin to wonder if there isn’t more of this influence around. The fiestas, for example.

Inca market is not, though, an isolated case. Friends of mine who had not been to Sineu’s market for many years went a couple of weeks ago. This market is one which also enjoys the reputation of “traditional” and of being one of the markets that should be on every good market-goer’s schedule. They were disappointed. It wasn’t as it once was. It could be just like any other market.

The importance of the markets, not just for tourism but also as aspects of the fabric of local communities, has been highlighted by the temporary relocation of the market in Puerto Pollensa. Though not a traditional market in the same way as Inca or Sineu or even Pollensa town, the Wednesday market in the church square is popular.

While the square was being dug up, the market was shifted to a car park. For reasons known only to themselves, the town hall suggested that this move might become permanent. A survey of stallholders was meant to have taken place, but they probably gave up after the first few replies.

Besides the fact that the new site meant an obvious loss of car-parking spaces in a town not blessed with easy parking, the notion of it becoming the permanent site was absurd. Puerto Pollensa’s market may not be traditional, but it is also not a car-boot sale.

The markets have become more ragtag affairs, and I think we all know why. It is important that they don’t end up becoming like car-boot sales or flea markets for the lookies clan to ply their trade. The tour operators’ influence may be vast, but where the markets are concerned, and for Inca market in particular, the influence is not unwelcome.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

For Whose Benefit?: All-inclusives

“The benefit it brought its surrounding area.”

If you make a statement such as this, without qualifying it, you can bet your life that someone – me – will hunt for some qualification.

The quote is from a short piece on Saturday in “The Bulletin” about TUI conducting a pilot study of the effects of all-inclusive hotels.

The study was undertaken in Turkey. At the Holiday Village in Sarigerme. The news item gave no detail, so let me now do so.

The benefit that TUI claims relates to what the hotel complex spends within Turkey itself. 55% of its total outgoings. This is not, though, the complete story. The study found that only 11% of tourist spending benefited the regional economy, a mere fifth of which found its way into the pockets of businesses in the village of Sarigerme (not the village’s actual name, but let’s not worry about this) and the surrounding area. How much does this equate to? One million euros. The study would appear to have been for the 2009 season.

According to First Choice’s website, the Holiday Village has 500 rooms, sleeping up to four people. Work it out for yourselves. Over a six-to-seven month period, one million euros will be spread pretty thinly; though Sarigerme is not a huge resort, it is a resort nevertheless.

The gloss in the report about the study is the so-called benefit of spending within the country. But so what? Hotels, in all sorts of places, source stuff locally, including Mallorca and including Mallorca’s all-inclusives. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about this. And even when stuff is sourced locally, as with the local booze that is commonly served in all-inclusives, and would appear to be at the Holiday Village, it isn’t always to the punter’s delight.

TUI know full well that all-inclusives have an impact. With the release of the information about this pilot study, the company is seeking to change the bad impression of all-inclusives. “Little research has been carried out” into the effects of all-inclusives, say TUI, implying that an absence of research means that the harm caused by all-inclusives has not been proven.

It is a diversion on the part of TUI to highlight matters of sourcing and employment, as it finds it hard to make a good case for all-inclusive impact on other elements of the local business scene. It is a diversion that shields behind its much-publicised and self-aggrandising sustainable tourism, of which purchasing local produce and giving people a job are two aspects.

I don’t question TUI’s sincerity, but they aren’t being quite straight. It seems no coincidence that, a month after First Choice made the announcement that it would only offer all-inclusive packages as from next year, TUI should now wish to show how such holidays can be of benefit.

The latest announcement echoes one of the laughable bits of spin that First Choice came out with – that of excursions which will enable its guests to get a taste for their destinations and to spend some money. At the Holiday Village, the guests will be able to enjoy a “walking tour” to the local village. For God’s sake.

Don’t be fooled by any of this. The pilot study may be “research”, it might even be good and rigorous research, but it is being done in the name of public relations. TUI have a point in that the impact of all-inclusives has not been well-researched, but the body of knowledge is growing. The company may like to know that the 11% of tourist spending is below that of 20% found by research in Hawaii. It may also like to know that Mallorcan research has revealed spend by all-inclusive guests to not just be the lowest among all categories of tourist but also over a third less than the next lowest-spending group.

But there is research and there is research, and it depends on the characteristics of different markets. Mallorca is not the same as Turkey because it is a far more mature tourism destination. The impact of all-inclusives might well be greater in more mature markets; this should be a strand of research in its own right. TUI say that more studies will be done. If so, then let them come to Alcúdia or Magalluf. Better still, give me the research spec, and I’ll do it for them.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.