Who Wants To Be A Nine Times Millionaire? (14 November)

Nine million is a fair amount of wonga. You can do all sorts of things with nine million, like paying the Duke of Palma’s institute four times over – allegedly. Or it could pay the mortgage for ten apartments of the sort that President Bauzá has in what is described as one of the the most expensive parts of Spain – Sa Calatrava in Palma – and not allegedly, but fact.

So yes, nine million goes a fair old way. But it still does depend upon how you might intend blowing it all. That’s why I’m giving you a little game and then test. It’s best if two of you play; something for one of those boring winter afternoons in Mallorca when there’s nothing open and the skies are ominously silent and without any sign of aircraft. One of you has to imagine that he or she is the tourism minister (to get into the right mood, think being a bit of a shorthouse, if you aren’t already one, and being generally disliked especially by members of your own party). The other has to pretend to be in charge of the tourism promotion pot at the Balearics Tourism Agency. Ok, ready?

Tourism minister: “Right now, Juan (feel free to substitute a different name, if you wish), the president, myself and the finance chappy have been putting our heads together and we’ve come up with your budget for next year. Hold your hands out.”

Juan: “Nine million! What do you expect me to do with nine million? Have you any idea how many countries we’re supposed to be promoting to?”

Tourism minister: “Look, it doesn’t matter. The Brits’ll be flocking in next year anyway. And the Krauts. The Ruskies, too. Up 80% more already this year. Think of all that bling jangling as it reaches for the folding notes. It’ll do wonders for the tourism spend statistics. Great PR for when they’re all rioting in the streets next summer when Rajoy pulls the plug on pensions.”

Juan: “But nine million. That’s barely enough to pay for Nadal’s arm let alone Nadal. Then there’s the boat. And the prime time. The prime time, minister, in God knows how many countries. Nine million. That’s the approximate equivalent of only one euro for every tourist who comes to Mallorca.”

Tourism minister: “Yea, but we’re not using Nadal, unless he does it for nothing. And what’s this one euro for every tourist business got to do with anything?”

Juan: “Well, nothing really. I just thought it sounded good. You know, like in a political way.”

Tourism minister: “Brilliant. You’re on to something. I’ll use it for my next speech. The government will be spending one euro on every tourist coming to Mallorca. It’s so ambiguous it’s genius. Is it austere or is it generous?”

Now, having undertaken your role play, you have to, using your skill and judgement, come up with how you would spend just nine million euros for a whole year to promote not just Mallorca, but also Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera, not just to the UK, but also to Germany, Scandinavia, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Ireland, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, China … .

Ah, you see, it’s not so easy, is it? Put you on the spot a bit. It’s no use saying they should splash out on some grand TV ad campaign, because they’re not going to. Not on nine million they’re not.

While one of you figures out how best to spend the meagre nine million, the tourism ministers among you need to think strategy. That’s a tough one, as there haven’t been many tourism ministers who have ever done that. But it’s important. Really important. You might be able to get away with spending hardly anything next year, but nothing lasts for ever, as Mallorca well knows having slid from its one-time position of invincibility. But this is Mallorca’s big chance, perhaps its last chance.

Events have conspired to create a record summer for tourism in 2011 and will do so again in 2012. But after next year? It’s going to take some money, and rather more than nine million annually.

By the way, those of you who come up with the most creative ways of spending the nine million will be entered into a prize draw. First prize is two weeks in a Mallorcan-owned all-inclusive hotel. In winter. In the Dominican Republic.

(And by way of clarification, the budget for tourism promotion last year was 27 million, which should in fact have been 44 million.)

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Tourism: The budget’s poor relation

Something rather odd has happened. The 2012 budget for the Balearics, announced by the regional government’s finance minister, Josep Aguiló, is to go up. By 8.6%. It will, in total, be 3,675 million euros.

What is odd about this is that the government has spent the first months since it came to power creating a general sense of alarm and panic. Remarkably, it has now found more than just some loose change down the back of a few sofas.

From the budget, various ministries will get just over 70%. The health service, one should be thankful, isn’t about to collapse under a lack of money; it will receive 3% more. But as you look down the list of which ministry gets what, there, languishing at the bottom, is the ministry for tourism and sport. 63 million in all. Oh well, so much for tourism being the motor for economic recovery.

The amount might seem paltry, less than 2% of the government’s total spend, but it is roughly the same as that for business promotion and employment and not much less than the ministry of the presidency (whatever that actually does). Agriculture and the environment seems to have fared much better, harvesting 231 million.

There does seem to be a bit of an imbalance, as agriculture counts for only around 1.5% of the economy, but it’s hard to tell exactly what goes to agriculture alone as it has been wrapped up into the super-ministry along with the environment, which could probably do with some money to replant all the forest that people have so thoughtfully set fire to this year.

The other way of looking at the tourism ministry’s budget is that it is in fact a reasonable wedge, and I rather fear some people might it look at like this. Come on, Carlos, they’ll be saying, get those ads on prime-time British TV sorted out. Fortunately, Carlos (Delgado of that ilk) is proving to be the Arsène Wenger of the tourism world. He’s not about to blow the lot on some marquee signing of a celeb and have him or her (well, him, as it could only be Nadal) extol the virtues of the Balearics during a “Corrie” ad break.

Something else rather odd has also been happening. And that is that tax receipts have shot up. They have shot up that much that government tax revenue is greater than it was BC (before crisis). Partly this is down to an excellent tourism season and to the increase in IVA.

The socialist opposition, moaning that the budget should have been and could have been announced much earlier and therefore implying that the delay has been manufactured so as to allow Bauzá as much panic-inducing time as possible, reckons that it can take some credit for the tax bonanza. It must have been the previous administration that paved the way for the excellent tourism season. Which is of course a load of rot. Everyone knows why it has been an excellent season, and it had nothing to do with policies of the regional government.

The fact, though, that tax revenues have increased does undermine to an extent Bauzá’s state of alarm. What they also suggest is that the IVA rise has not proven to be detrimental to tourism, so contradicting predictions that preceded the increase and the Partido Popular’s own intentions to create a “super-reduced” rate of IVA for the tourism sector.

What this year has shown is that spending shedloads on tourism promotion is unnecessary when the conditions are right. Sadly, Arab springs don’t come around too often, so it’s not as though Delgado can become too Wenger-like. An IVA reduction for the sector might still be wise, though it is far less important than has been made out, even faced with a revival in tourism-market competition in 2012.

To achieve anything like a repeat of the 2011 tourism season next year does demand that the tourism ministry gets its cheque-book out. But its budget is not so huge that it can afford to fritter away ten or twenty per cent on television advertising campaigns; and please, let’s not forget that there are countries other than the UK which are promoted to.

The effectiveness of spend is what matters. TV campaigns create an impression of something being done when their returns are relatively that much lower than those through other means, such as incentivising tour operators, airlines, hotels and overseas delegations and exploiting the internet and now mobile technology.

Something rather odd has indeed happened. And that’s that there are reasons to be cheerful, and it’s tourism that can be thanked, even if luck can also take a bow.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Basket Case: Sport and tourism promotion

Wherever a successful sportsman or woman or successful sports team is to be found, someone from a Spanish tourism promotion authority will also be found, running behind, puffing and turning puce and brandishing an advertising contract.

If not the Mallorcans Nadal and Lorenzo, then it will be either the Real Madrid football team or the Spanish men’s basketball side. Both Madrid and the basketball players are faces and bodies of tourism promotion.

The contracts are, however, different. Madrid are being paid a million euros. The basketball team is getting nothing. Nada. Not a centimo. European champions, they are worth zilch. How come Madrid can be paid and the basketball team can’t be?

It seems to have to do with the fact that Madrid is a business and that the basketball team is a representative of the state, down to its red and yellow strip. The six players from the championship-winning side depicted in Turespaña’s hastily cobbled-together advert are “ambassadors” for Spain. Does this mean, therefore, that the Madrid players aren’t? No, as they too, according to Turespaña, are ambassadors. If you play in white, though, you get paid; just ask Nadal.

Whatever the ins and outs of the contractual agreement, why is the Spanish tourism promotion agency, Turespaña, so desperate to nail its promotional colours to the masts of successful sports teams? The answer seems pretty simple. Teams with high recognition as well as fame mean high awareness and, you would hope, high numbers of tourists. In Madrid’s case this may be so, but as for the basketball team, the thinking is more questionable. Perhaps this explains why they’re not getting paid.

The ad featuring the basketball players is all part of the Turespaña campaign under the slogan of “I Need Spain”. Yes, that campaign, the one that demands you fill in the missing words. I need Spain like I need a massive budget deficit; this sort of thing. Apparently, the basketball guys not only themselves need Spain, they love it. The ad carries the legend: “There is only one thing they love more than basketball – Spain”. We’ll take their word for it.

Questionable as this ad is in terms of what it might actually achieve for tourism, there is a question mark over whether a national basketball team should be going anywhere near Spanish tourism promotion. The reason for this is that basketball and Spain have form.

There was the unfortunate matter of the Spanish team which won the Paralympics gold medal in Sydney in 2000, but which turned out to have contained some ringers, i.e. players (ten out of the twelve) who were fully mentally able. Then there was the slitty-eyed gesture advert the men and women’s teams participated in during the Beijing Olympics, which might not have caused much of a fuss had Sid Lowe of “The Guardian” not brought it to the world’s attention. Let’s just say that Spanish basketball, in its 2011 incarnation, is more ambassadorial.

But what of Real Madrid? In June, a promotional video popped up with nine players. All good ambassadors for Spain? Only up to a point, as only two of them were Spanish. Otherwise it was a video that would have played well with the German tourism market (Özil and Khedira), the French (Benzema) and the all-important Brazilian (Kaká and Marcelo), Argentinian (Di María) and Portuguese (Ronaldo) markets.

There is a rather obvious question. Why Madrid and not Barcelona? Barça are after all European club champions. At the time of the announcement of the tie-up with Madrid, the minister for industry, tourism and commerce, Miguel Sebastián, said that it had not been possible to come to an agreement with the club that would have allowed the use of the team’s image and that things were rather easier where Madrid was concerned. Barcelona, however, said that there had been no request from the government.

Things being easier with Madrid than Barcelona presumably had nothing to do with Barça being littered with Catalan players and also nothing to do with the fact that the club had an existing agreement with the Catalonia Tourism Agency. The club has said that it is open to an approach from Turespaña so long as it doesn’t conflict with its arrangements with the agency, which it probably almost certainly would.

And so the age-old Madrid versus Barcelona, Spain versus Catalonia El Clásico national division persists and with it so tourism promotion becomes political. The basketball players love Spain and together with Real Madrid, the team with all its historical connotations of Spanishness, they form the faces of Spain. I need Spain. I need Spain like I need the eternal row between Castile and Catalonia.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Rationalising Tourism

A fortnight is not a long time in Mallorcan politics. It has proven to be a very short time when it comes to the organisation of the island’s tourism politics. Two weeks ago, 27 July (Guilty By Associations), I wrote about all the various bodies that litter Mallorca’s tourism industry, little knowing – but always hoping – that there was about to be some tidying up. One of these bodies, the Fundación Mallorca Turismo, is to have its foundations dug up. It will collapse into the island’s dusty ground whence it should never have been allowed to rise in the first place.

Responsibility for all tourism promotion and affairs is to be handed back to the regional government and to the Delgado tourism ministry. The Fundación, which falls under the Council of Mallorca, will be wound up.

One imagines the decision was not a difficult one. The Partido Popular, in charge of the Council and the government, has made it clear that it will seek to eliminate duplications in public administration, and the divvying up of tourism responsibilities between Council and government was one of the most obvious and one of the most absurd.

During the last administration, the Council and therefore the Fundación had acquired ever more responsibilities for tourism. Not all were duplications, but some, especially those in respect of promotion most definitely were. Quite what the thinking was, was hard to fathom, yet one partner in the old administration coalition, the PSM (Mallorcan socialists), had sought even more tourism powers for the Council. It was hard to fathom because tourism is central to Mallorca’s economy, and so should be right, slap bang in the heart of the government, not in an island authority. The PP is righting this mysterious wrong.

One area of responsibility that will stay with the Council is that for the Mallorca Film Commission. Going to the ministry, in addition to general promotion, are various others, such as the commercial missions to China and so-called product clubs – for cycling tourism and the other tourism “alternatives”. What happens to staff is not entirely clear. There will probably be some jobs found for them at the ministry, but underlying the scrapping of the Fundación, in addition to the wish to get rid of duplication, is an unstated sense of the PP being determined to also get rid of a system of jobs for boys and girls. And it is this system which raises a huge question mark over the whole of the Council of Mallorca.

Maria Salom, the president of the Council, has announced that the Council is up to its neck in debt to the tune of 329 million euros. It is some way short of the debt that the regional government has, but it is a public debt that Mallorca can ill afford to have hanging over it and it is a debt that is hard to understand, for the simple reason that it is hard to understand what the point of the Council is.

Salom, you begin to think, is like a chief executive sent in with the express purpose of rationalising a business within a conglomerate; rationalisation that is usually a euphemism for elimination. The left are expressing their concerns that this might in fact be the intention. Coming on top of the announcement of the closure of TV Mallorca, also under the Council, the winding up of the Fundación might indeed represent a step in the direction of what the PSIB (the Balearics wing of the PSOE socialist party) is claiming is a process of seeking to “liquidate” the Council. Salom, to emphasise the point, has said that were the Council a business it would be declared bankrupt.

I make no bones. I’m not a PP fan. But the left are surely barking up the wrong tree when they see a political agenda to what, were it to come about, would be sound public administration. I’ve argued the case for cutting back the Council or getting rid of it for some years. Not for political reasons, clearly not in my case, but for organisational reasons. And with the island’s public finances more or less down the pan as it is, then quite how sustainable the Council is, is a very reasonable question to pose.

PSIB seems to think that responsibilities for the highways and social well-being would disappear along with the Council. This is crazy. The government is just as capable of administering these as the Council is. The fact that such responsibilities are granted to the Council under agreements relating to the running of the autonomous community of the Balearics doesn’t mean to say they have to be granted.

I see no political agenda. This would not be a Thatcher-style vindictiveness, one that put paid to Ken Livingstone’s GLC. It would be straightforward pragmatism, something that the left seem not to appreciate.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Whatever You Do, Do Nothing: The follies of tourism promotion

Some corking gaffes have been made in the name of tourism advertising. Take the one of a photo of a man and a boy on a beach on the Costa Brava, an image of father-son bonding in a holiday idyll of a northern-Spanish style. The only problem was that it wasn’t the Costa Brava. It wasn’t anywhere near. It was a long, long way away. It wasn’t bonding on Bondi, but it was down under. Western Australia. Father and son were Shane and Shane Junior.

The Aussies exploited the gaffe and came up with their own campaign that alluded to the mistake and which featured the gag: “Western Australia – it’s Juan great holiday destination”. My, how everyone must have laughed, unless they were on the Costa Brava or in the offices of the agency that mistook Oz for Spain.

Last year, when the Redknapps were enjoining the Brit tourist to not just book it, but Thomas Cook it, those with particularly eagle eyes and a sadly large amount of time on their hands carefully scrutinised scenes of the Balearics. There, as the video camera flew by, was Menorca. No it wasn’t. It was Puerto Pollensa. Apparently. Not a non-fair dinkum gaffe in the class of the brave Costa Brava bloomer, but gaffe nonetheless.

To the honours list of advertising blunders we now have to add one that’s been doing the rounds in Britain. For Turkey. Unfortunately, the posters offering seven nights all-inclusive don’t show Turkey in its best light. They show Palma cathedral, the walls of Alcúdia and Cala Romántica in their best lights. A real turkey of touristic transposition, if you like. And if you don’t like, then don’t come complaining to me. Have a word with the div who should have shown a minaret and not a cathedral in a western Catholic, French Gothic tradition.

In the nearest thing you can get to a diplomatic row in the world of tourism promotion, ABTA and the London tourist office have been asked very kindly to deal with the matter by various indignant bodies in Mallorca. The director of the tourist office has said that as soon as they can find the agency responsible, they will instruct the agency and ABTA to remove the posters. Remove the posters and then smack whoever it was used the photos around the head with them.

Of course, it is most unlikely that most people, as in the punters, ever notice these mistakes, unless they spend their time poring over Thomas Cook videos and pausing for a freeze frame. It is also most unlikely that it makes a blind bit of difference. The combination of seven nights all-inclusive, 397 quid and Turkey is what gets the punter gobbling to attention. Some old church or walls? Who cares? Not interested in them. You wonder why anyone would think to use a picture of a cathedral to promote Turkey anyway. It’s hardly the first thing that would spring to the potential holidaymaker’s mind. They’d be better off using a photo of a kebab.

Given that only those who are in the know will pay any attention to what images are used, rightly or wrongly, and also given that the most important message is the bottom-line one of price and the actual offer, you have to ask just how powerful or important these images really are. In turn, this raises, once more, the question as to quite how significant some tourism promotion is.

We have a situation now in which, thanks in no small part to the excellent news of disturbances in competitor destinations, hotels in Mallorca are asking for Brit travel agencies and tour operators to hold back on selling for June because they fear there will be overbooking. Reservations are up by 12% as it is.

Exceptional circumstances perhaps, but the strength of Mallorca and its sheer reliability comes shining through in these revolutionary times. And there has, of course, been no great promotional campaign. Why should they bother having one? If tourists are going to fall into Mallorca’s lap, then they may as well fritter away the small amount of cash the government has on something more meaningful, such as spending a thousand euros per letter to translate tourism agency acronyms into Chinese.

Alternatively, they could take the opportunity to ram the message home. Something like: “Come to Mallorca, we got shot of our dictator 36 years ago”. But doing nothing is an altogether safer option. It removes the possibility of making a gaffe. Posters, for instance, showing Palma and its Plaza de España. But some idiot goes and uses a photo of Tahrir Square. There again, you might do so as a laugh – about as unfunny as the “Juan great holiday destination” admittedly – but chances are no one much would notice in any event, while the Egyptians have presumably got more pressing concerns than to fire off a reproachful missive to the Balearics tourism ministry.

The lesson of all this is that tourism promotion, and the attention lavished on lavish images, is about as pointless as making sure the images are the right ones in the first place. Was Nadal really cruising around off Balearics shores or was he in the Maldives? Who knows? Who cares? Not the punter. He wanted to know where he could find information as to the price of seven nights all-inclusive in Alcúdia, regardless of whether the walls of the town were in Turkey or not.

Tourism promotion. Whatever you do, do nothing.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Adopting Positions: Marketing Mallorca

The director of Air Berlin in Spain and Portugal, Álvaro Middelmann, has raised the possibility of reactivating the connection between Mallorca and California. It would require going via Berlin or Düsseldorf, but there is some merit to the idea, given the association that exists because of Fray Juniper. Crew from a US navy ship were recently in Petra, just to emphasise this association.

California, the US as a whole, and other farther-flung markets across the globe have never represented much by way of tourism business for Mallorca. Which doesn’t mean to say that Mallorca is not known; nor does it mean that there isn’t interest. I receive emails from all over the place about Mallorca – from the States and Canada, from Australia.

An old friend from South Africa has been in contact. He’d conducted a survey about Mallorca. Responses ranged from “never considered Mallorca”, “what is there to do besides the beach?”, “would consider Mallorca but has no information”, “perceives Mallorca to be just mass tourism”.

These responses are quite revealing, albeit on what was a limited sample, but my contact went on to say that more research needs to be done as to the thought processes when a decision is made as to holiday choice. This strikes a very strong chord.

I am not about to suggest that South Africa could ever become a major market for Mallorca, but as can be seen by attempts to attract a Chinese tourist market, distance is less of a factor than it once was. Plenty of South Africans travel to Europe, and plenty of Europeans travel to South Africa. It’s a small world. And in a world made smaller, diversity of market has become all important – for Mallorca and for anywhere reliant upon tourism.

Away from its mature markets, such as the UK and Germany, Mallorca faces a huge challenge in terms of getting a message across and standing out from the competition. And even with the mature markets, it faces a similar challenge of standing out.

The experience of the efforts to attract the Chinese is quite illuminating. The potential of this market may be more illusory than might be hoped, but the process of seeking it should be applauded. What has happened is that an understanding has been sought of a very different culture. It has been a process of understanding the thought processes.

But it has happened because it is clear that Chinese culture is very different. Where other markets are concerned, you wonder whether a similar effort has been made or even contemplated. If it hasn’t been, you come back to the erroneous attitude towards generic marketing, generic messages and promotions. They can be successful only in a limited way, by creating awareness, but little more.

The great failure of much tourism marketing lies in the vocabulary. The very term “tourism market” implies something that is homogeneous. It is anything but. The failure, though, is in treating it as such and therefore applying a sort of one-size-fits-all approach. It doesn’t work. And in Mallorca’s case, what has occurred is that it tries to be all things to all people. Generic advertising, such as TV campaigns, falls into this trap. Yes, it can raise awareness, yes, it can reinforce, but it doesn’t, in itself, “sell” and especially not if there isn’t a strong sense of “positioning” the brand that is Mallorca.

The concept of market positioning should be fundamental in tourism marketing. Essentially, this has to do with creating an image in the potential tourist’s mind, one of differentiation from competition, and also with then targeting specific markets once the right means are found to create that image. With the Chinese, this has been the process, but not with other markets. Crucially, the process appears to have been one of building up “images, benefits and differentiation (that) are solely the perception of the tourist, not the perceptions of the tourism officials or the tourism marketer” *.

Yet it is the perceptions of the tourism officials in Mallorca which generally prevail. They look upon the amorphous mass that is the tourism market with their eyes, not those of the tourist. It’s the wrong way round, and so you end up with generic TV campaigns that boast of fine beaches and turquoise seas. Nothing wrong with this; they are Mallorca’s core attributes. But how many other destinations have the same? How many other destinations have more culture, more of pretty much anything than Mallorca? This is the failure. The message doesn’t stand out, but the belief, the wrong belief, is that generic campaigns will make it stand out. It doesn’t.

To come back to Air Berlin and California, in Fray Juniper there exists the differentiation. His association is, if you like, a tourism calling-card from which all else can follow. The “position” is therefore quite different to the usual marketing of Mallorca, and so it should be for other markets. For the South Africans, it would have to be more than the beaches and the seas. It would have to be meaningful to them. It would have to be more sophisticated in understanding the thought processes that might appeal to a tourist. This is what marketing of Mallorca should be about, regardless of market, mature or new, not simply the scatter-gun chucking of money at one-size-fits-all campaigns.

* Professor Harsha Chacko, University of New Orleans, “Positioning A Tourism Destination To Gain A Competitive Edge”.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Importance Of Being Erstwhile

“To lose one director of a tourism agency, Sra. Barceló, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose a second looks like carelessness.”

The tourism ministry. Home to the former, the ex, the one-time. The erstwhile. Mar Guerrero has walked away from her job as director of the ATB (the Balearics tourism agency), nine months after having replaced the erstwhile head of the erstwhile IBATUR agency. This is a real blow. Guerrero was greatly admired and liked. Her already high stock has been raised by her having done something quite unusual. She has made herself erstwhile by resigning. On a matter of principle.

She has said that she didn’t like having to sell motorcycles. This might sound a rather odd thing to say, but it’s a translation of a Spanish expression which means not wanting to pull the wool over people’s eyes. Not wanting to deceive, if you like. This is an almost unheard of point of honour from someone in Mallorcan public life. Rather than keeping mum and pocketing her salary, she has gone. She did actually tender her resignation three months ago, but had agreed to stay on until there could be some “consensus” to explain her departure. Things obviously came to a head before that consensus could have been agreed.

Why has she gone? There seem to be several reasons. One is that the job was not the one in the brochure. She was not allowed to do what she was brought in to do. And why? Because political needs appear to have got in the way. It doesn’t seem as if it was an issue over the level of funding, more one of where the funding was to go. Nevertheless, there seems also to have been a political desire to have committed to promotion, to have raised expectations without there being the credit to meet them. There was also a lack of transparency. This is the selling of the motorcycles.

It is all rather strange that just as Guerrero announces her resignation, the tourism minister Joana Barceló makes her own announcement – that of the budget for tourism promotion. It will be just short of 45 million euros, higher than last year. What is doubly strange is that this has risen from the 22 million euros that was being spoken of earlier this month and which appeared to be the limit set by the regional government’s treasury minister, Carles Manera.

To add to the mystery there is the fact that an emailed document, leaked to the press some days ago, stated that the tourism ministry had no money available for developing a marketing plan this year. (It might also be remembered that the tourism ministry has been in debt to the tune of 47 million euros, now down to 39.5 million.) This email was sent from the ministry to the ATB and so was presumably seen by Guerrero and her finance director who has also resigned.

There could well be a simple explanation for the sudden discovery of this additional funding. The regional government’s bond issue has been a considerable success, and, as I had suggested previously, the capital raised could quite well be made available for tourism promotion. But things don’t really add up. The timing of Barceló’s announcement seems opportune to say the least, a way of deflecting the bad news of the resignations. And then there is the matter of that leaked document. It was released at the same time as Barceló was saying at the FITUR fair in Madrid that there wouldn’t be a lack of funding. How did the press come by it?

Of the money now being promised, nine million of it will go to the councils of the different islands, such as the Council of Mallorca, for them to engage in their own promotion. You are back again to the issue of duplication, for 6.9 million will also go directly on promotion through the ATB. Of the rest, and from the original 22 million, there is money to meet agreements previously entered into with town halls operated or then operated by the Unió Mallorquina party, Alcúdia and Pollensa being two of the four in question.

The UM, it should be recalled, ran the tourism ministry before it was booted out of the coalition; it is now having overtures made to it by the ruling PSOE socialist party to sound it out as to a possible future coalition. There is also 3.1 million euros for renovation work to be undertaken at the Pati de Sa Lluna in Menorca. This may be money well spent, but who in the regional government is from Menorca, a leading PSOE politician in Menorca and the erstwhile president of its council? Joana Barceló.

Guerrero has gone. Her departure signals more disruption within the tourism ministry, the one of which tour operators and hoteliers have asked that there be stability and continuity. Well, there is continuity. It is that of continual change. And what seems to have prompted this latest change is a political agenda, one to which she was not amenable.

Some of the erstwhile figures at the tourism ministry did not leave of their own volition. One now has. And it is important to know why. The question is whether we really do know why.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Money Isn’t Everything: Tourism promotion

Something rather odd has been happening. Prospects for this summer’s tourism are looking good. It’s not just the regional government saying so, the tourism industry is also confident.

This may not be odd when you consider factors such as increased prices in competitor destinations and events in Tunisia, but it is when you add in one further element, or rather its absence. Promotion. The government’s promotion.

As mentioned yesterday, haggling is still going on in governmental circles as to what exactly the budget for promotion will be. Though the tourism agency (ATB) announced a couple of weeks ago that it will be assigning 22 million euros, precise spend and therefore precise plans have yet to be agreed.

Despite this, we are presented with evidence painting a rosy picture for this coming season. Which leads you to question the role of the government’s promotion. There hasn’t been any, yet there are optimistic noises.

Regular are the calls for more government money to be spent on tourism promotion and for television campaigns. Regular also are the links made between a failure to spend, a failure to engage in high-impact campaigns and a future of dwindling tourism in the face of international competition. Far less regular are any suggestions that this promotional spend and these campaigns may not make massive amounts of difference.

You can point to any number of reasons as to why the noises are optimistic, and one of them is reliability. It may not be an exciting message, but for a tourism market which is generally less than adventuresome and wishes only to be guaranteed reasonable value for money, then Mallorca can satisfy this wish. It doesn’t necessarily need to offer excitement, especially as, as a “brand”, one built up over many years, its attributes are well-enough known.

When promotion is spoken about, it tends to be done so in terms of headlining advertising, such as that involving Rafael Nadal. But this advertising is only part of the promotional equation. Its value lies as much with creating “front of mind” or reinforcing a message to the punter as it does with creating significant new business. Just as important is what goes on that is largely hidden, for example the co-operative campaigns between the government and the tour operators.

When the tourism minister Barceló was threatening to remove funding for such co-operation with Thomas Cook when it started deducting 5% from what it owed hotels, she was playing politics. It would never have been done, as to have done so would have been a case of cutting off her nose to spite Mallorca’s face.

What is overlooked when it comes to tourism promotion is the sheer volume of it that is done on the government’s behalf. The government has its own websites, but how many others are out there doing promotion that is as good if not better? In addition to tour operators and villa agencies, there are numerous websites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter accounts, apps for mobiles all doing their bit. Where the government has been missing a trick is in not engaging with this informal resource that does so much work for it.

The internet has totally transformed tourism promotion and, for the most part, it is considerably less expensive than television or glossy print advertising. Criticisms of the style of headlining advertising, of the Nadal type, or of its absence miss the point that its value is greatly exaggerated within the mix of media and the vast number of sources of information and promotion that are available to the tourist.

Shortage of funding for the government’s tourism promotion is, in one respect, a positive. Or will be if it has the effect of making the tourism agencies think more carefully about how they use the different tools that exist in order to get their message across. Having a huge budget does not guarantee anything other than potentially wastefully expensive, “vanity” campaigns, the returns on which are difficult if not impossible to calculate. The Nadal campaign was an example of “ego” advertising; not Nadal’s ego but that of the person responsible for commissioning it.

Altogether less glamorous are the associations with the tour operators, travel agencies and online brokers; the optimisation of websites and the working with those who are performing a task for tourism promotion; the tourism delegations, especially those in the newer markets. They are less glamorous but they are more meaningful.

So if it turns out there isn’t some expensive TV campaign, it shouldn’t be considered a failure. It might just actually be the most sensible thing the tourism ministry has done.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Along For The Ride: Travel fairs and public finance

During the winter the Balearics go on tour. London before Christmas, Madrid and then the biggy, Berlin in March. These are the venues for the three main travel fairs, chances for the great and good and less great and good of Balearic politics and tourism to press some flesh and have their photos taken.

The islands have been to Madrid for FITUR, the Feria Internacional de Turismo en España. In addition to directors and sinecure holders of whatever the tourism agencies are these days, there are hoteliers, airline top brass and of course the politicos. The latter have been in Madrid en masse. President Antich and tourism minister Barceló have been making the most of what may be their last opportunities to partake of the free vino before being taken down in May’s elections like stands at the end of an exhibition.

They have been joined by jolly Joe Ray Bowser, the mental-lapsing leader of the Partido Popular, who’s presumably been there to try and learn something about tourism. This is the politician who believes that the Baltic States are competitors to Mallorca. He’s a shining example of tourism knowledge and, as such, deserves to become president.

Also along for the craic has been Joe Melià. Not the Joe Melià, a minor British television actor, but the Joe Melià, a minor Mallorcan politician, as in the latest in the list of leaders of the Unió Mallorquina. Amazing that he has dared show his face, given his party’s involvement with the corruption cases at the tourism ministry and the little local difficulty it is presently experiencing with the waste scandal. “Oi, Melià, what you doing here? Collecting the rubbish?”

This year they have also dragged along kids from the choir at Escolanía de Lluc, which is attached to the monastery. Known as the “Blauets”, one of the choir sang the Sibil·la for the assembled dignitaries. All part of promoting Mallorca’s newly bestowed “intangible cultural heritage of humanity”, that is the Sibil·la, and all very sweet but also all rather clutching at straws if the tourism worthies seriously believe this is going to be something that will have tourists flocking to the island.

A great deal of attention is paid to FITUR and the other fairs, a reflection of the importance of tourism and of all the press opportunities the fairs afford the politicians and the tourism industry. President Antich has seized the moment to state that investment on tourism has never been as high as it has been during his current period of office.

Not that he has said much about spending on tourism promotion this year. In fact he hasn’t said anything, because he can’t. The tourism ministry is still in negotiations with the treasury which is desperately hunting down the back of its sofa and inside its jacket pockets for any loose change it can come across to pay for some promotion.

Antich was responding to complaints from the hoteliers as to the apparent tardiness with which money is being made available for promotion. But they, the hoteliers, will be aware of just how dicey the Balearics’ financial state has become. It is not as parlous as that of Catalonia which started selling debt to its own people in October because it is more or less shut out of international capital markets, but it isn’t in a healthy position. At the same time as the politicians have been enjoying themselves in Madrid, the regional government has decided to follow Catalonia (and also Valencia and the Basque Country) in selling public debt to the initial tune of 200 million euros. Catalonia, despite the sale, is said to have only a couple of months’ worth of reserves.

The FITUR fair has been a case of putting on a brave face. By the time the Balearics take Berlin in March, hopefully the debt sale will have been that successful that there will be cash floating around that has been earmarked for tourism promotion. But the Balearics, as with the other autonomous regions of Spain, are firmly under the central-government microscope, Zapatero having warned that the government will intervene if necessary to control the regions’ debts. The governor of the Bank of Spain has said that the regions may pose the “greatest risk” to Spain’s finances (as reported by “Bloomberg Businessweek” back in October).

All this suggests, therefore, that money is going to be even tighter than might have been imagined, which means that it will be even tighter for tourism promotion. It’s not a particularly optimistic picture, and the whole issue of regional funding is likely to get worse. Which makes you wonder what participation at future fairs is going to be like and, more importantly, how capable Mallorca and the Balearics are going be in promoting themselves.

The days of the junkets at the fairs might be over, and if you want just one example of what is spent on them, other than the costs of shipping the politicos and the rest, then look no further than the new stand at FITUR – just over two million euros. Is this a lot? Perhaps not, but it becomes so when you realise what the government is trying to raise through its bonds.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Kissing With Confidence: Embracing Facebook

The Pope is to be confronted by a kiss-in – a “queer kissing flashmob” – when he turns up in Barcelona on Sunday. A gay and lesbian demonstration will involve two minutes of slobbering. “Avert your eyes, Holy Father. They’re using tongues and all.”

This is part of what is an ongoing collapse of Catholicism in Spain. The rearguard, die-hard Catholics are said to be outraged. Which is presumably part of the reason for the kiss protest. What the Pope thinks about it, who knows. Not that keen, one would imagine. He probably won’t be videoing it all on his mobile and then posting it on YouTube. Does the Pope do the internet in this way, do you suppose? Doubtful. It’s unlikely that he tweets or has a Facebook page. If he did, then he might have been invited to the kiss-in or been asked whether he liked it or to have even been asked to become a “friend”. The notion of the Pope being poked by some gay activists is really not something one should devote too much time thinking about.

The demo has been arranged through Facebook. Ah yes, Facebook. Where would we be without it? With a lot more time on our hands to do something more productive, like lying down or watching the telly. We would also be a whole lot less likely to be invited to demos or to partake in some action, gay, lesbian or otherwise.

In recent times, Facebook has been used locally to try and arrange an alternative to the Can Picafort night party during the summer fiesta (i.e. staging it on the beach where it used to be held); to call to arms supporters of live ducks being thrown into the sea (also in Can Picafort, and a movement which furthermore featured a YouTube video with, coincidentally, a “Pope” enticing some Donalds from the Son Bauló torrent); and to post pictures of rubbish, graffiti and general unpleasantness in Pollensa and its port. I daresay there have been many others. Were I to spend my life hooked up to Facebook, I might be able to tell you about them, but I don’t. I am ambivalent towards it.

A touch of citizen participation agitprop seems a pretty good application of Facebook. I am all in favour. There are plenty of other benefits. What I don’t like is the controlling nature of Facebook, the control on time and the sheer impulse to use it. This stems from an irrational further dislike, that of having been steered in its direction by some nerdy geek who wasn’t much good at getting his leg over. I can at least take satisfaction in the knowledge that a time will come when we all hate Mark Zuckerberg as much as we now hate Bill Gates.

The rotten thing about Facebook is that it can be so useful. And not just to the summer-employed population of Mallorca, now with so much free time that they can to go into Facebook overdrive when not standing in the “paro” queues. No, it’s more useful than this and more useful than appealing to the agitating duck-fanciers of Can Picafort.

It has occurred to me to wonder quite why so many resources, mainly money, are piled into the creation of governmental and local authority tourism websites, especially as most of them are completely useless or are embarrassing in their use of English. Facebook’s free. And there are all manner of people knocking around who do pages which serve a similar sort of purpose. Like myself. At least I was doing so until I started to get bored with it all towards the end of the season.

But with the Facebooks and indeed websites that are privately operated, there is an enormous resource that basically does the job of the tourism authorities for them. Moreover, they often speak to the audience in a far more comprehensible and helpful fashion than the “official” sites.

Of course, these alternatives would never be sanctioned as being real mouthpieces because they might – and do – say things that the authorities do not care for. You are more likely to get information and opinion, warts and all. This doesn’t square with the default mode of websites and their descriptions of everything as “beautiful” or “paradise”, the sea as “turquoise” or the natives as “welcoming and friendly”. And you might also get, because this is the nature of Facebook, pages that are friends with or who like gays kissing in front of the Pope or illegally live ducks quacking in the sea off Can Picafort. Tut, tut, that would never do.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.