True And Fair? The number of all-inclusives

A restaurant owner in Playa de Muro said to me the other day that he had read that 65% of hotels in Mallorca were now all-inclusive. Give it another three years, and that number will be 100%, so he reckoned.

Always believe what you read. What can you believe? If the trend towards all-inclusives was this strong, it would already have been clear two years or so ago. This particular restaurant opened two years ago, some time into the season, following months of expensive work on converting one premises and re-modelling another. Why do it if the trend was already observable and if it was likely to be as great as it is now being claimed? Why do it, if all you do is moan about what the hotels are up to?

I am afraid you do have to wonder as to some business decisions, given the changes in market conditions. You do also have to wonder as to what people are prepared to believe and as to what they should make of the figures which get bandied around by various bodies. Take a piece from yesterday's "Ultima Hora". Reporting statistics from the tourism ministry, this says that the total number of hotels in Mallorca which offer all-inclusive only - the "exclusive" all-inclusive - is 48, representing a mere 3% of the total number of establishments. The figure is highly misleading, as it takes no account of size of hotel. More relevant is the total number of places in these 48 hotels - a bit under 23,000. Which sounds a lot, and may indeed be a lot, but there is no figure given as to the total number of places in all hotels.

Even allowing for this 3% to be correct, there is another confusion, and this has to do with the so-called "partial" all-inclusive, i.e. hotels which offer all-inclusive as an option in addition to other forms of accommodation. The hotel federation in Mallorca says that 165 establishments have this offer. Not that this gets us very far.

We are regularly subjected to these statistics, but never do we get a true and fair picture. You do have to wonder if "they" would rather "we" didn't get it. Or perhaps an accurate picture is not available. Can the ministry or the federation be sure about all those "upgrades" that take place when a holidaymaker is checking in at reception?

But it is only when and if a complete list of hotels and the precise number of all-inclusive places is published, and by resort, that we will ever really understand the extent of all-inclusive. And it is this which is lacking. The 3% figure, for example, is irrelevant as it takes no account of local conditions - by resort. As I have mentioned before, Puerto Pollensa cannot compare with Puerto Alcúdia, Can Picafort and Playa de Muro when it comes to all-inclusive offers, as they barely exist in Puerto Pollensa.

Until such information is made available and is truly transparent, which it is not at present, restaurant owners (and others) will continue to believe what they read, even if it is not accurate. And they will continue to bemoan their luck. But they should also take a look at themselves and at their decisions. In Playa de Muro, which does have a number of all-inclusive places, the bad-luck stories all centre on these places, except in the case of some businesses, such as Boulevard and its Dakotas. They have opened a second Dakota in the resort, and the boss has told me that all-inclusives have not affected them. And if this is true, then you do have to further wonder as to factors like marketing and trying that little bit harder, especially at a time of changed market conditions. Whither, therefore, one might ask, the traditional restaurant?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.