Desperation: Promotion to the British market

The Balearic Government and the Spanish tourism promotion agency, Turespaña, are combining to spend one and a half million euros on a campaign to attract last-minute British tourists. This comes in the context of an 11% decline in British tourism this season. The campaign will be a pure selling one, rather than one with "image" in mind.

The fact that this campaign is being launched now raises questions. Why wasn't something done earlier when it was clear that the British market was down? Why does it take the admission of poor numbers from the UK to convince the government and others that concentrating on "image" promotion is largely irrelevant? What will these poor numbers mean in more general terms?

The answers to the first two questions can be explained, in part, by the turmoil at the tourism ministry and the lack of cohesion in respect of marketing this year and by an erroneous belief that spending considerable amounts of money on celebrities, i.e. Rafa Nadal, to appear in adverts that get shunted to obscure outer reaches of television will have any impact. The third question is more complex.

There was a decline in British tourism last year as well, and we know why. It may be a short-term decline, but hoteliers and tour operators cannot afford to wait for the short term to end. In other words, they cannot afford for 2011 to be as Brit bad. They cannot afford for occupancy figures to be the same, or worse, than those which have been admitted to in certain instances: occupancy rates as low as 25% or little better than 50% in specific hotels in both Puerto Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa, hotels with a high reliance on the British market.

What is becoming clear is that some hotels are looking to lessen this reliance or get rid of the British altogether. It isn't only the stronger of the established markets, German and Scandinavian, to which they are turning; the new markets of eastern Europe are being eyed up with ever-increasing desire. What one may well find is a distinct shift in terms of tourism demographics, both geographically and socially. Take, for example, the experience of Cala San Vicente. It has seen the influx of an economy-class Polish market. If the Don Pedro does finally get knocked down, or even if it doesn't, there's plenty of space over in Puerto Pollensa, space that could just as easily be made all-inclusive, as with the relatively small Don Pedro (fewer than 150 rooms), space that could be taken up by non-British markets.

Whether this latest promotional campaign will have any effect, who knows. Whether any of these campaigns have much effect, who knows. This one sounds like a case of desperation promotion.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.