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.