There was a bit of a rumpus at the Berlin ITB travel fair. It was to do with a logo, the one for the Maldives, official partner of the 2016 fair. Was it familiar? Was it rather like the logo used for Spain by Turespaña, the one that the painter Joan Miró had designed all those years ago?
Well, perhaps there was some similarity in the image of the sun, though whether it was a conscious attempt at imitation would be impossible to say. What one can say is that the Maldives' logo lacks the distinctive Miró flavour. Similar maybe but not the discernible style that characterised much of Miró's work.
The Turespaña logo dates from 1984, the year after Miró died. It is a logo that is one of the most recognisable graphic displays of branding in the tourism world. In terms of recognition, it is right up there with New York. While Miró may not be to everyone's taste, there is no denying the unique quality of the logo and of so much of his oeuvre. It is unmistakably Miró and it is for this reason that the logo has acquired such a reputation. It is different. It stands out. It makes a statement. It also captures the essence of culture - art in this instance - and of what Spain represents for so many, the sun. As a logo, it does more or less everything a logo should do.
This was not the first time that Miró had designed a logo for tourism. In the early 1970s he donated one to the Fomento del Turismo, the Mallorca Tourist Board. The Sol de Mallorca should arguably now be as famous and as recognised as the Spanish sun. Perhaps they thought there would be confusion by having two Miró logos. Perhaps it was because the newly formed regional government wanted, from 1983, to have its own logo. Whatever the reason, the Sol de Mallorca ceased to be the abiding image for the island's tourism. There has not been a good one ever since.
A logo is only as good as what supports it and what it represents. If a destination lacks substance, strong attributes and messages, then a logo on its own achieves comparatively little. A strong logo isn't always necessary, though. Palma, for example, is doing fine without having one.
In Palma's case, it is the substance and the marketing of its virtues which are proving to be the bedrock for the city's current success. And one of these is Miró. Of the three giants of twentieth century Spanish art, Miró didn't cultivate fame and notoriety in the way that Dali and Picasso did. For this reason, his name is not as strong on a global stage. But it is strong enough, and precisely because he was an altogether more humble man, it can be argued that there was and is greater substance to him. He didn't need the extravagances of publicity to declare his genius.
Miró, the man, his work and his personality have become something of a marketing concept for Palma. It makes very good sense that he should be, as does the apparent closeness between the Pilar and Joan Miró Foundation and the city in using this personality. To promote a city of culture, then who better to do so than an artist with such a strong association with the city and who bequeathed to it the buildings which combine to provide the Miró museum.
Mallorca has had a thing with using individuals for promotional purposes in the past, though this hasn't necessarily been terribly successful. Michael Douglas was arguably one of the more successful, but a weakness of the approach has been to use personalities whose associations are relatively superficial. This cannot be said of Miró. His Palma roots were and are deep.
When writing yesterday's article about the Tramuntana, I had thought about this use of personality. Reflecting on Palma's 365 marketing, Miró as some sort of figurehead is ideal. But Palma's marketing is, as observed yesterday, in a totally different league to that of the Tramuntana. It is heading towards a peak of excellence, while the Tramuntana's has yet to even aspire to make base camp.
If there were to be a personality for the Tramuntana, who would it be? Who, for a global audience, has the substance that Miró has for Palma? There are few candidates. Not Ramon Llull because the world doesn't know him. Not the Archduke Louis Salvador because only German speakers are aware of him. Chopin (and George Sand)? No. A three-month only residence disqualifies both as does the dislike that they expressed for Mallorca. Which leaves?
Someone with a deep association with the mountains and affinity with the culture. Someone whose name goes around the world. Someone who assisted in even better known personalities coming to Mallorca - Ava Gardner, Orson Welles and others. Robert Graves is that someone.
Showing posts with label Marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marketing. Show all posts
Friday, March 18, 2016
Thursday, March 17, 2016
The Tramuntana: The Confusion Continues
Nine months ago, I wrote an article with the byline "tourism confusion". It was about the Tramuntana mountains and their promotion for tourism purposes. In that article I wondered about the organisation of the Tramuntana. Had there been a lack of political will? Had there been difficulties of co-ordination? Or was the whole management of the mountains within a tourism framework suffering from the lack of a clear vision as to what is wanted from the Tramuntana?
I suggested that a change in the political landscape might bring with it a more sympathetic attitude but that there would remain the question as to what the vision actually was. Well, that political change appears to have made very little difference. Mallorca has a marvellous asset and public institutions still apparently incapable of appreciating just how marvellous and of making this marvel known.
At the most recent Council of Mallorca full session was an item about the Tramuntana. Antoni Serra Comas, a Partido Popular councillor, said that the consortium which supposedly oversees the promotional development of the mountains was "in a state of total paralysis". He said that the regional government needed to figure out "what type of management model there should be for promoting the Tramuntana".
Comas was immediately identifying a structural problem. Which institution actually has overall responsibility? The Council of Mallorca has a great deal and will doubtless assume more once tourism promotion responsibilities are fully devolved to it. So why might the regional government need to be involved? Well, a reason is that the consortium to which Comas was referring - Consorcio Sierra de Tramuntana Patrimonio Mundial, to give it its full title - falls under the auspices of the ministry for the presidency: President Armengol of the regional government, that is.
On the government's website, it still names Bartomeu Deyà as being the head of this consortium. In fact, as Comas alluded to, he ceased to be its director last October. Since then, as I'm led to believe, there has been an executive looking after the shop. But no replacement as director has been found, despite, so I understand, one notable approach having been made.
There are those, it has been said to me, who were not totally enamoured of Deyà's performance. This is not for me comment on, but he came to the role with fifteen years of experience as manager of the Fomento del Turismo (Mallorca Tourist Board). He must have had something about him and more than just the fact that he was a Partido Popular appointment: one made by the former president of the Council, Maria Salom. Yes, a Council of Mallorca appointment, raising again the issue of institutional responsibility.
The governing board of the consortium has, since it was formed in 2011, had the president of the Council of Mallorca as its president. It is now Miquel Ensenyat. The vice-president is from the Council, which provides other members, as does the regional government. Plus there are observers from political parties that don't form the administrations at government and Council levels. Oh, and there are representatives from each of the Tramuntana municipalities on the consortium as well, most of whom will be new because of changes following the elections last May.
The apparent institutional confusion may well be a reason why the consortium seems to have been largely ineffective. Another is the lack of continuity. Political changes are to be expected, but it doesn't follow that these automatically have to lead to senior officials also changing. A good example of this is the Palma 365 Foundation. Pedro Homar has remained in place. He said in a recent interview that political change in Palma had made no difference to his job or to the work of Palma 365. The commitment was as it was under the PP. Indeed, it might be said to be greater.
This foundation and the Tramuntana consortium are designed to promote two key projects for promoting alternative forms of tourism for Mallorca: Palma all year and the mountains and all they have to offer. The consortium does have to abide by Unesco rules, so it does have an outside influence that Palma doesn't. But this shouldn't be an excuse for the great contrast in developments since both were formed.
They have been in existence for roughly the same length of time. While Palma goes from strength to strength, the Tramuntana is stuck in a state of paralysis, as Comas calls it. But there is one very major difference between the two bodies. Palma 365 has enormous private sector support. The mountains do not.
With Palma 365, the likes of TUI have worked closely in developing and rolling out the strategy. The Tramuntana could benefit from the same. Instead there are all sorts of public institutions and representatives who are involved in getting the strategy nowhere. Comas is right. A new management model is needed. The question is - who takes the decision?
I suggested that a change in the political landscape might bring with it a more sympathetic attitude but that there would remain the question as to what the vision actually was. Well, that political change appears to have made very little difference. Mallorca has a marvellous asset and public institutions still apparently incapable of appreciating just how marvellous and of making this marvel known.
At the most recent Council of Mallorca full session was an item about the Tramuntana. Antoni Serra Comas, a Partido Popular councillor, said that the consortium which supposedly oversees the promotional development of the mountains was "in a state of total paralysis". He said that the regional government needed to figure out "what type of management model there should be for promoting the Tramuntana".
Comas was immediately identifying a structural problem. Which institution actually has overall responsibility? The Council of Mallorca has a great deal and will doubtless assume more once tourism promotion responsibilities are fully devolved to it. So why might the regional government need to be involved? Well, a reason is that the consortium to which Comas was referring - Consorcio Sierra de Tramuntana Patrimonio Mundial, to give it its full title - falls under the auspices of the ministry for the presidency: President Armengol of the regional government, that is.
On the government's website, it still names Bartomeu Deyà as being the head of this consortium. In fact, as Comas alluded to, he ceased to be its director last October. Since then, as I'm led to believe, there has been an executive looking after the shop. But no replacement as director has been found, despite, so I understand, one notable approach having been made.
There are those, it has been said to me, who were not totally enamoured of Deyà's performance. This is not for me comment on, but he came to the role with fifteen years of experience as manager of the Fomento del Turismo (Mallorca Tourist Board). He must have had something about him and more than just the fact that he was a Partido Popular appointment: one made by the former president of the Council, Maria Salom. Yes, a Council of Mallorca appointment, raising again the issue of institutional responsibility.
The governing board of the consortium has, since it was formed in 2011, had the president of the Council of Mallorca as its president. It is now Miquel Ensenyat. The vice-president is from the Council, which provides other members, as does the regional government. Plus there are observers from political parties that don't form the administrations at government and Council levels. Oh, and there are representatives from each of the Tramuntana municipalities on the consortium as well, most of whom will be new because of changes following the elections last May.
The apparent institutional confusion may well be a reason why the consortium seems to have been largely ineffective. Another is the lack of continuity. Political changes are to be expected, but it doesn't follow that these automatically have to lead to senior officials also changing. A good example of this is the Palma 365 Foundation. Pedro Homar has remained in place. He said in a recent interview that political change in Palma had made no difference to his job or to the work of Palma 365. The commitment was as it was under the PP. Indeed, it might be said to be greater.
This foundation and the Tramuntana consortium are designed to promote two key projects for promoting alternative forms of tourism for Mallorca: Palma all year and the mountains and all they have to offer. The consortium does have to abide by Unesco rules, so it does have an outside influence that Palma doesn't. But this shouldn't be an excuse for the great contrast in developments since both were formed.
They have been in existence for roughly the same length of time. While Palma goes from strength to strength, the Tramuntana is stuck in a state of paralysis, as Comas calls it. But there is one very major difference between the two bodies. Palma 365 has enormous private sector support. The mountains do not.
With Palma 365, the likes of TUI have worked closely in developing and rolling out the strategy. The Tramuntana could benefit from the same. Instead there are all sorts of public institutions and representatives who are involved in getting the strategy nowhere. Comas is right. A new management model is needed. The question is - who takes the decision?
Friday, February 05, 2016
Selling Emotion: City branding
Madrid. What does it stand for? If you have any suggestions, you may wish to direct them to Carlos Chaguaceda. He is the director-general for tourism in the community of Madrid, which is the region of Madrid as opposed to just the city.
Interesting chap, Chaguaceda, as he doesn't seem like the normal type you would expect to be appointed as a regional government's head of tourism. He is, dare one say, a professional. Which is not to say that there have never been other professionals in similar positions in other Spanish regions, such as the Balearics. But which is to say that they haven't necessarily been obvious.
Chaguaceda's CV includes having been the director of corporate communications for Coca-Cola España. In other words, he knows a thing or two about marketing. He also been Brussels correspondent for Antena 3 Televisión. He knows a thing or two about journalism and the media.
Last November, a manual written by him was published. Its title in English is "You Can Be News". In explaining the book he observed that in the world of the media, if you're not in the media, then you don't exist. Everything, where the market is concerned (whatever this market might be or how it is defined), is dependent upon communication. From what is communicated comes the prestige that is wished to be created. But it isn't enough to be visible in the media, there has to be an understanding of the roles played by advertising, social media, creating viral communications and so on.
All this should be obvious, but sometimes it does require someone to state the obvious. And there is more. Another book that Chaguaceda has penned translates as "The Happy Monkey". It is more scientific in that it explores brain functions in generating emotions and in considering how there is a common process for finding happiness.
This latter book might all sound rather obscure and technical and perhaps it is, but its message is not. Its application is what Chaguaceda is now considering within the broad context of media management and marketing for the community of Madrid. He wants to make an emotional connection between visitors, the city of Madrid and its surrounding areas.
Though his geographical responsibility is broader, the city is of course crucial. It bears the same name as the region and so it is what the outside world recognises. But while there is recognition and visibility as well as there already being high numbers of visitors, what is that Madrid represents? What does it stand for? What or where is the emotional connection and the impulse towards visitor happiness?
Chaguaceda says that a brand (in this case a city or region) means creating an experience, an expectation and an emotional relationship. But what emotion is Madrid associated with? Indeed, what is it associated with full stop? Other than Real Madrid, in global terms, it's a struggle to think what this might be. The same cannot be said of other major European cities, such as London, Paris or Rome, or even certain cities in the next tier, like Milan or Amsterdam.
Madrid is already a successful city, meaning that the region is successful, but success needs to not only be consolidated it has to be enhanced. What Chaguaceda is aiming to do should, therefore, be of interest to Palma and to Mallorca. If one were to ask the same questions of Palma as of Madrid, then what would the answers be? What actually does Palma stand for? What is it that creates an emotional bond? What is its iconic imagery?
With Palma, though, I would suggest that the challenge is different to the one Chaguaceda is grappling with. While Palma is known and is visible, it is the region (Mallorca) which is far more known and visible. It is also something with which one is well aware that there is an emotional bond, and one that has existed for decades. The same, I would argue, doesn't apply to Palma. Chaguaceda says that co-operation with the city has been straightforward because essentially the city and region are promoting the same thing. In Mallorca, however, it can appear as if Palma is tangential to the rest of the island and is overlooking the strength that the Mallorca "brand" gives it as a city.
Communication for Palma has been getting better, and the city is becoming more successful, but the communication is still well short of what it should be. The same can most certainly be said for Mallorca as a whole and for individual municipalities, whose communication is, in overseas terms, all but non-existent. The two - the city and island - need to dovetail. They draw strength from each other and not separately. The icon of Mallorca is the emotion of decades. The marketers (and politicians) might do well to remember this.
Interesting chap, Chaguaceda, as he doesn't seem like the normal type you would expect to be appointed as a regional government's head of tourism. He is, dare one say, a professional. Which is not to say that there have never been other professionals in similar positions in other Spanish regions, such as the Balearics. But which is to say that they haven't necessarily been obvious.
Chaguaceda's CV includes having been the director of corporate communications for Coca-Cola España. In other words, he knows a thing or two about marketing. He also been Brussels correspondent for Antena 3 Televisión. He knows a thing or two about journalism and the media.
Last November, a manual written by him was published. Its title in English is "You Can Be News". In explaining the book he observed that in the world of the media, if you're not in the media, then you don't exist. Everything, where the market is concerned (whatever this market might be or how it is defined), is dependent upon communication. From what is communicated comes the prestige that is wished to be created. But it isn't enough to be visible in the media, there has to be an understanding of the roles played by advertising, social media, creating viral communications and so on.
All this should be obvious, but sometimes it does require someone to state the obvious. And there is more. Another book that Chaguaceda has penned translates as "The Happy Monkey". It is more scientific in that it explores brain functions in generating emotions and in considering how there is a common process for finding happiness.
This latter book might all sound rather obscure and technical and perhaps it is, but its message is not. Its application is what Chaguaceda is now considering within the broad context of media management and marketing for the community of Madrid. He wants to make an emotional connection between visitors, the city of Madrid and its surrounding areas.
Though his geographical responsibility is broader, the city is of course crucial. It bears the same name as the region and so it is what the outside world recognises. But while there is recognition and visibility as well as there already being high numbers of visitors, what is that Madrid represents? What does it stand for? What or where is the emotional connection and the impulse towards visitor happiness?
Chaguaceda says that a brand (in this case a city or region) means creating an experience, an expectation and an emotional relationship. But what emotion is Madrid associated with? Indeed, what is it associated with full stop? Other than Real Madrid, in global terms, it's a struggle to think what this might be. The same cannot be said of other major European cities, such as London, Paris or Rome, or even certain cities in the next tier, like Milan or Amsterdam.
Madrid is already a successful city, meaning that the region is successful, but success needs to not only be consolidated it has to be enhanced. What Chaguaceda is aiming to do should, therefore, be of interest to Palma and to Mallorca. If one were to ask the same questions of Palma as of Madrid, then what would the answers be? What actually does Palma stand for? What is it that creates an emotional bond? What is its iconic imagery?
With Palma, though, I would suggest that the challenge is different to the one Chaguaceda is grappling with. While Palma is known and is visible, it is the region (Mallorca) which is far more known and visible. It is also something with which one is well aware that there is an emotional bond, and one that has existed for decades. The same, I would argue, doesn't apply to Palma. Chaguaceda says that co-operation with the city has been straightforward because essentially the city and region are promoting the same thing. In Mallorca, however, it can appear as if Palma is tangential to the rest of the island and is overlooking the strength that the Mallorca "brand" gives it as a city.
Communication for Palma has been getting better, and the city is becoming more successful, but the communication is still well short of what it should be. The same can most certainly be said for Mallorca as a whole and for individual municipalities, whose communication is, in overseas terms, all but non-existent. The two - the city and island - need to dovetail. They draw strength from each other and not separately. The icon of Mallorca is the emotion of decades. The marketers (and politicians) might do well to remember this.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Tackling Seasonality
Unsurprisingly, there has been a fair amount of politics dominating the tourism scene over the past few days, but it hasn't all been local politics. Consultants Grant Thornton have issued a report which has found that businesses in Spain are, after those in Ireland, the most concerned about the possibility that the UK might exit the European Union. The concern stems largely from the fact that of the 65 million tourists who come to Spain, 15 million of them are from the UK. It's not clear why the UK being in or out of the EU should make any real difference to tourism, but the uncertainty that an exit might provoke is probably at the heart of these concerns and, as ever, business does not like uncertainty.
Back here in Mallorca, the politics of a possible eco-tax was high on the agenda of a meeting of representatives of the hotel industry in Palma. It would be "detrimental" and especially to ambitions to tackle Mallorca's seasonality. This observation came from Bernat Vicens of Fergus Hotels who also had things to say about hoteliers' abilities to adapt what they have to offer to an out-of-season tourist client: he appeared to be unconvinced that they possessed such abilities or the self-analysis that might bring about some adaptation. Fergus is following in the footsteps of Cursach in seeking to introduce a different and better class of younger tourism to Magalluf, and Vicens, while admitting that Magalluf has its hooligan element, argued that the resort was not dangerous and that it had a bright future, thanks to investments like those by Fergus and Meliá. Meanwhile, there were reports from Magalluf about how bars are trying to attract more business by making happy hour offers of drink as much as you like for only five euros. The bars might be criticised for doing so, but then they are, after all, in competition with all-inclusives.
Others at the Palma meeting stressed the need for there to be greater imagination in hotel marketing in order to attract a winter tourist to Mallorca, while the leadership of Palma as an all-year destination was seen as a model through which it could spread winter tourism elsewhere, though the elsewhere was only as far as Playa de Palma and Calvia: at least it might be a spread though. The Palacio de Congresos was cited as an example of how off-season tourism could be increased, but the Palacio, yet again, was in the news for all the wrong reasons. Because of the need to revalue the hotel, the adjudication of the complex's management in favour of Barceló will now have to be revisited once a new administration is in situ at Palma City Council, but the whole future for the Palacio was once more brought into question by the Més spokesperson at the council who suggested that there should be a feasibility study, one which might lead to the Palacio's demolition. It seems extraordinary that there would even be mention of feasibility at this stage of the Palacio's development, but then such has been the less than ordinary history of the complex.
While there was uncertainty surrounding the Palacio, the International Congress and Convention Association was issuing its annual report into conference destinations. Spain remains third in terms of the total number of meetings behind the US and Germany, with Madrid and Barcelona in, respectively, third and fifth positions when it comes to cities. What is noticeable about this listing is that all the top-twenty cities are those which are served by significant levels of direct air traffic: Palma is in no position to compete in this regard.
Back here in Mallorca, the politics of a possible eco-tax was high on the agenda of a meeting of representatives of the hotel industry in Palma. It would be "detrimental" and especially to ambitions to tackle Mallorca's seasonality. This observation came from Bernat Vicens of Fergus Hotels who also had things to say about hoteliers' abilities to adapt what they have to offer to an out-of-season tourist client: he appeared to be unconvinced that they possessed such abilities or the self-analysis that might bring about some adaptation. Fergus is following in the footsteps of Cursach in seeking to introduce a different and better class of younger tourism to Magalluf, and Vicens, while admitting that Magalluf has its hooligan element, argued that the resort was not dangerous and that it had a bright future, thanks to investments like those by Fergus and Meliá. Meanwhile, there were reports from Magalluf about how bars are trying to attract more business by making happy hour offers of drink as much as you like for only five euros. The bars might be criticised for doing so, but then they are, after all, in competition with all-inclusives.
Others at the Palma meeting stressed the need for there to be greater imagination in hotel marketing in order to attract a winter tourist to Mallorca, while the leadership of Palma as an all-year destination was seen as a model through which it could spread winter tourism elsewhere, though the elsewhere was only as far as Playa de Palma and Calvia: at least it might be a spread though. The Palacio de Congresos was cited as an example of how off-season tourism could be increased, but the Palacio, yet again, was in the news for all the wrong reasons. Because of the need to revalue the hotel, the adjudication of the complex's management in favour of Barceló will now have to be revisited once a new administration is in situ at Palma City Council, but the whole future for the Palacio was once more brought into question by the Més spokesperson at the council who suggested that there should be a feasibility study, one which might lead to the Palacio's demolition. It seems extraordinary that there would even be mention of feasibility at this stage of the Palacio's development, but then such has been the less than ordinary history of the complex.
While there was uncertainty surrounding the Palacio, the International Congress and Convention Association was issuing its annual report into conference destinations. Spain remains third in terms of the total number of meetings behind the US and Germany, with Madrid and Barcelona in, respectively, third and fifth positions when it comes to cities. What is noticeable about this listing is that all the top-twenty cities are those which are served by significant levels of direct air traffic: Palma is in no position to compete in this regard.
Tuesday, April 07, 2015
Whatever You Write, Don't Write ...
If you fancy winning yourself a two hundred quid voucher from Hotels.com (redeemable in any of 260,000 establishments worldwide), then you should click along to "The Guardian's" website and, in no more one hundred words, offer your travel tip for Mallorca. The paper does this sort of thing regularly. There are tips, among other places, for Buenos Aires, Cuba and Sri Lanka, and now it's the turn of Mallorca. "From beautiful beaches to remote mountains, Mallorca is one of the Med's most beautiful islands." This is the blurb under the announcement for the tips. It is not totally inaccurate, but the wording is drivel. Is it so difficult to avoid using "beautiful" twice in the same sentence? It would appear that it is.
"The Guardian", being as "The Guardian" is, attracts a generally literate and quite sophisticated readership. (Or one presumes so.) It is a readership which, when presented with the opportunity to trouser a couple of centuries, arouses itself into a state of being a wannabe travel writer. The same, it should be said, would apply to several other newspapers, so I'm not just picking on "The Guardian", but it would be safe to assume that the top tips that emanate from this paper will not be including ones for going mamading in Magalluf written in a direct and graphic style but will be including vignettes that reveal hidden coves and charming and unexpected villages. Oh dear.
As wannabe travel writers, and someone from "Lonely Planet" is the judge, there is a formula to follow. It is the one of actual travel writers. Some of them at any rate. And some of whom would be best advised to never travel ever again and certainly not write about their experiences. These are the ones who share with writers of travel brochures an affliction of lexical limpness: a default desire, through sheer idleness (or so it would seem), to indulge themselves in diarrhoeal descriptions replete with adjectives and superlatives of the obvious and the repetitious.
In order to overcome this affliction, I have compiled a compendium of words that should on no account ever be used when describing anything to do with Mallorca. Well, maybe not ever used, but only as a last resort. Do feel free to add to them. There will be others. Here they are ...
Authentic. Awesome. Azure. Beautiful. Blue. Breathtaking. Buzzing. Centuries-old. Charismatic. Charming. Chic. City (or town or island) of contrasts. Crystal-clear. Dazzling. Delicious. Delightful. Deserted. Dream-like. Enchanting. Exciting. Exotic. Fantastic. Golden. Hidden. Lively. Lovely. Luxurious. Magnificent. Oasis. Oozing (for example, history). Phenomenal. Pleasant. Precious. Quaint. Real. Remote. Romantic. Rustic. Shimmering. Spectacular. Strange. Stunning. Superb. Surprise. Traditional. Turquoise. Typical. Undiscovered. Unexpected. Unspoiled. Unusual. Velvety-white (as in sands). Wonderful.
Going back to the blurb in "The Guardian", it includes two of the words in this forbidden list. "Beautiful" is so overused that it has lost any meaning or any power. Yet, the paper manages to use it two times. Lazy? Just a bit. Then there is "remote". The mountains of Mallorca are remote? Are they really? Mallorca isn't that big a place for anything to be remote. There may be remote parts of mountain ranges, but mountains' lack of remoteness is such that you can often find yourself right next to one or indeed on it.
It isn't easy, it must be said, to avoid the forbidden words. Even generally good articles can fall into the trap. Here is the author Helen Walsh from "The Guardian" last October: "S’Amarador has to be one of the most beautiful beaches on the island. Enclosed by pines and ancient, crenellated rock, this is the quintessential “postcard” beach that tourists can never find. At this time of year, with the best part of six months’ sunshine warming its turquoise shallows, the sea is lukewarm – almost body temperature."
A "beautiful", a "turquoise", and "quintessential" is a good one to add to the list. I'm not sure how the sea qualifies as being lukewarm if it is almost 37 degrees Celsius, but let's not be too picky: overall, the article wasn't bad.
The trouble is that a great deal is bad. Someone penning a hundred words for a newspaper review can of course be forgiven for adopting clichés or platitudes, but others cannot be. The writing has to be seen in the same way as Mallorca's marketing is. The island's offers are those of many parts of the Mediterranean. The marketing has, therefore, to transcend that of other destinations. It has to have a voice which creates an impression of uniqueness, even if this uniqueness doesn't exist. Writing about the island has to do the same. It is no good saying that beaches are beautiful, because this is a banality trotted out everywhere else.
Just as the marketing should be thoughtful and creative, so should the writing. Maybe there should be a competition.
"The Guardian", being as "The Guardian" is, attracts a generally literate and quite sophisticated readership. (Or one presumes so.) It is a readership which, when presented with the opportunity to trouser a couple of centuries, arouses itself into a state of being a wannabe travel writer. The same, it should be said, would apply to several other newspapers, so I'm not just picking on "The Guardian", but it would be safe to assume that the top tips that emanate from this paper will not be including ones for going mamading in Magalluf written in a direct and graphic style but will be including vignettes that reveal hidden coves and charming and unexpected villages. Oh dear.
As wannabe travel writers, and someone from "Lonely Planet" is the judge, there is a formula to follow. It is the one of actual travel writers. Some of them at any rate. And some of whom would be best advised to never travel ever again and certainly not write about their experiences. These are the ones who share with writers of travel brochures an affliction of lexical limpness: a default desire, through sheer idleness (or so it would seem), to indulge themselves in diarrhoeal descriptions replete with adjectives and superlatives of the obvious and the repetitious.
In order to overcome this affliction, I have compiled a compendium of words that should on no account ever be used when describing anything to do with Mallorca. Well, maybe not ever used, but only as a last resort. Do feel free to add to them. There will be others. Here they are ...
Authentic. Awesome. Azure. Beautiful. Blue. Breathtaking. Buzzing. Centuries-old. Charismatic. Charming. Chic. City (or town or island) of contrasts. Crystal-clear. Dazzling. Delicious. Delightful. Deserted. Dream-like. Enchanting. Exciting. Exotic. Fantastic. Golden. Hidden. Lively. Lovely. Luxurious. Magnificent. Oasis. Oozing (for example, history). Phenomenal. Pleasant. Precious. Quaint. Real. Remote. Romantic. Rustic. Shimmering. Spectacular. Strange. Stunning. Superb. Surprise. Traditional. Turquoise. Typical. Undiscovered. Unexpected. Unspoiled. Unusual. Velvety-white (as in sands). Wonderful.
Going back to the blurb in "The Guardian", it includes two of the words in this forbidden list. "Beautiful" is so overused that it has lost any meaning or any power. Yet, the paper manages to use it two times. Lazy? Just a bit. Then there is "remote". The mountains of Mallorca are remote? Are they really? Mallorca isn't that big a place for anything to be remote. There may be remote parts of mountain ranges, but mountains' lack of remoteness is such that you can often find yourself right next to one or indeed on it.
It isn't easy, it must be said, to avoid the forbidden words. Even generally good articles can fall into the trap. Here is the author Helen Walsh from "The Guardian" last October: "S’Amarador has to be one of the most beautiful beaches on the island. Enclosed by pines and ancient, crenellated rock, this is the quintessential “postcard” beach that tourists can never find. At this time of year, with the best part of six months’ sunshine warming its turquoise shallows, the sea is lukewarm – almost body temperature."
A "beautiful", a "turquoise", and "quintessential" is a good one to add to the list. I'm not sure how the sea qualifies as being lukewarm if it is almost 37 degrees Celsius, but let's not be too picky: overall, the article wasn't bad.
The trouble is that a great deal is bad. Someone penning a hundred words for a newspaper review can of course be forgiven for adopting clichés or platitudes, but others cannot be. The writing has to be seen in the same way as Mallorca's marketing is. The island's offers are those of many parts of the Mediterranean. The marketing has, therefore, to transcend that of other destinations. It has to have a voice which creates an impression of uniqueness, even if this uniqueness doesn't exist. Writing about the island has to do the same. It is no good saying that beaches are beautiful, because this is a banality trotted out everywhere else.
Just as the marketing should be thoughtful and creative, so should the writing. Maybe there should be a competition.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
The Simplicity Challenge: Mallorca's winter marketing
Let me give you a challenge. You are given the task of marketing Mallorca in winter. Forget for one moment lack of flights and hotels and restaurants being closed. Think only of Mallorca. What does it offer? What would you market? The chances are that you will come up with a fairly long list. Do I need to repeat them? Not really, you are familiar enough with them.
Let me now give you a different challenge. You are given the task of marketing Tenerife in winter. Forget for one moment the availability of flights and hotels and restaurants being open. Think only of Tenerife. What does it offer? What would you market? The chances are that you are not familiar with Tenerife, not like you are with Mallorca, but were you to be familiar then you will come up with a similar list to the one you have for Mallorca. Tenerife has mountains (a massive great big one with a lot of snow on it), wildlife, gastronomy, cycling, culture, walking, golf. But if I were to now give you a final challenge, what would be your simple winter marketing message for both Mallorca and Tenerife. For Tenerife, it might be one word. Sun. For Mallorca?
I know what you are going to say. There is sun in Mallorca, too. Tenerife can have its dodgy, rainy and cloudy days. You will probably also say that oh, there is so much more in Mallorca than Tenerife. You might be right, but the chances are you are one of the converted. Preaching to the likeminded gets you only so far, and let's face it, having so much more hasn't got us all very far. But come on, I'm still waiting, what is the simple winter marketing message for Mallorca?
Image matters and image is created through many sources not just those of the marketing people. Image is a legacy of time and though there will be those who will point out that there was once a time of relative plenty in winter, predicated on sun, the dominant image, for Mallorca, is its summer sun, to which can be added unexciting but nevertheless strong attributes, such as reliability, safety and proximity. But legacy of time counts for only so much nowadays, and image has been amended. Winter sun as there once might have been has been airbrushed from the tourism image. It has been planted elsewhere, transported by the destination deciders in their tour operating and airline HQs. It is not a Mallorcan winter marketing message, only an optional extra along with the other elements on your list.
Even for Tenerife, the simple message of sun is not sufficient. It has, to use jargon, a point of parity. In other words, there are plenty of other places with winter sun. It has, therefore, to find further value, but it is the underlying simplicity of its winter message that is its hook and initial attraction. Other messages are loaded on to the foundation of the sun image, but for the tourist and for those who market to the tourist, it is that foundation and simplicity of message which appeals.
I was talking with Jason Moore (the editor of the Majorca Daily Bulletin) yesterday and he mentioned a conversation he had had with an airline marketing manager who, seemingly, had been unaware of what Mallorca has to offer in months like January and February. The marketing manager might have been surprised, but presented with an array of different types of attraction, activity, fiestas and so on, what can be done with the information? Where's the hook, where's the simple message? For a marketing manager, if sun (or snow) is the message, the task is that much more straightforward, and so welcome aboard the winter sunshine airline express.
The tourist is today confronted with overwhelming amounts of information and massive choice. For any destination, there has to be a simplicity of message in order to cut through this overload. Complexity can be added, but initially there has to be something that stands out. For all that Mallorca has its array of winter attractions, reducing them to a sensible and meaningful message is not easy. The marketing manager would be scratching his head and thinking, it's a heck of a lot of easier to flog Tenerife.
The winter message, as a result, attaches itself to comprehensible niches. Cycling in winter is a prime example. Varied landscapes and terrain, good roads, decent enough climate. The message isn't so difficult. But niches amount to only so many tourists. Lacking a core message makes the winter in Mallorca a tough marketing proposition. Packaging various niches might sound like a solution, but only partially. A strong social media presence (of which there isn't one) would help, but one still comes back to that core and simple message. And I wish I knew what it was.
Let me now give you a different challenge. You are given the task of marketing Tenerife in winter. Forget for one moment the availability of flights and hotels and restaurants being open. Think only of Tenerife. What does it offer? What would you market? The chances are that you are not familiar with Tenerife, not like you are with Mallorca, but were you to be familiar then you will come up with a similar list to the one you have for Mallorca. Tenerife has mountains (a massive great big one with a lot of snow on it), wildlife, gastronomy, cycling, culture, walking, golf. But if I were to now give you a final challenge, what would be your simple winter marketing message for both Mallorca and Tenerife. For Tenerife, it might be one word. Sun. For Mallorca?
I know what you are going to say. There is sun in Mallorca, too. Tenerife can have its dodgy, rainy and cloudy days. You will probably also say that oh, there is so much more in Mallorca than Tenerife. You might be right, but the chances are you are one of the converted. Preaching to the likeminded gets you only so far, and let's face it, having so much more hasn't got us all very far. But come on, I'm still waiting, what is the simple winter marketing message for Mallorca?
Image matters and image is created through many sources not just those of the marketing people. Image is a legacy of time and though there will be those who will point out that there was once a time of relative plenty in winter, predicated on sun, the dominant image, for Mallorca, is its summer sun, to which can be added unexciting but nevertheless strong attributes, such as reliability, safety and proximity. But legacy of time counts for only so much nowadays, and image has been amended. Winter sun as there once might have been has been airbrushed from the tourism image. It has been planted elsewhere, transported by the destination deciders in their tour operating and airline HQs. It is not a Mallorcan winter marketing message, only an optional extra along with the other elements on your list.
Even for Tenerife, the simple message of sun is not sufficient. It has, to use jargon, a point of parity. In other words, there are plenty of other places with winter sun. It has, therefore, to find further value, but it is the underlying simplicity of its winter message that is its hook and initial attraction. Other messages are loaded on to the foundation of the sun image, but for the tourist and for those who market to the tourist, it is that foundation and simplicity of message which appeals.
I was talking with Jason Moore (the editor of the Majorca Daily Bulletin) yesterday and he mentioned a conversation he had had with an airline marketing manager who, seemingly, had been unaware of what Mallorca has to offer in months like January and February. The marketing manager might have been surprised, but presented with an array of different types of attraction, activity, fiestas and so on, what can be done with the information? Where's the hook, where's the simple message? For a marketing manager, if sun (or snow) is the message, the task is that much more straightforward, and so welcome aboard the winter sunshine airline express.
The tourist is today confronted with overwhelming amounts of information and massive choice. For any destination, there has to be a simplicity of message in order to cut through this overload. Complexity can be added, but initially there has to be something that stands out. For all that Mallorca has its array of winter attractions, reducing them to a sensible and meaningful message is not easy. The marketing manager would be scratching his head and thinking, it's a heck of a lot of easier to flog Tenerife.
The winter message, as a result, attaches itself to comprehensible niches. Cycling in winter is a prime example. Varied landscapes and terrain, good roads, decent enough climate. The message isn't so difficult. But niches amount to only so many tourists. Lacking a core message makes the winter in Mallorca a tough marketing proposition. Packaging various niches might sound like a solution, but only partially. A strong social media presence (of which there isn't one) would help, but one still comes back to that core and simple message. And I wish I knew what it was.
Monday, November 17, 2014
Maintenance Failure: Albufera
The time that it has taken for the court to reach its decision is extraordinary. Ten years ago the Balearic High Court had ruled that the government was not liable, a previous decision having said that it was. The level of compensation then was 13.5 million, so over the intervening years the amount has risen by more than 50%.
Playas de Mallorca S.A. was one of the companies responsible for the transformation of Albufera into Alcúdia's City of Lakes in the 1960s and 1970s. That transformation project originally envisaged far greater development than that which occurred, but there were pockets of further development which were placed in the pipeline. The 33 hectares would have represented development of roughly a quarter of the size of what became the City of Lakes, but with protected status came prohibition and ultimately compensation.
Protection, welcome though it most certainly was, has brought with it questionable benefits. In environmental terms, one can't question the advantage of protection, but in ongoing care, attention, maintenance, management and benign exploitation, one can.
Albufera is currently experiencing a problem of a natural variety: a lack of water. The situation this autumn is much the same as it was last year. Too little rain has meant that water levels have dropped and, as a consequence, migratory aquatic birds are seeking alternative locations. The situation will doubtless right itself, but in the meantime there are fewer birds than would normally be expected and so reduced opportunities for bird watchers. Despite this, it is said that visitor numbers are "optimal", which is a vague description but not an unsurprisingly vague one. How do they know how many visitors there are?
At present, cutbacks have meant that it is not possible to conduct satisfactory censuses of the number of birds at given times in Albufera. If they can't count the wildlife, how can they count the human life? And even if they can arrive at an "optimal" number, how many of these visitors are not residents and especially not members of the regular school parties which descend on Albufera?
Keeping tabs on the number of visitors and who they are has not been helped by the fact that the Can Bateman information centre has been closed for most of the year. It has now re-opened, but its closure is symptomatic of the malaise which affects natural spaces such as Albufera. These are granted protected status or, as was the case with Son Real near Can Picafort, acquired at vast cost and are then, thanks to unclear lines of responsibility as well as lack of funding, allowed to fall into neglect.
Moreover, personnel, when there are any, receive insufficient training in the use of the information systems at Can Bateman, while there have been previous occasions when the centre has been closed and when visitors were unable to use the so-called green card (now abandoned) to obtain discounts for bike hire or indeed obtain a bike, full stop. These all point to a failure, in marketing terms, of ensuring that the product is right. But this is a marketing and product failure mirrored elsewhere in, for example, the absence of a dedicated website for Albufera (there is good information through Balears Natura, but this isn't only for Albufera) or in other information centres being shut; the one in Puerto Pollensa's La Gola rarely seems to be open.
Pollensa's tourism development plan includes a focus on attracting bird-watching tourists and so, in addition to the La Gola centre, the town hall would like the old fish market to include another information centre for the Tramuntana and its birds, wildlife and what have you. Laudable though this might be, has any consideration been given to its ongoing maintenance and funding? And who would supply these? The town hall, the Council of Mallorca, the government?
Local authorities talk the talk about wildlife and nature tourism but then do too little to back it up. They create centres and then don't look after them. They have natural spaces but then equally fail to care for them adequately. Maybe the developer should have been allowed to build, but then, had there been more City of Lakes-style development, who would have looked after it? Alcúdia's City of Lakes suffers from seemingly being a low priority. It's a familiar tale. Create something and then don't maintain it.
Monday, November 10, 2014
Doing The Same Thing: Sports tourism
It doesn't matter who supposedly came up with "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting it to come out different". To borrow it as a statement of tourism fact, it will do, regardless of its origin, and it is fact which can be extended to "insanity is everyone doing the same thing over and over etc.".
In the endless search for the holy grail of off-season tourism, Mallorca and the Balearics have been doing the same thing over and over for at least thirty years. They have grafted ever more niches on to the original ones of cycling, golf and culture (conceived as saviours by the first regional government from 1983), but in the process have merely managed to come up with small bits of tourism which altogether amount to something which is slightly less small. Appropriately, in the quest also for the gastronomic tourist, these niches bubble gently in the off-season promotional stew, certain ingredients periodically being added or coming to the boil of flavour of the moment which dominate the other tastes. Over and over they are tossed into the pan with the expectation that tourism chefs will produce an à la carte off-season rather than a menú del día of familiar ordinariness.
Everyone is doing the same thing. The current flavour of the moment is sports tourism. This will be the niche which finally reveals a holy grail from which everyone can drink deeply and eat richly. But unfortunately, it is everyone. If not Mallorca, then it is Croatia or any number of competitor regions of Spain: Catalonia has developed a mark "sports tourism destination"; the Basque Country has gone beyond the usual and become a "model of surfing touristic development"; Asturias has cycling and walking; Galicia has cycling; Andalusia has looked to expand its golfing appeal. Even the Canaries have their sport in something called the "Reserva de la Extremosfera", which in the case of those islands is a reinforcement for the only region of Spain which has fully functioning year-round tourism.
Go beyond the macro level of the Balearics and you find that at micro levels everyone is doing the same thing. Sports tourism will make the bay of Alcúdia off-season heaven. The new cycling route will see to that. Or it would do if Muro hadn't put a block on things, protesting that it will have to shoulder a greater financial burden than the two other municipalities because of greater engineering issues and saying that it can't pay and won't pay. Towns in the sticks which don't have tourism profiles are also in on the act. Here a cycling route, there a Nordic walking route. Ibiza is another example, going it alone at the World Travel Market with a winter tourism campaign which features, among other things, cycling.
Then there is Palma, which has discovered a new(ish) sub-niche of the sports niche: running. According to the Palma 365 foundation, this is a "running USP", a unique selling point, the implication being that there is no running anywhere else. It couldn't be unique if there was. But hang on, what were those lines of Germans in Playa de Muro doing up until only a few days ago? They weren't walking. And what about, as an example, Bilbao? It has "running tours". So, all those off-season tourists can run to what is a genuinely international attraction - the Guggenheim - which, if not actually unique in being the world's only museum, might be considered way more of a USP than Palma can boast.
Marketing speak, as in citing a supposed USP, is a shield too often raised in order to defend the absence of effective marketing which might just convince punters that there is something unique. When everyone is doing the same thing over and over, it is the marketing which must not be the same or questionable. But this marketing gets mangled. It is disjointed. Take Palma 365. It has a Facebook page, but it's called Palma and not Palma 365 or passion for something, as with the slogan. Building a brand requires a single concept not competing names for the same thing. And the great fault line with the Palma campaign is the potential confusion with destinations which sound similar or are written similarly - La Palma, Las Palmas, Parma. Mallorca 365 is what should be being marketed. There can be no confusion with the name and it would also have vastly greater recognition. The marketing is simply wrong. Palma 365 should be the bridge of a mothership brand Mallorca 365 and not the ship itself.
Everyone is doing the same thing. It isn't insane if that is all there is, but greater sanity comes from convincing the market that your same thing is a hell of a lot better than someone else's. It's all in the branding.
In the endless search for the holy grail of off-season tourism, Mallorca and the Balearics have been doing the same thing over and over for at least thirty years. They have grafted ever more niches on to the original ones of cycling, golf and culture (conceived as saviours by the first regional government from 1983), but in the process have merely managed to come up with small bits of tourism which altogether amount to something which is slightly less small. Appropriately, in the quest also for the gastronomic tourist, these niches bubble gently in the off-season promotional stew, certain ingredients periodically being added or coming to the boil of flavour of the moment which dominate the other tastes. Over and over they are tossed into the pan with the expectation that tourism chefs will produce an à la carte off-season rather than a menú del día of familiar ordinariness.
Everyone is doing the same thing. The current flavour of the moment is sports tourism. This will be the niche which finally reveals a holy grail from which everyone can drink deeply and eat richly. But unfortunately, it is everyone. If not Mallorca, then it is Croatia or any number of competitor regions of Spain: Catalonia has developed a mark "sports tourism destination"; the Basque Country has gone beyond the usual and become a "model of surfing touristic development"; Asturias has cycling and walking; Galicia has cycling; Andalusia has looked to expand its golfing appeal. Even the Canaries have their sport in something called the "Reserva de la Extremosfera", which in the case of those islands is a reinforcement for the only region of Spain which has fully functioning year-round tourism.
Go beyond the macro level of the Balearics and you find that at micro levels everyone is doing the same thing. Sports tourism will make the bay of Alcúdia off-season heaven. The new cycling route will see to that. Or it would do if Muro hadn't put a block on things, protesting that it will have to shoulder a greater financial burden than the two other municipalities because of greater engineering issues and saying that it can't pay and won't pay. Towns in the sticks which don't have tourism profiles are also in on the act. Here a cycling route, there a Nordic walking route. Ibiza is another example, going it alone at the World Travel Market with a winter tourism campaign which features, among other things, cycling.
Then there is Palma, which has discovered a new(ish) sub-niche of the sports niche: running. According to the Palma 365 foundation, this is a "running USP", a unique selling point, the implication being that there is no running anywhere else. It couldn't be unique if there was. But hang on, what were those lines of Germans in Playa de Muro doing up until only a few days ago? They weren't walking. And what about, as an example, Bilbao? It has "running tours". So, all those off-season tourists can run to what is a genuinely international attraction - the Guggenheim - which, if not actually unique in being the world's only museum, might be considered way more of a USP than Palma can boast.
Marketing speak, as in citing a supposed USP, is a shield too often raised in order to defend the absence of effective marketing which might just convince punters that there is something unique. When everyone is doing the same thing over and over, it is the marketing which must not be the same or questionable. But this marketing gets mangled. It is disjointed. Take Palma 365. It has a Facebook page, but it's called Palma and not Palma 365 or passion for something, as with the slogan. Building a brand requires a single concept not competing names for the same thing. And the great fault line with the Palma campaign is the potential confusion with destinations which sound similar or are written similarly - La Palma, Las Palmas, Parma. Mallorca 365 is what should be being marketed. There can be no confusion with the name and it would also have vastly greater recognition. The marketing is simply wrong. Palma 365 should be the bridge of a mothership brand Mallorca 365 and not the ship itself.
Everyone is doing the same thing. It isn't insane if that is all there is, but greater sanity comes from convincing the market that your same thing is a hell of a lot better than someone else's. It's all in the branding.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
The Impressive Value Of Golf Tourism
There has been a flurry of golf tourism promotional effort just recently. The tourism agency took itself off to Vienna at the end of September to attend a golf forum and immediately afterwards, tour operators and others from Ireland were in Mallorca for their annual get-together at which the agency regaled them with golfing information. Included among the Irish contingent was the European Director of Aer Lingus.
Spain as a whole is the most popular golfing destination in Europe, and of the regions of Spain, the Costa del Sol attracts, by some distance, the most golf tourists. The Costa Brava is in second place, the Canary Islands are in third, leaving the Balearics ...?
Golf has enjoyed a generally upward curve in demand. In Palma, specifically, there has been an annual increase of around 4% in golf tourism. Through the first decade of this century, the number of golf tourists to the Balearics rose steadily if not dramatically; from slightly fewer than 100,000 in 2002 to almost 115,000 by 2008. While recognised as one of the principal golf destinations in Spain, the Balearics golf tourism market is relatively small, which isn't all that surprising when one considers that Andalusia, and so the Costa del Sol, has approximately four times as many courses.
Despite the market's size, the value of golf tourism has been understood as long as there have been plans for its exploitation. The golf tourist does typically spend more than the regular tourist, around 171 euros per day, which is not far off twice the amount which is typically attributed to the regular tourist. And this spend, when compared with the national golfing leader, Andalusia, is really quite revealing. There, the daily spend is more in line with that of the regular tourist, less than one hundred euros per day. But by contrast with the Balearics, where the average length of stay by a golf tourist is five days, in Andalusia it is almost a fortnight.
A simple explanation of these comparative numbers is that the golf tourist in Andalusia spreads his or her spend out, but is this too simplistic? Do the comparative numbers not suggest that the Balearics, rather than just looking to increase the overall number of golf tourists, need to try and get them to stay longer? With a spend of almost double the norm, then a doubling in the average length of stay would have a far from insignificant benefit.
Ah but, is this spend not mainly made on green fees and is it not the case that these fees are regularly criticised for being too high in the Balearics? There is some truth to the argument that fees are high by comparison with other destinations, but there is less truth about where the golf tourist's money is spent.
The Chamber of Commerce, in an outstanding piece of research into emerging tourism trends in the Balearics, showed that only 18% of average daily spend went on golf courses. More was in fact spent on restaurants and bars, while between them, shopping and excursions amounted to a spend of 23.5%. What this suggests is that the golf tourist doesn't just come for the golf. This might sound obvious but one wonders if it is well understood and so translates into how Mallorca is marketed as a golfing destination with way more to offer than golf alone. And there is much to be said for such a more rounded approach to golf tourism marketing. One disadvantage Mallorca has, and there's no getting away from it, is the weather. In golfing circles, and one only needs look at forums to understand this, Mallorca and the Balearics are known for not offering weather as good as that to be had in, for example, the Costa del Sol.
The European market for golf tourism is growing. Russia, as with other forms of tourism, is an example of a new market. But the established markets are sizable. The UK, in terms of registered golfers, is by far the biggest, but which country has the sixth highest number of registered golfers? Ireland. The presence of the chap from Aer Lingus in Mallorca recently might have been useful. How many flights to Palma are there from Ireland in winter? Any?
The International Golf Travel Market, with its 500 exhibitors, showed the extent of competition in the golf tourism market. The Balearics have to work damn hard against this competition, but, and it's a familiar enough story, if the flights aren't there, then it's difficult.
Photo of Alcanada Golf, taken from the club's website: http://www.golf-alcanada.com/
Monday, March 18, 2013
The Team Myth
Australia's cricket coach, Mickey Arthur, may be either a genius of human motivation or a total drongo. Not being a fair dinkum Aussie, the South African Arthur may well have a made a rod for his own back in effectively suspending four players for the third test against India.
Cricket is a strange sport. It is a team game yet its component elements are individual. In recent years, it has been possible to discern more obviously defined roles for players within a cricket team, partly the consequence of the development of different formats. These may always have existed, but they were far less apparent, especially in the days of Geoffrey Boycott who would, nevertheless, maintain that what was widely perceived as selfishness was in fact playing for the team.
What is also more evident nowadays is the very notion of the "team", one by which all players pull in the same direction in the pursuit of a common cause. This, you would have thought, would always have been a given in an apparently team sport, but not so. One of the more glaring examples occurred during the infamous Bodyline tour of Australia in 1932-33. Gubby Allen refused to bowl leg theory, so going against his captain Douglas Jardine's strategy. Allen, like Jardine, an amateur and a product of the public school system and Oxbridge, had the background and the bearing to enable him to take a stand. Under England's cricketing apartheid, Allen was a "gentleman". The paid ranks, the professional "players" like Harold Larwood, did what they were told. So much for a team ethic.
Arthur's suspension of the four players was the result of his wish and that also, so one supposes, of captain Michael Clarke to establish a particular team ethic. One of the criticisms of Arthur is that he indulges in psycho-babble, but all he has attempted to do, albeit in a cack-handed manner, is what other sports sides now typically strive to do, which is to create genuine "teams".
The psycho-babble, so the critics insist, has been lifted from management and business, yet much of this jargonising about teams came originally from sport. In organisations, "teams" as a concept didn't really exist until the 1980s. It took studies of outstanding sports teams to bring the concept about. In so doing, a framework was established for understanding the nature of teams and therefore teamwork and for distinguishing them from what were merely groups of workers.
Teams were to be created according to certain rules. One of these was their purpose for existing. It was in accordance with shared objectives. Team players had to buy into these shared objectives and provide roles that met them, even if this meant a certain humility and subordination of the ego to the common cause. By acquiring these objectives and by adopting the required roles, what were once groups now became teams.
This apparently sensible development was, however, to become undermined by the subsequent sheer ubiquity of the term "team" and its transfer into marketing-speak. The "team" became a means of promotion. Just as "quality" was a panacea of which a company could boast (even if it didn't conform to notions of quality), so the "team" was a de rigueur marketing tool designed to establish, in the minds of the customer, a perception of a company working in the best interests of that customer - the common cause. Unfortunately, most of it was rubbish and it still is.
Come to Mallorca on holiday now, and you will find that there are all sorts of "teams": the hotel "team", the entertainment "team", even the bar or restaurant "team". The word has become a meaningless shorthand but one, nevertheless, that is intended to convey the impression that "teams" are there for only one reason, and that is to serve the customer. Some may do precisely this, but they may well do so more through luck rather than judgement or through a specific strategy that has set out what it means to be a "team". Others won't do anything of the sort, because these "teams" are merely a collection of individuals rarely that committed to any objective other than getting paid or, with some parts of the summer tourism industry, getting laid.
So, when you click on a website on which there is a signing-off by "your team" (and it is usually is your and not our) or you see a display in say a hotel lobby with smiling faces as part of "your team", don't be taken in. They may be teams, they may be very good teams, but they may just be groups of people hiding behind the convenience of marketing guff.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Cricket is a strange sport. It is a team game yet its component elements are individual. In recent years, it has been possible to discern more obviously defined roles for players within a cricket team, partly the consequence of the development of different formats. These may always have existed, but they were far less apparent, especially in the days of Geoffrey Boycott who would, nevertheless, maintain that what was widely perceived as selfishness was in fact playing for the team.
What is also more evident nowadays is the very notion of the "team", one by which all players pull in the same direction in the pursuit of a common cause. This, you would have thought, would always have been a given in an apparently team sport, but not so. One of the more glaring examples occurred during the infamous Bodyline tour of Australia in 1932-33. Gubby Allen refused to bowl leg theory, so going against his captain Douglas Jardine's strategy. Allen, like Jardine, an amateur and a product of the public school system and Oxbridge, had the background and the bearing to enable him to take a stand. Under England's cricketing apartheid, Allen was a "gentleman". The paid ranks, the professional "players" like Harold Larwood, did what they were told. So much for a team ethic.
Arthur's suspension of the four players was the result of his wish and that also, so one supposes, of captain Michael Clarke to establish a particular team ethic. One of the criticisms of Arthur is that he indulges in psycho-babble, but all he has attempted to do, albeit in a cack-handed manner, is what other sports sides now typically strive to do, which is to create genuine "teams".
The psycho-babble, so the critics insist, has been lifted from management and business, yet much of this jargonising about teams came originally from sport. In organisations, "teams" as a concept didn't really exist until the 1980s. It took studies of outstanding sports teams to bring the concept about. In so doing, a framework was established for understanding the nature of teams and therefore teamwork and for distinguishing them from what were merely groups of workers.
Teams were to be created according to certain rules. One of these was their purpose for existing. It was in accordance with shared objectives. Team players had to buy into these shared objectives and provide roles that met them, even if this meant a certain humility and subordination of the ego to the common cause. By acquiring these objectives and by adopting the required roles, what were once groups now became teams.
This apparently sensible development was, however, to become undermined by the subsequent sheer ubiquity of the term "team" and its transfer into marketing-speak. The "team" became a means of promotion. Just as "quality" was a panacea of which a company could boast (even if it didn't conform to notions of quality), so the "team" was a de rigueur marketing tool designed to establish, in the minds of the customer, a perception of a company working in the best interests of that customer - the common cause. Unfortunately, most of it was rubbish and it still is.
Come to Mallorca on holiday now, and you will find that there are all sorts of "teams": the hotel "team", the entertainment "team", even the bar or restaurant "team". The word has become a meaningless shorthand but one, nevertheless, that is intended to convey the impression that "teams" are there for only one reason, and that is to serve the customer. Some may do precisely this, but they may well do so more through luck rather than judgement or through a specific strategy that has set out what it means to be a "team". Others won't do anything of the sort, because these "teams" are merely a collection of individuals rarely that committed to any objective other than getting paid or, with some parts of the summer tourism industry, getting laid.
So, when you click on a website on which there is a signing-off by "your team" (and it is usually is your and not our) or you see a display in say a hotel lobby with smiling faces as part of "your team", don't be taken in. They may be teams, they may be very good teams, but they may just be groups of people hiding behind the convenience of marketing guff.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Lake Esperanza To The Inland Station
The "estaciones náuticas", of which there are now 23 throughout Spain, have increased their turnover from 980 million euros in 2005 to 2,300 million euros in 2012. This growth sounds impressive and would be even more so if we knew what the hell it represented.
The network of water-sports centres (and estaciones náuticas are water-sports centres, or resorts if you prefer) commercialises some 4,500 products in promoting nautical tourism in destinations with a long tradition of offering such tourism. The association for these water-sports centres has informed us that the turnover has more than doubled in seven years, but it is unclear how this turnover is accounted for. This is why I ask what it represents. The estación náutica concept, brand, call it what you will, is at best nebulous. It becomes even more so when it isn't obvious what the association is referring to. As the number of centres has increased along with the number of products over the past seven years, then a rise in turnover would be expected, but whether this rise owes anything to centres being part of the network must be open to some question.
Alcúdia is one resort that has joined the network during these seven years (it is the only one in Mallorca). It will have added some products to the overall number that are commercialised, but try telling anyone that Alcúdia is an estación náutica and they will look at you with bafflement. Ever since Alcúdia acquired the status of an estación náutica, it has been a concept that has been a mystery to virtually everyone.
Falling under the Turespaña tourism promotion agency, the association for the estaciones náuticas periodically gives out growth figures which suggest that the concept is a wonderful one. And though the estación náutica may indeed be wonderful, its marketing is anything but. This is why it is so unknown in Alcúdia. It will be why it will also be unknown by tourists.
The main means of promoting the estaciones náuticas is via the internet. So I put it to the test. I assumed that I was a British tourist who was interested in water sports in Alcúdia. I entered this into Google and, impressively enough, the estaciones náuticas website came up at number one in the ranking. I clicked on it and was taken to the entry for Water Sports Mallorca in Playa de Muro. Not quite Alcúdia, but near enough, albeit that Playa de Muro is a separate resort and is not, therefore, an estación náutica. Moreover, what I had been taken to was a company called Water Sports Mallorca.
I thought I would look around the website, so clicked "Destinations". It didn't work. I clicked "Accommodations" (sic) and then "Hotels". Marina Suites Hotel was the first one that came up. It is in Gran Canaria. I tried a couple of other hotel pages. Not one hotel for Alcúdia. I clicked "Nautical Activities" and then "Kitesurfing". All entries appeared to be for Delta de l'Ebre, wherever that is and it certainly isn't Alcúdia. At this point I gave up, and I would imagine any other surfer (so to speak) would as well.
To put it bluntly, the website, where Alcúdia is concerned at any rate, is all but useless. One could, sadly, say the same about the estación náutica concept as a whole. Little of it makes sense, including its name and its obvious translation into English. Googling water sports in Alcúdia might mean good news for Marc and his buddies in Playa de Muro, but it isn't much good for anyone else.
Nevertheless, Alcúdia has embraced the concept. "We love sport 365 days" is now an Alcúdia slogan, and the estación náutica has helped to make the town edge towards all-year sport-loving. Or has it? That there may be more sport, more days of the year and more tourists availing themselves of it could be due to factors other than the estación náutica concept; factors such as the marketing by others which is far more effective. For the association to imply that it has been behind the growth in turnover is hugely debatable.
One of the more obvious problems with the concept is that it suggests some sort of physical presence. I stress that it is only a concept but there is now some physical manifestation - at Alcúdia old town's Can Ramis municipal building where there are also references to sports for 365 days, such as canoeing on the great lake. A case of from Lake Esperanza to the inland station. But wouldn't it better if there were an estación where you would expect to find náutica? Like by the sea? Only a thought.
QUIZ: Making a brief return. From which line from which famous song is today's title adapted?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The network of water-sports centres (and estaciones náuticas are water-sports centres, or resorts if you prefer) commercialises some 4,500 products in promoting nautical tourism in destinations with a long tradition of offering such tourism. The association for these water-sports centres has informed us that the turnover has more than doubled in seven years, but it is unclear how this turnover is accounted for. This is why I ask what it represents. The estación náutica concept, brand, call it what you will, is at best nebulous. It becomes even more so when it isn't obvious what the association is referring to. As the number of centres has increased along with the number of products over the past seven years, then a rise in turnover would be expected, but whether this rise owes anything to centres being part of the network must be open to some question.
Alcúdia is one resort that has joined the network during these seven years (it is the only one in Mallorca). It will have added some products to the overall number that are commercialised, but try telling anyone that Alcúdia is an estación náutica and they will look at you with bafflement. Ever since Alcúdia acquired the status of an estación náutica, it has been a concept that has been a mystery to virtually everyone.
Falling under the Turespaña tourism promotion agency, the association for the estaciones náuticas periodically gives out growth figures which suggest that the concept is a wonderful one. And though the estación náutica may indeed be wonderful, its marketing is anything but. This is why it is so unknown in Alcúdia. It will be why it will also be unknown by tourists.
The main means of promoting the estaciones náuticas is via the internet. So I put it to the test. I assumed that I was a British tourist who was interested in water sports in Alcúdia. I entered this into Google and, impressively enough, the estaciones náuticas website came up at number one in the ranking. I clicked on it and was taken to the entry for Water Sports Mallorca in Playa de Muro. Not quite Alcúdia, but near enough, albeit that Playa de Muro is a separate resort and is not, therefore, an estación náutica. Moreover, what I had been taken to was a company called Water Sports Mallorca.
I thought I would look around the website, so clicked "Destinations". It didn't work. I clicked "Accommodations" (sic) and then "Hotels". Marina Suites Hotel was the first one that came up. It is in Gran Canaria. I tried a couple of other hotel pages. Not one hotel for Alcúdia. I clicked "Nautical Activities" and then "Kitesurfing". All entries appeared to be for Delta de l'Ebre, wherever that is and it certainly isn't Alcúdia. At this point I gave up, and I would imagine any other surfer (so to speak) would as well.
To put it bluntly, the website, where Alcúdia is concerned at any rate, is all but useless. One could, sadly, say the same about the estación náutica concept as a whole. Little of it makes sense, including its name and its obvious translation into English. Googling water sports in Alcúdia might mean good news for Marc and his buddies in Playa de Muro, but it isn't much good for anyone else.
Nevertheless, Alcúdia has embraced the concept. "We love sport 365 days" is now an Alcúdia slogan, and the estación náutica has helped to make the town edge towards all-year sport-loving. Or has it? That there may be more sport, more days of the year and more tourists availing themselves of it could be due to factors other than the estación náutica concept; factors such as the marketing by others which is far more effective. For the association to imply that it has been behind the growth in turnover is hugely debatable.
One of the more obvious problems with the concept is that it suggests some sort of physical presence. I stress that it is only a concept but there is now some physical manifestation - at Alcúdia old town's Can Ramis municipal building where there are also references to sports for 365 days, such as canoeing on the great lake. A case of from Lake Esperanza to the inland station. But wouldn't it better if there were an estación where you would expect to find náutica? Like by the sea? Only a thought.
QUIZ: Making a brief return. From which line from which famous song is today's title adapted?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, August 09, 2012
Exasperated.com
I had thought to go off on one, to launch into a diatribe, to sound off, to engage in a rant. But then I thought better of it. I could have gone off on one by announcing the fact, because this is how going off on one is. It requires a topping or tailing - "I'm having a rant" or "rant over". Why does anyone do this? If it is a rant, then is it not obvious?
The reason lies, at least I suspect it lies, in a conspiratorial alliance with the reader. Rant announcement equals pay attention, or the promise of revelatory riches, even if there are none, or an expectation of empathetic appreciation of the ranter's subject matter by an unseen, reading interlocutor whose part in the ranter's conspiracy is heightened by the tricks of involvement as set out in the bible according to Littlejohn - the "you couldn't make it up" clichéd standby of the ranter that brooks no suggestion that actually, yes, you could make it up or that the subject matter is in fact of no consequence to the reader or is totally opposite to the reader's views. Which would make the conspiratorial alliance fall flat on the page.
What I had been thinking that I would go off on was what I had earlier in the day indeed gone off on, at the end of a drink (non-alcoholic) with some people from a well-known attraction (and no, I'm not mentioning which one). What this involved was a declaration of exasperation. Not so much with the subject but with the illogic, exaggeration and disregard for an alternative perspective.
The subject was the Mallorca hoteliers' federation thing about 40% of tourists arriving at Palma airport who head off to stay in illegal accommodation (or, more diplomatically, accommodation which is not registered by the tourism ministry). It was exasperation because - and I even used the words "until I'm blue in the face", which I would never do in the written form but now have - nowhere is there any clue as to where all the tourists who arrive at the airport are in fact meant to stay. I have said it before. On more than one occasion. The illogic of the hoteliers' argument is plain to see; at least it is to me. There are way more tourists at the height of summer than there are hotel (registered) places. If you want the figures, I refer you honourable ladies and gentlemen to articles I have written before; I'm not going to repeat myself.
Further illogic lies with the hoteliers' justification for the government's stance against this illegal offer (by which they mean the stance they have told the government, Delgado in particular, that it must adopt). For the president of the federation to say that some illegal accommodation is not up to scratch and so therefore would give a poor image of Mallorca is illogical because it recognises a reason for regulating and monitoring accommodation which is illegal in any event. By the same token, it suggests inadvertently that some accommodation is up to scratch. The argumentation is, therefore, flawed.
Having gone off on this, I thought afterwards, why did I? The subject is of no personal interest to me in that I do not have accommodation that I am making available either legally or illegally. Why should I care?
The discussion had touched on some other issues, one of which was marketing. It was putting this together with the hoteliers' propaganda (and the 40% is surely an exaggerated headliner) that made me conclude that what I do care about is misrepresentation, is stupidity, is mediocrity, is myopia, is the unchallenged dogma that springs from groupthink.
Blimey, where the hell do I start with this lot?
Frankly, I'm disinclined to start with any of it, because to do so would amount to going off on one. I could embellish the above, I could give chapter and verse, I could dissect the minutiae of the inadequacies of much that passes for tourism marketing in Mallorca, of what passes for an understanding of who tourists are (which isn't a great deal), of what is a blind adherence to tourism product that misses the point entirely, which is that the great unwashed majority of tourists want only to spend a couple of hours in a plane, get shipped to a resort, get extraordinarily red and get extraordinarily pissed.
I could do all this, but I have done it many times. Therefore, I'm thinking of changing the name of this blog to exasperated.com. But then I would need to be constantly exasperated, and I'm not; only when I go off on one.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The reason lies, at least I suspect it lies, in a conspiratorial alliance with the reader. Rant announcement equals pay attention, or the promise of revelatory riches, even if there are none, or an expectation of empathetic appreciation of the ranter's subject matter by an unseen, reading interlocutor whose part in the ranter's conspiracy is heightened by the tricks of involvement as set out in the bible according to Littlejohn - the "you couldn't make it up" clichéd standby of the ranter that brooks no suggestion that actually, yes, you could make it up or that the subject matter is in fact of no consequence to the reader or is totally opposite to the reader's views. Which would make the conspiratorial alliance fall flat on the page.
What I had been thinking that I would go off on was what I had earlier in the day indeed gone off on, at the end of a drink (non-alcoholic) with some people from a well-known attraction (and no, I'm not mentioning which one). What this involved was a declaration of exasperation. Not so much with the subject but with the illogic, exaggeration and disregard for an alternative perspective.
The subject was the Mallorca hoteliers' federation thing about 40% of tourists arriving at Palma airport who head off to stay in illegal accommodation (or, more diplomatically, accommodation which is not registered by the tourism ministry). It was exasperation because - and I even used the words "until I'm blue in the face", which I would never do in the written form but now have - nowhere is there any clue as to where all the tourists who arrive at the airport are in fact meant to stay. I have said it before. On more than one occasion. The illogic of the hoteliers' argument is plain to see; at least it is to me. There are way more tourists at the height of summer than there are hotel (registered) places. If you want the figures, I refer you honourable ladies and gentlemen to articles I have written before; I'm not going to repeat myself.
Further illogic lies with the hoteliers' justification for the government's stance against this illegal offer (by which they mean the stance they have told the government, Delgado in particular, that it must adopt). For the president of the federation to say that some illegal accommodation is not up to scratch and so therefore would give a poor image of Mallorca is illogical because it recognises a reason for regulating and monitoring accommodation which is illegal in any event. By the same token, it suggests inadvertently that some accommodation is up to scratch. The argumentation is, therefore, flawed.
Having gone off on this, I thought afterwards, why did I? The subject is of no personal interest to me in that I do not have accommodation that I am making available either legally or illegally. Why should I care?
The discussion had touched on some other issues, one of which was marketing. It was putting this together with the hoteliers' propaganda (and the 40% is surely an exaggerated headliner) that made me conclude that what I do care about is misrepresentation, is stupidity, is mediocrity, is myopia, is the unchallenged dogma that springs from groupthink.
Blimey, where the hell do I start with this lot?
Frankly, I'm disinclined to start with any of it, because to do so would amount to going off on one. I could embellish the above, I could give chapter and verse, I could dissect the minutiae of the inadequacies of much that passes for tourism marketing in Mallorca, of what passes for an understanding of who tourists are (which isn't a great deal), of what is a blind adherence to tourism product that misses the point entirely, which is that the great unwashed majority of tourists want only to spend a couple of hours in a plane, get shipped to a resort, get extraordinarily red and get extraordinarily pissed.
I could do all this, but I have done it many times. Therefore, I'm thinking of changing the name of this blog to exasperated.com. But then I would need to be constantly exasperated, and I'm not; only when I go off on one.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
The Excursions Industry: Mallorca's travel agencies
Thomas Cook, the Mr. Thomas Cook that is, is attributed with having invented the package tour and the excursion. The trip from Leicester to Loughborough - train tickets and food all in - doesn't sound as though it was a barrel of fun, and the barrel most certainly wouldn't have been rolled out and included in the price; not when the excursionists were members of the Temperance Society.
Thomas Cook, today's Thomas Cook, still deals in excursions as well as package tours. The excursion, as far as tour operators are concerned, is a core part of their business. A Mallorcan attraction's business model may not be wholly dependent upon tour operators and their clients, but it does rely greatly on tour operators; you might be surprised to know just how much influence the tour operators wield with attractions, or there again, if you work for an attraction (or indeed a tour operator), you wouldn't be.
Travel agencies belonging to the AVIBA association reckon that the sale of excursions has declined by around a million over the past ten years. The decline is attributed to a number of factors, but economic crisis is the most obvious one. As such, therefore, there is an obvious question to ask. If economic crisis is so significant a factor, which it clearly is, why are the travel agencies referring to the last ten years and not the last five?
Reports of the decline in excursion sales are not new. In August 2009, the travel agencies announced that sales for that summer were down by 20%. What was interesting about the fall in 2009 was that it coincided with a shortage in the car-rental sector. Yet, rather than excursions receiving a boost from the lack of hire cars, they still experienced a fall in sales.
Three years on, there isn't the shortage of hire cars, but economic circumstances are much the same. The travel agencies now attribute the one million loss in part to the competition from hire cars, whereas in 2009 it was less of a factor. There are other issues.
Anecdotally, the evidence where excursion sales are concerned is similar to that with restaurant sales. Whereas a family might once have bought two or three excursions, they now only buy one, rather like they now only eat out once every two or three days and not every day. This is one issue. Another is the demand for certain types of excursion. 2009 is again quite revealing, as the travel agencies were pointing then to a dramatic fall in excursions to evening attractions; sales of these were down in 2009 by over a million compared with ten years before. The numbers sound rather familiar therefore.
Has this trend continued? Consider the experience of "Daddy Cool". How long did this show run this summer before it had to close? Not very long. It failed to meet expectations. I'm not surprised. It isn't the only evening attraction that isn't meeting expectations. Or so I understand.
While there has been a fall in the sale of excursions, the travel agencies are only part of the distribution channel. Which brings you back to the tour operators that have been pushing excursions ever harder as a means of compensating for any fall in margins on holidays. To the tour operators, you can add the independent excursions operators. And when one considers the efforts of one of these - No Frills Excursions - one begins to see another issue: marketing.
No Frills, licensed as a travel agency but not an AVIBA member, markets itself strongly, especially through social media as well as through multiple outlets (in the north of Mallorca). The travel agencies, by comparison, are essentially passive. They are complaining about falls in sales, but one fancies that they haven't moved with the times in confronting competition of different sorts, not just that posed by car-rental firms. There is also the whole issue of pricing; its own little story and not one I intend going into.
The overall picture would still, despite sales being made by other operators, reveal that fewer excursions are being taken than in the good old days. Yet the bread-and-butter excursions, such as to waterparks or the island tour, are holding up, seemingly at the expense of evening excursions which have the additional complication of entertainment that is now commonly available in hotels. It may not be entertainment of the same high standard, but if budgets are tight, one can understand that tourist purchase decisions might favour the day and not the evening out.
The story of the fall in excursion sales is not all it seems, but then such stories very rarely are. The travel agencies may be taking a hit, but theirs is not the only story in Mallorca's excursions industry.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thomas Cook, today's Thomas Cook, still deals in excursions as well as package tours. The excursion, as far as tour operators are concerned, is a core part of their business. A Mallorcan attraction's business model may not be wholly dependent upon tour operators and their clients, but it does rely greatly on tour operators; you might be surprised to know just how much influence the tour operators wield with attractions, or there again, if you work for an attraction (or indeed a tour operator), you wouldn't be.
Travel agencies belonging to the AVIBA association reckon that the sale of excursions has declined by around a million over the past ten years. The decline is attributed to a number of factors, but economic crisis is the most obvious one. As such, therefore, there is an obvious question to ask. If economic crisis is so significant a factor, which it clearly is, why are the travel agencies referring to the last ten years and not the last five?
Reports of the decline in excursion sales are not new. In August 2009, the travel agencies announced that sales for that summer were down by 20%. What was interesting about the fall in 2009 was that it coincided with a shortage in the car-rental sector. Yet, rather than excursions receiving a boost from the lack of hire cars, they still experienced a fall in sales.
Three years on, there isn't the shortage of hire cars, but economic circumstances are much the same. The travel agencies now attribute the one million loss in part to the competition from hire cars, whereas in 2009 it was less of a factor. There are other issues.
Anecdotally, the evidence where excursion sales are concerned is similar to that with restaurant sales. Whereas a family might once have bought two or three excursions, they now only buy one, rather like they now only eat out once every two or three days and not every day. This is one issue. Another is the demand for certain types of excursion. 2009 is again quite revealing, as the travel agencies were pointing then to a dramatic fall in excursions to evening attractions; sales of these were down in 2009 by over a million compared with ten years before. The numbers sound rather familiar therefore.
Has this trend continued? Consider the experience of "Daddy Cool". How long did this show run this summer before it had to close? Not very long. It failed to meet expectations. I'm not surprised. It isn't the only evening attraction that isn't meeting expectations. Or so I understand.
While there has been a fall in the sale of excursions, the travel agencies are only part of the distribution channel. Which brings you back to the tour operators that have been pushing excursions ever harder as a means of compensating for any fall in margins on holidays. To the tour operators, you can add the independent excursions operators. And when one considers the efforts of one of these - No Frills Excursions - one begins to see another issue: marketing.
No Frills, licensed as a travel agency but not an AVIBA member, markets itself strongly, especially through social media as well as through multiple outlets (in the north of Mallorca). The travel agencies, by comparison, are essentially passive. They are complaining about falls in sales, but one fancies that they haven't moved with the times in confronting competition of different sorts, not just that posed by car-rental firms. There is also the whole issue of pricing; its own little story and not one I intend going into.
The overall picture would still, despite sales being made by other operators, reveal that fewer excursions are being taken than in the good old days. Yet the bread-and-butter excursions, such as to waterparks or the island tour, are holding up, seemingly at the expense of evening excursions which have the additional complication of entertainment that is now commonly available in hotels. It may not be entertainment of the same high standard, but if budgets are tight, one can understand that tourist purchase decisions might favour the day and not the evening out.
The story of the fall in excursion sales is not all it seems, but then such stories very rarely are. The travel agencies may be taking a hit, but theirs is not the only story in Mallorca's excursions industry.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
A Different Motto: Jumeirah
Stay different. What an odd motto. What does it conjure up? Anything? It is the motto, trademark in fact, of Jumeirah. Who are? Well, they are renowned, as their website for the new Jumeirah Port Sóller Hotel & Spa tells us they are. The hotel's "use of both local materials and Mallorcan tradition" ensure the company's "promise of Stay Different (TM)".
A pity, therefore, that this isn't particularly good English. Promise of staying different perhaps or promise to stay different, but promise of stay different? As it is a motto, then we'll have to excuse them, though the lavishing of all the investment on the hotel and its website doesn't mean that the occasional other lapse also creeps in. "The resort comprises of eleven buildings ... ." Wrong. It should comprise eleven buildings. Comprise does not comprise an "of".
We also learn that the hotel's location is in the Tramuntana mountain range known for its "extense citric and olive orchards". I think we mean extensive and citrus ("citric" is derived from citrus; trees and orchards cannot be citric as such). We also discover that in Sóller's main square, in addition to its "impressive 12th century church", there are "modernist buildings". Are there? Are they modernist as in modernist architecture? Or should they be "modern"? Sort of, as the buildings in the square are certainly of more recent vintage than the original church, but whether one could call them modern is debatable. Actually, and while I'm at it, the original church dates from the 13th century.
Am I guilty of being incredibly pedantic and of nit-picking? Yes. And I think I have every right to be. Or I would have, were it the case that I was planning to stay different. I suspect I won't be. But if I were, then I might expect that a hotel of such outstanding quality could run the quality-checker over its publicity.
Does it matter, though, if there are a few mistakes in the English? Yes, it does matter. And to excuse it as not mattering is to accept that quality is a negotiable, when it should not be and should manifest itself in every facet of an operation.
The hotel management, one would imagine, will be rigorous in ensuring the highest standards. At the prices and with a pre-opening hype of hinting at seven-star quality (not actually the case), they certainly ought to ensure these standards. But a sloppiness in marketing literature is frankly inexcusable. It is the first port of call for many a potential customer. These hoped-for guests may not be pedantic, they may not even notice the slips or care that there are slips, but this still doesn't excuse the fact that there are slips.
The Jumeirah in Sóller is to be welcomed. If all Mallorca's hotels were of a similar class, then the island's woes would be banished. But they aren't and nor will they be. There can only be so much luxury. Too much of it, and a hotel would cease to stand out. To be different. One supposes this is part of the thinking behind the motto. Otherwise, I am not entirely sure what it means. The hotel (and other Jumeirah hotels) will continue to be different; is this it? The guest's stay will be different? The guest is different? Perhaps it is all of these things. But whether anyone takes any notice of the motto, trademark or not, is another matter.
I wonder how much you get for being the marketing consultant who dreams up trademark mottoes.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
A pity, therefore, that this isn't particularly good English. Promise of staying different perhaps or promise to stay different, but promise of stay different? As it is a motto, then we'll have to excuse them, though the lavishing of all the investment on the hotel and its website doesn't mean that the occasional other lapse also creeps in. "The resort comprises of eleven buildings ... ." Wrong. It should comprise eleven buildings. Comprise does not comprise an "of".
We also learn that the hotel's location is in the Tramuntana mountain range known for its "extense citric and olive orchards". I think we mean extensive and citrus ("citric" is derived from citrus; trees and orchards cannot be citric as such). We also discover that in Sóller's main square, in addition to its "impressive 12th century church", there are "modernist buildings". Are there? Are they modernist as in modernist architecture? Or should they be "modern"? Sort of, as the buildings in the square are certainly of more recent vintage than the original church, but whether one could call them modern is debatable. Actually, and while I'm at it, the original church dates from the 13th century.
Am I guilty of being incredibly pedantic and of nit-picking? Yes. And I think I have every right to be. Or I would have, were it the case that I was planning to stay different. I suspect I won't be. But if I were, then I might expect that a hotel of such outstanding quality could run the quality-checker over its publicity.
Does it matter, though, if there are a few mistakes in the English? Yes, it does matter. And to excuse it as not mattering is to accept that quality is a negotiable, when it should not be and should manifest itself in every facet of an operation.
The hotel management, one would imagine, will be rigorous in ensuring the highest standards. At the prices and with a pre-opening hype of hinting at seven-star quality (not actually the case), they certainly ought to ensure these standards. But a sloppiness in marketing literature is frankly inexcusable. It is the first port of call for many a potential customer. These hoped-for guests may not be pedantic, they may not even notice the slips or care that there are slips, but this still doesn't excuse the fact that there are slips.
The Jumeirah in Sóller is to be welcomed. If all Mallorca's hotels were of a similar class, then the island's woes would be banished. But they aren't and nor will they be. There can only be so much luxury. Too much of it, and a hotel would cease to stand out. To be different. One supposes this is part of the thinking behind the motto. Otherwise, I am not entirely sure what it means. The hotel (and other Jumeirah hotels) will continue to be different; is this it? The guest's stay will be different? The guest is different? Perhaps it is all of these things. But whether anyone takes any notice of the motto, trademark or not, is another matter.
I wonder how much you get for being the marketing consultant who dreams up trademark mottoes.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Exclaiming Passion: Palma's logo
"Passion for enjoying!!" Oh dear, someone has had a bad case of exclamation-mark-itis. This malady is one reserved for those who can't find words to express themselves. Shove one, two, three, ten, several hundred exclamation marks at the end of a word or a sentence and bingo! (sic), you've got yourself some expression. Or maybe you haven't.
Slogans are a different matter, one supposes. They do have to be snappy and short. The exclamation mark might, therefore, come in useful. Alternatively, it might be totally redundant. But as a rule of thumb, the exclamation mark should be used only sparingly, if at all. It betrays either the creator's insecurity in highlighting an inability to adequately convey what is intended to be conveyed or his or her syntactical idleness, or both. It is also often a lazy shorthand for, for instance, pointing out that a joke has been made, when, had a joke really been made, it wouldn't require the use of an exclamation mark. It's that insecurity again. The exclamation mark is a punctuational comfort blanket.
We now have, or Palma has, not one but two exclamation marks. Why two? Why not just one? What do two exclamation marks represent that one by itself doesn't? Indeed, why is there one at all? Palma is exclaiming a "passion for enjoying!!". OMG!! I must get so passionate!! I must get enjoying!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!
There is insecurity in this slogan. The exclamation marks say much. They are there to attempt to convince that there is both passion and "enjoying". But the slogan begs a question of what it is that someone is supposed to enjoy. Rather like Turespaña's "I Need Spain" invited a game of filling in the missing words ("I Need Spain" like I need a massive public finance deficit), so does this one: "passion for enjoying getting drunk", for example.
It's not all bad. The use of the gerund form - and "enjoying" is a gerund - is lifted straight from the copywriter's manual of how to motivate through text. The alternative of "enjoyment" would give a closed statement. Enjoying is open, so in this respect the slogan does at least conform to accepted practice.
But the problem is with the exclamation marks. They serve no purpose other than more as a visual aid as opposed to one that aids meaning. If you removed them, would there be any loss? Personally, I don't think so, and I'm more inclined to think that they are there because the exclamation mark has become so overused that to not have one (or two) would lead to it being conspicuous by its absence. Or they are there because the copywriter simply isn't convinced by the slogan on its own.
The slogan and the logo are all part of Palma's 365 campaign. A competition for the logo's design was announced in December, and this is the result.
A problem that Palma town hall created when it announced the competition was that, whatever the winning design was, it was going to be subject to close scrutiny. This was as a consequence of the San Sebastià poster debacle last year; the design for this had been lifted, and so everyone's trying to find if the 365 one has been as well. To this end, a favourite for having acted as a model is the Eurovision logo. Its heart for its "v" is reckoned to be like the heart of the "m" in Palma. I suppose that there is some similarity, but there may be some clutching at straws in making this comparison. More problematic perhaps is if you turn the logo upside down and the "m" begins to look like different parts of the anatomy rather than the heart it is meant to be.
To come back to the slogan, though, it doesn't just have a problem because of the overused exclamation marks, there is also the issue of the P-word. This has sparked off its own debate in marketing land, as it has become so ubiquitous: passion for this, passion for that, passion for everything. Nancy Friedman**, who has made a career out of how to use words in all manner of contexts, such as marketing, has pointed out that "passion" can be both lazy and uncreative but that what it attempts to convey is emotion. It is passé, but it isn't always easy to find an alternative, especially when, as one presumes to be the case, Palma wants to get all emotional.
Ultimately, though, the slogan and the logo are about what it might mean to the consumer. And does the slogan mean anything? Will people be quoting it? I somewhat doubt that they will be.
** Nancy Friedman blog
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Slogans are a different matter, one supposes. They do have to be snappy and short. The exclamation mark might, therefore, come in useful. Alternatively, it might be totally redundant. But as a rule of thumb, the exclamation mark should be used only sparingly, if at all. It betrays either the creator's insecurity in highlighting an inability to adequately convey what is intended to be conveyed or his or her syntactical idleness, or both. It is also often a lazy shorthand for, for instance, pointing out that a joke has been made, when, had a joke really been made, it wouldn't require the use of an exclamation mark. It's that insecurity again. The exclamation mark is a punctuational comfort blanket.
We now have, or Palma has, not one but two exclamation marks. Why two? Why not just one? What do two exclamation marks represent that one by itself doesn't? Indeed, why is there one at all? Palma is exclaiming a "passion for enjoying!!". OMG!! I must get so passionate!! I must get enjoying!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!
There is insecurity in this slogan. The exclamation marks say much. They are there to attempt to convince that there is both passion and "enjoying". But the slogan begs a question of what it is that someone is supposed to enjoy. Rather like Turespaña's "I Need Spain" invited a game of filling in the missing words ("I Need Spain" like I need a massive public finance deficit), so does this one: "passion for enjoying getting drunk", for example.
It's not all bad. The use of the gerund form - and "enjoying" is a gerund - is lifted straight from the copywriter's manual of how to motivate through text. The alternative of "enjoyment" would give a closed statement. Enjoying is open, so in this respect the slogan does at least conform to accepted practice.
But the problem is with the exclamation marks. They serve no purpose other than more as a visual aid as opposed to one that aids meaning. If you removed them, would there be any loss? Personally, I don't think so, and I'm more inclined to think that they are there because the exclamation mark has become so overused that to not have one (or two) would lead to it being conspicuous by its absence. Or they are there because the copywriter simply isn't convinced by the slogan on its own.
The slogan and the logo are all part of Palma's 365 campaign. A competition for the logo's design was announced in December, and this is the result.
A problem that Palma town hall created when it announced the competition was that, whatever the winning design was, it was going to be subject to close scrutiny. This was as a consequence of the San Sebastià poster debacle last year; the design for this had been lifted, and so everyone's trying to find if the 365 one has been as well. To this end, a favourite for having acted as a model is the Eurovision logo. Its heart for its "v" is reckoned to be like the heart of the "m" in Palma. I suppose that there is some similarity, but there may be some clutching at straws in making this comparison. More problematic perhaps is if you turn the logo upside down and the "m" begins to look like different parts of the anatomy rather than the heart it is meant to be.
To come back to the slogan, though, it doesn't just have a problem because of the overused exclamation marks, there is also the issue of the P-word. This has sparked off its own debate in marketing land, as it has become so ubiquitous: passion for this, passion for that, passion for everything. Nancy Friedman**, who has made a career out of how to use words in all manner of contexts, such as marketing, has pointed out that "passion" can be both lazy and uncreative but that what it attempts to convey is emotion. It is passé, but it isn't always easy to find an alternative, especially when, as one presumes to be the case, Palma wants to get all emotional.
Ultimately, though, the slogan and the logo are about what it might mean to the consumer. And does the slogan mean anything? Will people be quoting it? I somewhat doubt that they will be.
** Nancy Friedman blog
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Conversations With Tourists: Social media
At the end of January last year in an article entitled "The Importance Of Being Erstwhile", I wrote about the resignation of Mar Guerrero, the then director of the Balearics Tourism Agency. Guerrero was greatly respected and her stock rose on account of her having done something most odd - resigning because, in her words (or at least an approximate translation thereof), she didn't wish to pull the wool over people's eyes. A point of principle. You don't get much of that in Mallorcan public life.
When suggestions are made that tourism ministers should be tourism professionals, they overlook the fact that those charged with truly implementing tourism strategies are professionals. Some of them are even quite good or very good. Guerrero was one of the latter. Her departure came as no great surprise, as the job wasn't quite as it said on the tin, but it was a departure that the former government and former tourism minister Joana Barceló could have ill-afforded.
There is no point in now dwelling on the past, but the present and immediate future are far less rosy in tourism promotion terms than they were when Guerrero felt it necessary to resign over how funds were being allocated. At least there were funds then. Now they have all but dried up.
It is against this background of promotional parsimony that what Guerrero had to say in a recent interview** should be considered carefully. Talking of the need for a reinvention of Mallorcan tourism, she was very clear as to one aspect of such a reinvention - the mode of marketing.
If one takes a quote from this interview, you will begin to appreciate where she is coming from. "Every day you could find ways of interacting with your target (market). A website is not now sufficient for being competitive." She was talking about the role of evolving technologies in tourism promotion. It was music to the ears. Mine at any rate. I have made similar points many times.
Social media have created the possibility to maintain a regular conversation with customers - tourists in this instance. This is a conversation in which the customer (and indeed others) are participants in the marketing process. Tourists are not marketed to so much as they are marketing with those who provide the social media. The thinking is totally different, but the thinking, promotionally and technologically in Mallorca, is largely stuck in the dark ages. Stuck in the past with websites stuck up that are essentially uninteresting, not interactive, passive and passé.
Sure, there is information to be derived, but that's not the point. Conversations through social media go way beyond the merely informative. They engage with tourists, they involve them, they show respect to them by making them a part of the promotional process. These conversations break down the "them-and-us" barriers of traditional marketing.
Not everyone is of course a Facebook, Twitter or other social media user. But neither is everyone surfing the internet or watching a telly ad. The reach may be lower, but it is a reach that is arguably far more valuable because of the bonding that occurs through social media. There is an inherently greater trust to the relationship, and it is one that can have a hard-edged commercial element to it; ways of up-selling and cross-selling, in addition to initial selling, are very much flavour of the moment among various actors in the tourism industry. And social media can be one of these ways.
The potential power of social media makes it even more inexplicable to understand why somewhere like Llucmajor, abandoning its tourism board, has also seemingly allowed its Facebook page to fall into abeyance. The point needs to be reiterated. It is not expensive to operate social media, even if it is necessary to engage those with a whole range of linguistic skills.
But an apparent inability to appreciate the role of new technologies in tourism promotion stems, one suspects, from the contrariness of social media's sexiness. They are sexy in that they are of the now, but they are not sexy in the same way as a telly ad with a celeb is. The dark-ages marketing mindset in Mallorca has been one founded on the egos of those in positions of authority who can sense some stardust being rubbed off by rubbing shoulders with a Nadal or a Schiffer and spending a fortune on advertising of questionable effectiveness.
The reinvention of Mallorca is not just a case of what is offered, it is how it is offered. To this end, all levels of the tourism industry should have social media strategies. And if they haven't, they should get them pretty damn quick.
** The full interview: Diario de Mallorca
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
When suggestions are made that tourism ministers should be tourism professionals, they overlook the fact that those charged with truly implementing tourism strategies are professionals. Some of them are even quite good or very good. Guerrero was one of the latter. Her departure came as no great surprise, as the job wasn't quite as it said on the tin, but it was a departure that the former government and former tourism minister Joana Barceló could have ill-afforded.
There is no point in now dwelling on the past, but the present and immediate future are far less rosy in tourism promotion terms than they were when Guerrero felt it necessary to resign over how funds were being allocated. At least there were funds then. Now they have all but dried up.
It is against this background of promotional parsimony that what Guerrero had to say in a recent interview** should be considered carefully. Talking of the need for a reinvention of Mallorcan tourism, she was very clear as to one aspect of such a reinvention - the mode of marketing.
If one takes a quote from this interview, you will begin to appreciate where she is coming from. "Every day you could find ways of interacting with your target (market). A website is not now sufficient for being competitive." She was talking about the role of evolving technologies in tourism promotion. It was music to the ears. Mine at any rate. I have made similar points many times.
Social media have created the possibility to maintain a regular conversation with customers - tourists in this instance. This is a conversation in which the customer (and indeed others) are participants in the marketing process. Tourists are not marketed to so much as they are marketing with those who provide the social media. The thinking is totally different, but the thinking, promotionally and technologically in Mallorca, is largely stuck in the dark ages. Stuck in the past with websites stuck up that are essentially uninteresting, not interactive, passive and passé.
Sure, there is information to be derived, but that's not the point. Conversations through social media go way beyond the merely informative. They engage with tourists, they involve them, they show respect to them by making them a part of the promotional process. These conversations break down the "them-and-us" barriers of traditional marketing.
Not everyone is of course a Facebook, Twitter or other social media user. But neither is everyone surfing the internet or watching a telly ad. The reach may be lower, but it is a reach that is arguably far more valuable because of the bonding that occurs through social media. There is an inherently greater trust to the relationship, and it is one that can have a hard-edged commercial element to it; ways of up-selling and cross-selling, in addition to initial selling, are very much flavour of the moment among various actors in the tourism industry. And social media can be one of these ways.
The potential power of social media makes it even more inexplicable to understand why somewhere like Llucmajor, abandoning its tourism board, has also seemingly allowed its Facebook page to fall into abeyance. The point needs to be reiterated. It is not expensive to operate social media, even if it is necessary to engage those with a whole range of linguistic skills.
But an apparent inability to appreciate the role of new technologies in tourism promotion stems, one suspects, from the contrariness of social media's sexiness. They are sexy in that they are of the now, but they are not sexy in the same way as a telly ad with a celeb is. The dark-ages marketing mindset in Mallorca has been one founded on the egos of those in positions of authority who can sense some stardust being rubbed off by rubbing shoulders with a Nadal or a Schiffer and spending a fortune on advertising of questionable effectiveness.
The reinvention of Mallorca is not just a case of what is offered, it is how it is offered. To this end, all levels of the tourism industry should have social media strategies. And if they haven't, they should get them pretty damn quick.
** The full interview: Diario de Mallorca
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Since When?
I shall not identify the establishment in question, but let's just say that it is somewhere in Alcúdia. It hasn't opened yet and I fear that once it has opened it won't be open all that long. I hope I'm wrong, as no doubt some no small expense has been gone to in preparing the place.
Why might it not be open all that long? Well, its location isn't that good for starters. What it claims it will be offering also doesn't set the pulse racing. One element is a type of fritter commonly associated with parts of the Spanish mainland.
The location and the offering aside, the establishment does have a big marketing message. It is the "since" message. Since 1912 in this particular case. Having mentioned the place in conversation, it was suggested that this was the year a brewery was founded, thus implying that the brewery in question had perhaps helped with getting the place going. This could be right, but the brewery was in fact founded in 1904, even if it established itself in Madrid in 1912.
Whatever the link to 1912, however tenuous it might be, is there any value in making a thing of the "since" message? Plenty of bars, restaurants and other businesses do this, especially locally. Sometimes the "since" is genuine; other times it appears to have been either made up or be based on a year only partly related to the business.
There is a mentality among Mallorcans and the Spanish which lends apparent longevity and history copious amounts of credibility. Whether the same "since" message has much or any impact with tourists from different countries is probably doubtful. Do visitors go through a process by which they think, oh, look, this restaurant has been around since (add as applicable), it must be good, therefore we must patronise it? Some might, but most, I would suggest, do not.
Being able to say that a restaurant or whatever has been going for 50, 60, 100 or however many years, so long as it genuinely has, does establish it as not being fly-by-night, but the message can be one that targets the owners themselves; it is for their esteem. It is also a message that is inherently passive. Saying you've been in business for however long equals you (the punter) should buy our product or meals simply because we have been here for so long. Not always. There are restaurants which merit their boasting their longevity; it does all rather depend on the restaurant.
The Mallorcans do love their history or at least being able to draw upon history as a means of justification. As mentioned yesterday, the Fomento del Turismo appears to still be in existence partly because its history suggests that it should be. There are times, however, when longevity should demand a re-think, even to the point of consigning something to the history books.
A re-think is precisely what opposition groups of the uppity, leftist, nationalist tendency at Pollensa town hall are calling for with regard to Puerto Pollensa's military base. 75 years old on Monday, what better time than to declare it open to civilian access, as has been demanded for some years? And these some years are now probably sufficient to require their own celebration.
Why 75 years should be a reason for changing the base's status is anyone's guess. It is a convenient hook, but national defence ministries, as in Spain's Ministry of Defence, tend not to think along such lines, except when celebrating something military, though given the base's history (Condor Legion, Guernica bombing, Francoist associations), you might think they would prefer to keep it quiet.
At least with the base, however, it does have the advantage of being unique, as in there aren't any others in the immediate vicinity. If the "since" message is to be relayed, then it's best if it really stands for something significant. Which brings me to "The Bulletin". It is fifty years old this year. I happen to think this is a decent achievement; it's older than "The Sun" - by two years.
With the military base and with the paper, there is no disputing the "since" message, nor is there any disputing the significance of both. There is genuine history, as there is for some restaurants. There is one in Puerto Pollensa, Celler La Parra, which plays the "since" card. Since 1962, the same year as "The Bulletin". And the fact is that it looks as though it has been there since 1962. Not because it's falling to pieces, but because it has the feel and appearance of a certain and real antiquity and a reputation that has been forged over fifty years.
The since 1912 place doesn't have this. It is located in a modern "local". Since roughly the turn of the century. If history is to be aspired to, it has to be history in context. Otherwise it looks out of place.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Why might it not be open all that long? Well, its location isn't that good for starters. What it claims it will be offering also doesn't set the pulse racing. One element is a type of fritter commonly associated with parts of the Spanish mainland.
The location and the offering aside, the establishment does have a big marketing message. It is the "since" message. Since 1912 in this particular case. Having mentioned the place in conversation, it was suggested that this was the year a brewery was founded, thus implying that the brewery in question had perhaps helped with getting the place going. This could be right, but the brewery was in fact founded in 1904, even if it established itself in Madrid in 1912.
Whatever the link to 1912, however tenuous it might be, is there any value in making a thing of the "since" message? Plenty of bars, restaurants and other businesses do this, especially locally. Sometimes the "since" is genuine; other times it appears to have been either made up or be based on a year only partly related to the business.
There is a mentality among Mallorcans and the Spanish which lends apparent longevity and history copious amounts of credibility. Whether the same "since" message has much or any impact with tourists from different countries is probably doubtful. Do visitors go through a process by which they think, oh, look, this restaurant has been around since (add as applicable), it must be good, therefore we must patronise it? Some might, but most, I would suggest, do not.
Being able to say that a restaurant or whatever has been going for 50, 60, 100 or however many years, so long as it genuinely has, does establish it as not being fly-by-night, but the message can be one that targets the owners themselves; it is for their esteem. It is also a message that is inherently passive. Saying you've been in business for however long equals you (the punter) should buy our product or meals simply because we have been here for so long. Not always. There are restaurants which merit their boasting their longevity; it does all rather depend on the restaurant.
The Mallorcans do love their history or at least being able to draw upon history as a means of justification. As mentioned yesterday, the Fomento del Turismo appears to still be in existence partly because its history suggests that it should be. There are times, however, when longevity should demand a re-think, even to the point of consigning something to the history books.
A re-think is precisely what opposition groups of the uppity, leftist, nationalist tendency at Pollensa town hall are calling for with regard to Puerto Pollensa's military base. 75 years old on Monday, what better time than to declare it open to civilian access, as has been demanded for some years? And these some years are now probably sufficient to require their own celebration.
Why 75 years should be a reason for changing the base's status is anyone's guess. It is a convenient hook, but national defence ministries, as in Spain's Ministry of Defence, tend not to think along such lines, except when celebrating something military, though given the base's history (Condor Legion, Guernica bombing, Francoist associations), you might think they would prefer to keep it quiet.
At least with the base, however, it does have the advantage of being unique, as in there aren't any others in the immediate vicinity. If the "since" message is to be relayed, then it's best if it really stands for something significant. Which brings me to "The Bulletin". It is fifty years old this year. I happen to think this is a decent achievement; it's older than "The Sun" - by two years.
With the military base and with the paper, there is no disputing the "since" message, nor is there any disputing the significance of both. There is genuine history, as there is for some restaurants. There is one in Puerto Pollensa, Celler La Parra, which plays the "since" card. Since 1962, the same year as "The Bulletin". And the fact is that it looks as though it has been there since 1962. Not because it's falling to pieces, but because it has the feel and appearance of a certain and real antiquity and a reputation that has been forged over fifty years.
The since 1912 place doesn't have this. It is located in a modern "local". Since roughly the turn of the century. If history is to be aspired to, it has to be history in context. Otherwise it looks out of place.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Re-thinking Resorts: Magalluf and hotels
"To build four hotels with 2000 rooms, where on earth are they going to find the people to fill them?"
This was a question posed by Sue of Magalluf the other day in "The Bulletin". It's a reasonable question. And to an inability to fill existing hotels can be added anti-social behaviour in the resort as a reason for questioning the wisdom of the new development.
Though plans for these hotels may have been in existence, the government had implied that its revision of the tourism law did not envisage new developments. Indeed, all the noises that have come from the government, and the previous one, had suggested that there was a preference for a reduction in hotel stock, as has been the plan for Playa de Palma.
Now, however, we have a situation in which, in addition to four new hotels in Magalluf, there will be new complexes in Campos and Capdepera, both of them established in principle for some years.
In Magalluf's case, there is, unlike for example the luxury development contemplated for Canyamel in Capdepera, a marketing problem. It is one of image. Both the new Viva hotels and the overhaul of current hotels that Meliá is to embark upon come up against Magalluf's reputation.
Magalluf is a cracking resort, primarily because it is so bonkers, but to suggest that it enjoys a reputation for more than just the good old family holiday and the lads and ladettes on tour would be wide of the mark. If Meliá and Viva are going to make their plans work, they are also going to have to work damned hard on re-branding the resort. Are they aware of the "Shagalluf" nickname?
If Magalluf is to undergo a four-starring, then it needs to acquire a four-star reputation. Meliá and Viva will doubtless achieve this in their own developments, but a dog of a resort having previously been given a bad name creates a stumbling-block. Meliá may be able to spin a Sol Calvià Resort name within a resort, but they can Sol, Calvià and Resort all they like; Magalluf is Magalluf. Changing the style of the resort by changing the style of hotels will ultimately, one would imagine the thinking is going, change the style of tourists, but you have to attract them in the first place. This will require more than just some new hotels.
It won't be easy, but it may be easier if this is a reconceptualisation of a resort with new or different markets in mind, i.e. not predominantly British. It is just conceivable to consider that within ten years Magalluf will be a very different place with a very different tourism profile. But old habits die hard, and no more so than among tour operators for whom Magalluf has represented a solid product for a solid and traditional tourism market, namely the Brits.
Notwithstanding the challenge of re-branding, filling hotel places might not be the problem it appears. The tourism law will permit change of use of some hotels. Meliá already contemplate this in their redevelopment. If this change of use is to residential use, then the existing hotel stock is whittled down and is replaced by the new. It is quite a sophisticated solution to a problem in Mallorca, which is one of land that is designated for either tourism or residential purposes.
By changing the use of existing real estate, the availability of residential accommodation can increase. New hotel developments gobble up some new land, but relatively little. The total number of hotel places may therefore end up being roughly the same as at present, so filling them will be no more of a problem than it currently is.
It is a neat idea. Though the government may not have been entirely accurate when it suggested that there would not be new developments, the new law does make a great deal of sense: freeing up real estate for living purposes while also setting in motion an improvement in hotel quality. But change of use is key to the whole thing, and here the government has fallen victim to the interests of the town halls. It has been forced to bow to pressure that means town halls, and not it, will still have the final say as to whether there is a change of use or not. Calvià might not pose too much of an obstacle if Carlos Delgado can still wield some influence, but this can't be relied on. The government should have had the courage to tell the town halls to get lost.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
This was a question posed by Sue of Magalluf the other day in "The Bulletin". It's a reasonable question. And to an inability to fill existing hotels can be added anti-social behaviour in the resort as a reason for questioning the wisdom of the new development.
Though plans for these hotels may have been in existence, the government had implied that its revision of the tourism law did not envisage new developments. Indeed, all the noises that have come from the government, and the previous one, had suggested that there was a preference for a reduction in hotel stock, as has been the plan for Playa de Palma.
Now, however, we have a situation in which, in addition to four new hotels in Magalluf, there will be new complexes in Campos and Capdepera, both of them established in principle for some years.
In Magalluf's case, there is, unlike for example the luxury development contemplated for Canyamel in Capdepera, a marketing problem. It is one of image. Both the new Viva hotels and the overhaul of current hotels that Meliá is to embark upon come up against Magalluf's reputation.
Magalluf is a cracking resort, primarily because it is so bonkers, but to suggest that it enjoys a reputation for more than just the good old family holiday and the lads and ladettes on tour would be wide of the mark. If Meliá and Viva are going to make their plans work, they are also going to have to work damned hard on re-branding the resort. Are they aware of the "Shagalluf" nickname?
If Magalluf is to undergo a four-starring, then it needs to acquire a four-star reputation. Meliá and Viva will doubtless achieve this in their own developments, but a dog of a resort having previously been given a bad name creates a stumbling-block. Meliá may be able to spin a Sol Calvià Resort name within a resort, but they can Sol, Calvià and Resort all they like; Magalluf is Magalluf. Changing the style of the resort by changing the style of hotels will ultimately, one would imagine the thinking is going, change the style of tourists, but you have to attract them in the first place. This will require more than just some new hotels.
It won't be easy, but it may be easier if this is a reconceptualisation of a resort with new or different markets in mind, i.e. not predominantly British. It is just conceivable to consider that within ten years Magalluf will be a very different place with a very different tourism profile. But old habits die hard, and no more so than among tour operators for whom Magalluf has represented a solid product for a solid and traditional tourism market, namely the Brits.
Notwithstanding the challenge of re-branding, filling hotel places might not be the problem it appears. The tourism law will permit change of use of some hotels. Meliá already contemplate this in their redevelopment. If this change of use is to residential use, then the existing hotel stock is whittled down and is replaced by the new. It is quite a sophisticated solution to a problem in Mallorca, which is one of land that is designated for either tourism or residential purposes.
By changing the use of existing real estate, the availability of residential accommodation can increase. New hotel developments gobble up some new land, but relatively little. The total number of hotel places may therefore end up being roughly the same as at present, so filling them will be no more of a problem than it currently is.
It is a neat idea. Though the government may not have been entirely accurate when it suggested that there would not be new developments, the new law does make a great deal of sense: freeing up real estate for living purposes while also setting in motion an improvement in hotel quality. But change of use is key to the whole thing, and here the government has fallen victim to the interests of the town halls. It has been forced to bow to pressure that means town halls, and not it, will still have the final say as to whether there is a change of use or not. Calvià might not pose too much of an obstacle if Carlos Delgado can still wield some influence, but this can't be relied on. The government should have had the courage to tell the town halls to get lost.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
The Invisible Station
I'm making an apology on behalf of "The Bulletin". If you had gone along to the ferry terminal in Puerto Alcúdia on Sunday and had expected to find some free watersports activities which you could have enjoyed, you would have been disappointed.
I showed a short news item (from Thursday's paper) to someone in Alcúdia who, how can I put this, is in the know. The jaw dropped, followed by an expression of understanding as to how the mistake had been made. I understood it as well, as it's a mistake many people are making.
What happened on Sunday was that there were indeed free watersports activities, but they were nothing to do with the terminal or the commercial port. They were part of a promotion, in the form of a "fiesta", for the estación náutica. And it is this which caused the mistake and causes other mistakes to be made.
The estación náutica doesn't exist. It is not bricks, mortar, aluminium, glass or any material. It is a "station" without physical manifestation. It is an un-thing. But the concept, and that is all it is - a concept, begs an interpretation of the physical. Of course it does. A station is a thing not an abstraction; hence a not unreasonable confusion with the terminal.
Since the estación naútica concept was first raised in Alcúdia - at the start of 2009 - I have written about it on a few occasions, and I keep making the same point; it is not understandable. The concept is elusive, it doesn't translate into anything sensible in English (even watersports centre doesn't work because this can also imply something physical), and it doesn't even mean much to the Spanish; they also expect to find an actual centre.
This is not Alcúdia's fault as such. There are other such stations in Spain and in the Balearics. But the confusion that has existed in Alcúdia with regard to the concept makes you wonder if it hasn't occurred elsewhere. It must have done, and the same mistakes and misinterpretations are surely being made there.
In Alcúdia, however, to make matters less clear, there is a website for this station. It doesn't work. For a time at the weekend it didn't even load. Yet, there it was, proudly mentioned on the publicity, assuming it was seen. There was another website, for the "Fiesta del Mar" which is what occurred on Sunday and which was one of a series arranged by the estación náutica people in their different resorts, but it was in Spanish only. At least it worked though.
As part of this fiesta, there was also an evening event. The "orange fiesta". Nice poster, shame about the language. Catalan only. I had an exchange on Facebook about this. Catalan is an official language and the fiesta was directed at locals. Well yes, up to a point, but Puerto Alcúdia is a tourist resort and why was the tourist office emailing the poster to those, such as myself, who have a stake in the local tourism industry? Moreover, the estación náutica concept is meant to be a way of attracting more tourists, of the so-called quality type.
But Catalan-only material appears all the time. In all sorts of resorts. The estación náutica concept, the publicity in Catalan are different types of example that raise the same question: what thought process lies behind any of this? Is there one?
I had a chat with a tourist about this. Is it stubbornness that results in the Catalan-only publicity? I don't know that it is. It's more likely a case that no one stops to really think who they are meant to be marketing to and what they are marketing. But who makes these decisions?
Alcúdia is a tourist resort with a highly diverse market. It would be impractical to put out material in all the languages necessary. But at a minimum it should be in English and German; more so than even Spanish, where tourists are concerned, as the level of Spanish tourism in Alcúdia is well below that of either the UK or Germany.
The counter argument is that Catalan (and Spanish) are the local languages and so this is how it should be. Sorry, but it isn't much of an argument. Not if the market doesn't understand either language.
Poor marketing occurs because the starting-point is the wrong way round. It should be the consumer, the intended market or markets, and it is this fundamental thought process that seems to be lacking.
I don't know that there should be an apology for the mistake in "The Bulletin". The apology should be coming from somewhere else. The trouble is you don't where that somewhere else is.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
I showed a short news item (from Thursday's paper) to someone in Alcúdia who, how can I put this, is in the know. The jaw dropped, followed by an expression of understanding as to how the mistake had been made. I understood it as well, as it's a mistake many people are making.
What happened on Sunday was that there were indeed free watersports activities, but they were nothing to do with the terminal or the commercial port. They were part of a promotion, in the form of a "fiesta", for the estación náutica. And it is this which caused the mistake and causes other mistakes to be made.
The estación náutica doesn't exist. It is not bricks, mortar, aluminium, glass or any material. It is a "station" without physical manifestation. It is an un-thing. But the concept, and that is all it is - a concept, begs an interpretation of the physical. Of course it does. A station is a thing not an abstraction; hence a not unreasonable confusion with the terminal.
Since the estación naútica concept was first raised in Alcúdia - at the start of 2009 - I have written about it on a few occasions, and I keep making the same point; it is not understandable. The concept is elusive, it doesn't translate into anything sensible in English (even watersports centre doesn't work because this can also imply something physical), and it doesn't even mean much to the Spanish; they also expect to find an actual centre.
This is not Alcúdia's fault as such. There are other such stations in Spain and in the Balearics. But the confusion that has existed in Alcúdia with regard to the concept makes you wonder if it hasn't occurred elsewhere. It must have done, and the same mistakes and misinterpretations are surely being made there.
In Alcúdia, however, to make matters less clear, there is a website for this station. It doesn't work. For a time at the weekend it didn't even load. Yet, there it was, proudly mentioned on the publicity, assuming it was seen. There was another website, for the "Fiesta del Mar" which is what occurred on Sunday and which was one of a series arranged by the estación náutica people in their different resorts, but it was in Spanish only. At least it worked though.
As part of this fiesta, there was also an evening event. The "orange fiesta". Nice poster, shame about the language. Catalan only. I had an exchange on Facebook about this. Catalan is an official language and the fiesta was directed at locals. Well yes, up to a point, but Puerto Alcúdia is a tourist resort and why was the tourist office emailing the poster to those, such as myself, who have a stake in the local tourism industry? Moreover, the estación náutica concept is meant to be a way of attracting more tourists, of the so-called quality type.
But Catalan-only material appears all the time. In all sorts of resorts. The estación náutica concept, the publicity in Catalan are different types of example that raise the same question: what thought process lies behind any of this? Is there one?
I had a chat with a tourist about this. Is it stubbornness that results in the Catalan-only publicity? I don't know that it is. It's more likely a case that no one stops to really think who they are meant to be marketing to and what they are marketing. But who makes these decisions?
Alcúdia is a tourist resort with a highly diverse market. It would be impractical to put out material in all the languages necessary. But at a minimum it should be in English and German; more so than even Spanish, where tourists are concerned, as the level of Spanish tourism in Alcúdia is well below that of either the UK or Germany.
The counter argument is that Catalan (and Spanish) are the local languages and so this is how it should be. Sorry, but it isn't much of an argument. Not if the market doesn't understand either language.
Poor marketing occurs because the starting-point is the wrong way round. It should be the consumer, the intended market or markets, and it is this fundamental thought process that seems to be lacking.
I don't know that there should be an apology for the mistake in "The Bulletin". The apology should be coming from somewhere else. The trouble is you don't where that somewhere else is.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, August 06, 2011
Pile 'Em High: Hotels
Pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap. Remember this? It's your starter for ten. Whose phrase was it? To give you a clue, he founded a supermarket chain that in the late '60s and early '70s no self-respecting, middle-class housewife would be found dead in. You know who it was. Of course you do. Jack Cohen. Tesco's.
Tesco used to be a by-word for total naffness. Back in the day it was the loon pants and platform heels of retail; the Noddy Holder and Slade of grocery. What saved it was Lord (then plain Ian) MacLaurin's makeover of sophistication, matched by an aspirational style of marketing, as well as its product expansion; Tesco was the first supermarket to become a petrol station as well.
Pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap. Tesco as it once was (and also as it has become) is a metaphor for much of Mallorca's hotel industry, both all-inclusive and conventional. A guest at one of Alcúdia's all-inclusive ghettoes was telling me how he and his wife (they were grandparents) were squeezed into a room with two double beds along with their two grandchildren (girl and boy). The arrangement was not exactly satisfactory, nor was the size of the room. Barely enough space to swing a cat (and there is probably, as an aside, a fiesta event somewhere in Mallorca which involves swinging a cat; but I digress).
A correspondent of mine was telling me of the situation in a Magalluf hotel. Two-bedded rooms have increased in size by 100% in becoming four-bedded rooms. At the prices they're being charged, the guests shouldn't have grounds to complain, went the hotel's explanation.
In the Alcúdia hotel, they were and are being piled in high. But are they being sold that cheap? Three grand for the four of them, I was told. Maybe this is cheap, but when you take into account their circumstances plus the time it takes to get served with a drink or to manage to get into a lift plus the cost of add-ons (this is an all-inclusive, remember), then maybe it isn't.
More than the cost, however, is the philosophy. Pile 'em high with scant regard for any sophistication or aspiration. Some of Mallorca's hotels are locked in a timewarp of old Tesco days, and some of them were built around the time that Tesco was reaching its early-70s, pre-MacLaurin nadir.
Tesco discovered that in order to change its entire business and marketing philosophy some of its older supermarkets had to be done away with or greatly improved. It was no use having outdated stores that didn't stack up with the new aspirational message and which weren't fit for purpose. And in addition to building new supermarkets, Tesco became, in effect, an all-inclusive retailer; everything from petrol to music.
The Tesco metaphor is pertinent because in terms of philosophy and bricks and mortar, a good part of Mallorca's hotels are in precisely the same situation that Tesco once found itself. A key difference is that many moved into the all-inclusive line quite some time ago. So they attempted product expansion but did so without considering any of the rest. Or if they did consider the rest, they were unable or unwilling to do anything about it.
The result of this was, and remains in many cases, that the hotels are not fit for purpose. They were not built or designed with all-inclusive in mind. The facilities simply aren't there. Moreover, some hotels are little more than human processing plants. A mechanistic approach, predicated on the pile 'em high philosophy, induces a mindset which is the antithesis to sophistication or aspiration.
Of course some of the market to which the hotels pander, let's be frank, is or can be low rent. And the low-rent market perpetuates a low-rent attitude among hoteliers, even if, as the Alcúdia case suggests, the rent isn't so low that it can truly qualify as being categorised as cheap.
The problem is that the market, be it low or higher rent, has witnessed for itself or learnt of what exists elsewhere. Mallorca's hotels have not responded, very often because they have been unable or not allowed to respond, to the brand spanking new out-of-town, indeed out-of-Mallorca competition; that of the eastern Med and north Africa.
An expectation has therefore grown, and it is one that is more aspirational and demands greater sophistication. For this reason, plans for hotel renovation, if they ever see the light of day, or changes to use cannot come soon enough. What some of Mallorca's hotels need is to undergo a process of Tesco-isation. The punter can't continue to be piled high.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tesco used to be a by-word for total naffness. Back in the day it was the loon pants and platform heels of retail; the Noddy Holder and Slade of grocery. What saved it was Lord (then plain Ian) MacLaurin's makeover of sophistication, matched by an aspirational style of marketing, as well as its product expansion; Tesco was the first supermarket to become a petrol station as well.
Pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap. Tesco as it once was (and also as it has become) is a metaphor for much of Mallorca's hotel industry, both all-inclusive and conventional. A guest at one of Alcúdia's all-inclusive ghettoes was telling me how he and his wife (they were grandparents) were squeezed into a room with two double beds along with their two grandchildren (girl and boy). The arrangement was not exactly satisfactory, nor was the size of the room. Barely enough space to swing a cat (and there is probably, as an aside, a fiesta event somewhere in Mallorca which involves swinging a cat; but I digress).
A correspondent of mine was telling me of the situation in a Magalluf hotel. Two-bedded rooms have increased in size by 100% in becoming four-bedded rooms. At the prices they're being charged, the guests shouldn't have grounds to complain, went the hotel's explanation.
In the Alcúdia hotel, they were and are being piled in high. But are they being sold that cheap? Three grand for the four of them, I was told. Maybe this is cheap, but when you take into account their circumstances plus the time it takes to get served with a drink or to manage to get into a lift plus the cost of add-ons (this is an all-inclusive, remember), then maybe it isn't.
More than the cost, however, is the philosophy. Pile 'em high with scant regard for any sophistication or aspiration. Some of Mallorca's hotels are locked in a timewarp of old Tesco days, and some of them were built around the time that Tesco was reaching its early-70s, pre-MacLaurin nadir.
Tesco discovered that in order to change its entire business and marketing philosophy some of its older supermarkets had to be done away with or greatly improved. It was no use having outdated stores that didn't stack up with the new aspirational message and which weren't fit for purpose. And in addition to building new supermarkets, Tesco became, in effect, an all-inclusive retailer; everything from petrol to music.
The Tesco metaphor is pertinent because in terms of philosophy and bricks and mortar, a good part of Mallorca's hotels are in precisely the same situation that Tesco once found itself. A key difference is that many moved into the all-inclusive line quite some time ago. So they attempted product expansion but did so without considering any of the rest. Or if they did consider the rest, they were unable or unwilling to do anything about it.
The result of this was, and remains in many cases, that the hotels are not fit for purpose. They were not built or designed with all-inclusive in mind. The facilities simply aren't there. Moreover, some hotels are little more than human processing plants. A mechanistic approach, predicated on the pile 'em high philosophy, induces a mindset which is the antithesis to sophistication or aspiration.
Of course some of the market to which the hotels pander, let's be frank, is or can be low rent. And the low-rent market perpetuates a low-rent attitude among hoteliers, even if, as the Alcúdia case suggests, the rent isn't so low that it can truly qualify as being categorised as cheap.
The problem is that the market, be it low or higher rent, has witnessed for itself or learnt of what exists elsewhere. Mallorca's hotels have not responded, very often because they have been unable or not allowed to respond, to the brand spanking new out-of-town, indeed out-of-Mallorca competition; that of the eastern Med and north Africa.
An expectation has therefore grown, and it is one that is more aspirational and demands greater sophistication. For this reason, plans for hotel renovation, if they ever see the light of day, or changes to use cannot come soon enough. What some of Mallorca's hotels need is to undergo a process of Tesco-isation. The punter can't continue to be piled high.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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