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.

365 In A Croatian Style

You are about to read a promotional feature for Croatia. I have, therefore, to apologise in advance for any offence that this might cause, but as, for the purposes of research and appreciation of what the competition does, I am one of 1,323,186 people who - as of 6 October - like the "Love Croatia" Facebook page, I feel it is only right to share with you the promotion for what is a key competitor to Mallorca.

Since the start of October, this Facebook page has added a video for the island of Hvar and eight other posts replete with spectacular photography that has been supplied officially and by visitors both direct to the page and through a linked Instagram page. What does one get from these nine posts alone? Well, for example, if you are looking for what to do in October, you can link to the official website which will tell you about Croatia 365, all-year round Croatia. This tells you that the country is "rich in natural beauty and well-preserved cultural heritage, specifically by its diversity". It goes on to inform you that you can "take a ride by bike where, long ago, Roman legions walked". You can check out destinations for culture, biking, outdoor, health and wellness, meetings and incentives and wine and gastronomy.

With a different post, you could have supplied your own words to complete the following: "Visiting Croatia was ...". I gave up checking the hundreds of comments after the first loads of "magical", "dream", "heaven on earth" and what have you, some of them with further photos.

The first post for October was another one to remind you about the possibilities which exist all year, a link to "Croatia 365, Experience Croatia all year round". This project, "Croatia 365", was launched in the summer by the country's tourism ministry. The purpose of the project is, naturally enough, to bring tourists in "once the summer sun has gone". The focus of the project is the six elements I list above - culture, biking, etc. - and in addition to improving facilities and activities in order to meet the project's objectives, there will be (and now is) an intensive marketing campaign, as might be noted through the "Love Croatia" Facebook page. As part of this project, twenty-two destinations within the country have guaranteed that at least 50% of all tourism and restaurant facilities will stay open.

One can't directly compare Croatia with Mallorca for one obvious reason - Croatia is a country - yet in terms of tourism, it wasn't at one time so dissimilar in that it was a part of a larger country. Yugoslavia, though it never created or really craved mass tourism, was in the 1950s far more open than Spain was to foreign tourists. So there was a long history of tourism development for Croatia to draw on once it became independent and once the wars that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia ceased.

At one stage in the late 1980s, total tourist arrivals to Croatia were over ten million per annum. At their lowest, in 1992, they were a little over two million. There was a hell of a lot of recovery and catch-up to be done, and it took until 2006 for the ten million barrier to be broken again. Between 2011 and 2013, the growth was significant; three million more tourists within the space of three years. The annual total is now over 14 million (roughly what the Balearics as a whole receive).

Croatia is a vastly bigger place than Mallorca, so again a direct comparison between the two is questionable. However, the Mallorcan tourism industry recognises Croatia for what it is: a direct competitor. And if you look at what the Croatia 365 project wants to achieve, you will find that it is remarkably similar to what Mallorca covets by way of all-year tourism; culture, cycling, meetings, they're the same.

There is a very meaningful comparison between the two when it comes to promotion. Mallorca's direct competitor on the Adriatic has its official Facebook page, churning out daily posts with recommendations, photos, videos and visitor comments and feedback. This is linked to the official website where there is of course a great deal more information. And Croatia now has a 365 campaign. Launched only three months ago, it is taking off thanks to social media in a way that a 365 campaign in Mallorca is not and has not. Palma's.

The foundation that oversees Palma 365 is to pay 48,000 euros apiece to a UK and a German PR company. The main purpose is for these PR companies to get press coverage. Which is all well and good, but has it gone unnoticed that there are different media out there? 1,323,186 people. Croatia, where 365 means 365 or where at least there is "an intensive marketing campaign". Who's playing catch-up now?

Still The Palace Of Follies?: Palma's Palacio de Congresos

Palma town hall last week approved a loan of 42 million euros to go towards work on the Palacio de Congresos and its adjoining hotel. What initially might have sounded like positive news regarding the Palacio for once turned out to be less than positive; the 42 million is not for further work which might complete the damn thing, it is to pay the constructors Acciona for what they have already done. The payment to Acciona and schedules of payments to other suppliers which are now envisaged, thanks to the central government in Madrid having given the green light to Palma to take out the loan, do though raise hopes that work on the Palacio might restart in the not too distant future and actually be completed some time in 2015, work having been suspended in July last year because of lack of funds.

Despite renewed optimism for the future of the convention centre, there remain doubts as to the whole project's viability. Funding is one issue, another is who might end up managing either or both the Palacio and the hotel. It was because the viability was brought into question that Palma town hall looked into what it might cost to demolish the structure - 28.6 million euros, so it was reported in February.

Demolition would be an extreme measure, and it can almost certainly be dismissed. But assuming funds can be raised to allow completion, the town hall is still no nearer finding a company to operate the site. Yet another tender process is underway, with Hilton, which has expressed an interest, likely to make a further offer, but the tendering has thus far been shambolic. Either no interest has been shown or interest that has been shown comes with a price tag below what the town hall has been putting on the Palacio.

One Mallorcan company which has bid is Meliá, but when its offer in July last year was turned down (it had been the only bidder), work on the Palacio promptly stopped. Meliá's submission was declared void, primarily, it would seem, because a bond of eight million euros wasn't paid which would have secured the contract. The town hall, via the company it has to oversee the Palacio, determined that tender conditions had not been met, but it was revealing that Meliá might have been reluctant to have parted with a sizable amount and also that it was the only bidder, and this despite there having been a reduction in the bond.

Though Meliá had looked as though it might have stepped in and given the boost to allow work to continue, the company was presumably playing hardball, and this might not have been altogether surprising. The reluctance on behalf of Mallorcan companies to get involved before the Palacio and hotel are actually finished was stated by the president of the Mallorcan hoteliers federation at the end of last month. He said that the Palacio was in a "bad location". In other words, its siting makes it too expensive and does not guarantee sufficient profitability. The president, Aurelio Vázquez, explained that "hotel chains know which projects are profitable and those which are not". Now that Hilton, not a Mallorcan company, knows what the Mallorcan hoteliers think of the project, might it now think again?

Vázquez's statement came a couple of weeks after the spokesperson for the Més grouping at the town hall, Antoni Verger, had declared that the Palacio was a "ruin". He made the same point as Vázquez - that no local business was willing to commit itself - and pointed also to the fact that the value placed on the sale of the hotel alone was below the investment that will ultimately have been put into it.

Against this background, there has at least been some good news for Palma town hall. Representatives of TUI and its subsidiary operation, Hotelbeds, have been talking up the part that the Palacio can play in eating away at tourism seasonality. TUI is in for some 100 grand as a sponsor of Palma's 365 Foundation, so it has an interest in seeing that a project which might actually realise tourism 365 days a year (or close to 365) goes ahead. It has said that it will promote Palma via Hotelbeds and other websites and at travel fairs.

But even if the Palacio is seen as being key to the success of Palma 365, then TUI's people have made it clear that it has no intention of becoming involved in the actual business of the convention centre. Indeed, why should it? As such, it is making a similar point to that made by Aurelio Vázquez, which is that once (if) the Palacio and hotel are finished, then, and only then, will businesses get involved. And it is going to take some 40 million euros more to ensure that the project is finished; 40 million euros that will have to be found from a public purse.

* Photo: the semi-built Palacio de Congresos from "Ultima Hora".