Out Of Time

Let's just assume for a moment that you are asked what might happen on the tourist front next year. You could probably make some educated guesses, or you might take the evidence of what has been reported, including - I have to say - on this blog. Your answers? Increase in all-inclusives? Yes. The average tourist will have a limited budget? Another tick. Businesses might find themselves suffering and perhaps having to close? Three in a row. Have a banana boat.

Having got all those right, you can now apply for the job as a professor of applied economics, because these obvious truisms have been given by a professorial expert at the university in Palma. Under a front-page banner headline in "The Bulletin" that reads "Majorca goes all-inclusive", these are hardly earth-shattering discoveries.

Setting aside the questionable grammar of that headline - Mallorca went all-inclusive a number of years ago - the depressing nature of the professor's expertise is that he is merely telling us what we already know. TUI, for example, have told us the all-inclusive offer will increase. We also know that the increase in AI has been driven partly by lower-cost competition elsewhere. We also know that the hotels are likely to have shorter seasons next year because of economic hard times, just as many have had this season. None of it is new.

Confirming evident truths seems like a good way to earn a crust, but the far greater challenge for academics, such as the prof, is to model the future effects of changes (applying some economics, in other words), of which the all-inclusive is fundamental. This is work that should have been undertaken years ago. It is just this sort of model creation that justifies academics' existence, and for findings to be presented to government and to tourism, industry and employment authorities - to be applied, possibly. Maybe such work was undertaken. If so, no-one seems to have taken much notice. Or perhaps they did, but realised there wasn't a lot they could do about it. Having, however, got to the position of a quarter of the island's hotel places being AI (and that is an average; the numbers are considerably higher in some resorts), the academics should now be doing further research, some that hopefully is paid attention to, as to the ongoing impact of all-inclusives and other shifts in the tourism market.

There is, from what I have ever tried to find on the internet, a genuine dearth of academic enquiry into this subject. Yet it is of paramount importance. Of course, decision-makers can choose to do with findings what they will - witness, for instance, the British Government's sacking of its drugs expert - but let's just further assume that the local academics concluded that, in five years time, the 25% will rise to 50 or 75%. What then? It is no use arguing the counter view that businesses grew fat and wealthy on the back of the old-style hotel offer, and so tough, or that these businesses will have to work that much harder on improving their products.

The whole economic model, that which considers the wider economy, would, if not collapse, then be on extremely shaky foundations. The professor says, accurately, that the tourism industry has a "greater ability to survive" than other sectors of an economy under recession. Well yes, survive it will do, but in what form? And what shape will the supply side be in? These are the sorts of issues that the academics should be addressing and giving publicity to, not the reiteration of what is known to already be the case.

The professor continues by averring that the "sun, sea and sand" holiday is "outmoded", while there are plenty of other destinations that offer it. He is obviously right where the other destinations are concerned, it's known as competition, but outmoded? Ask yourselves this, and perhaps the professor could do likewise, why do all those Brits, Irish, Scandinavians, Dutch, Germans, Belgians, northern French come to Mallorca? A bit of culture? No. It may have to do with something that is apparently meant to be outmoded. And if you follow the logic of his argument, what are you left with? Indeed, where would any of the competitor destinations be if beach tourism was so old-fashioned? I can't help but feel that there is just a hint of propaganda here, a knowing nod in the direction of the tourism authorities and their much-spoken-about but elusive "alternative" tourism. One could also interpret this as his suggesting that Mallorca should not try to compete, which would be a nonsense.

The typical tourist still wants his sun, his sea and his sand. But he has become more discerning, better informed, more demanding of entertainment and convenience, the latter a further reason for the rise of the AI. You have to be extremely careful in making such assertions about the decline of the traditional beach holiday. There is tourism, and then there is family tourism. And which family members are the most important when it comes to choice? Yep, the kids. Precisely the ones who want the sand and the sea, the entertainment. It is family tourism, more than any other sector of the tourism market, upon which Mallorca's success has been built. The AI is an extension of this. And even if it were not, then why do family tourists still come? Because of the sun, sea and sand. Sorry, prof, can't agree with you.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Cyndi Lauper, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C6AXnnjgqI. Today's title - and from yesterday to today in honour of traditional beach holiday having run out of time: RIP.

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