New For Old: The "Q" quality mark

They're rather fond of "Q" in Mallorca. Not James Bond's "Q", but "Q" for quality or "qualitat", to use the Catalan. But here's a question for you. When is "Q" for quality not really a "Q"? Answer. When it's a "C". Quality in Spanish is "calidad". Confused? You're not the only one. "Q" is the mark of confusion as opposed to the mark of quality which it is meant to be.

Let me try and explain. Back in 2005 the Balearic Government instituted a campaign whereby all manner of businesses - anything from hotels and restaurants to golf courses, nautical clubs and discos - could be awarded a stamp of quality approval. The "Q" mark. Last summer, the government admitted defeat. Its "Q" campaign had been a complete and utter and expensive failure.

The cost of the Balearics' "Q" had risen to around half a million euros, most of it going on paying consultancies who assessed businesses' qualifications to get the "Q" mark. While at one time there had been three consultancies, the number was trimmed to one when the Unió Mallorquina party (yep, them again) got their hands on the tourism ministry. The company in question has since been caught up in one of the innumerable corruption investigations. No surprise there, then.

What made the "Q" campaign the fiasco it became, apart from the money, was that a number of hotels got to display the "Q" plaque without ever passing any form of control, while other businesses received the mark without having asked for it (but were later expected to pay for it). And then to compound the problem, the confusion of another "Q" came along - the mark of quality from the Instituto para la Calidad Turística Española (ICTE), the "Q" that should really be a "C" for "calidad". But "Q" it is, and this pretender "Q" just added to the necessity to scrap the Balearics' "Q" because any punter seeing the Balearics' "Q" might mistake it for the new "Q", assuming they took any notice of either of them.

This latest "Q" from ICTE, which was set up last year, has, unlike the Balearics' "Q", been such a success, it would appear, that it even gets its own gala occasion; the "Noche Q", which was held in Madrid on Wednesday evening. One trusts they didn't arrange for Ricky Gervais to come along and take the rip out of it.

Amongst the successes of the new "Q" is Alcudiamar in, you might have guessed, Alcúdia. At the gala it had bestowed on it the first "Q" for a "puerto deportivo" (marina) in the Balearics. It has been awarded this on account of its "excellent management and systems, environment, risk prevention and safety information". Which is all rather nice for it. Well done, Alcudiamar; well done, Alcúdia.

There are in fact a Heinz 57 of operations in the Balearics with the new "Q". In addition to Alcudiamar, there are 34 hotels, three beaches, one travel agency, one golf course (Alcanada) and 17 restaurants. Ah, restaurants. Gastronomy. The great alternative tourism of gastronomy. Important that this should be branded with a "Q". Want to know where to go for some typical and quality Mallorcan cuisine? Well, I'm afraid this won't help you. What are these restaurants? McDonald's. All 17 of them. Indeed, if you were in two regions of Spain with the highest numbers of restaurants of "Q", you would be able to enjoy out of, respectively, 83 and 97 restaurants with the "Q" mark, 53 McDonald's in Valencia and 68 in Andalusia.

Now, there's nothing wrong with McDonald's and as a company it is very good at getting its quality systems right, but is a McDonald's really what this should be all about? Perhaps the attendees at the gala were served Big Macs. It might have made more sense to have called it the "McDonald's Noche Q" or queuing for a McDonald's.

The new "Q" is compatible with the ISO9000 family of quality standards, so it is a respectable sign of quality. But although ISO has a lot going for it in terms of conformance with quality, reliability and so on, critics believe that it costs too much, that it can involve considerable management time for management that doesn't always understand what the standards mean, and that it places certification before actual quality. There are marketing benefits from having certification, but largely they tend to be for businesses working with other businesses. Does Joe or José Public appreciate them?

I can recall that when the Balearics' "Q" was introduced, several restaurant owners were dismissive of it. They saw it as just another way to get money off of them for no real benefit. You can still see the plaques around and about. Did those restaurants that weren't dismissive ever benefit? Questionable.

The new "Q" is a feather in Alcudiamar's cap, and more operations will doubtless go through the rigmarole in order to obtain the certification, but given the experiences with the Balearics' "Q" it must be open to doubt as to whether many will consider it to be worth the effort or worth the confusion of substituting an old "Q" with a new "Q".


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.