Adopting Positions: Marketing Mallorca

The director of Air Berlin in Spain and Portugal, Álvaro Middelmann, has raised the possibility of reactivating the connection between Mallorca and California. It would require going via Berlin or Düsseldorf, but there is some merit to the idea, given the association that exists because of Fray Juniper. Crew from a US navy ship were recently in Petra, just to emphasise this association.

California, the US as a whole, and other farther-flung markets across the globe have never represented much by way of tourism business for Mallorca. Which doesn't mean to say that Mallorca is not known; nor does it mean that there isn't interest. I receive emails from all over the place about Mallorca - from the States and Canada, from Australia.

An old friend from South Africa has been in contact. He'd conducted a survey about Mallorca. Responses ranged from "never considered Mallorca", "what is there to do besides the beach?", "would consider Mallorca but has no information", "perceives Mallorca to be just mass tourism".

These responses are quite revealing, albeit on what was a limited sample, but my contact went on to say that more research needs to be done as to the thought processes when a decision is made as to holiday choice. This strikes a very strong chord.

I am not about to suggest that South Africa could ever become a major market for Mallorca, but as can be seen by attempts to attract a Chinese tourist market, distance is less of a factor than it once was. Plenty of South Africans travel to Europe, and plenty of Europeans travel to South Africa. It's a small world. And in a world made smaller, diversity of market has become all important - for Mallorca and for anywhere reliant upon tourism.

Away from its mature markets, such as the UK and Germany, Mallorca faces a huge challenge in terms of getting a message across and standing out from the competition. And even with the mature markets, it faces a similar challenge of standing out.

The experience of the efforts to attract the Chinese is quite illuminating. The potential of this market may be more illusory than might be hoped, but the process of seeking it should be applauded. What has happened is that an understanding has been sought of a very different culture. It has been a process of understanding the thought processes.

But it has happened because it is clear that Chinese culture is very different. Where other markets are concerned, you wonder whether a similar effort has been made or even contemplated. If it hasn't been, you come back to the erroneous attitude towards generic marketing, generic messages and promotions. They can be successful only in a limited way, by creating awareness, but little more.

The great failure of much tourism marketing lies in the vocabulary. The very term "tourism market" implies something that is homogeneous. It is anything but. The failure, though, is in treating it as such and therefore applying a sort of one-size-fits-all approach. It doesn't work. And in Mallorca's case, what has occurred is that it tries to be all things to all people. Generic advertising, such as TV campaigns, falls into this trap. Yes, it can raise awareness, yes, it can reinforce, but it doesn't, in itself, "sell" and especially not if there isn't a strong sense of "positioning" the brand that is Mallorca.

The concept of market positioning should be fundamental in tourism marketing. Essentially, this has to do with creating an image in the potential tourist's mind, one of differentiation from competition, and also with then targeting specific markets once the right means are found to create that image. With the Chinese, this has been the process, but not with other markets. Crucially, the process appears to have been one of building up "images, benefits and differentiation (that) are solely the perception of the tourist, not the perceptions of the tourism officials or the tourism marketer" *.

Yet it is the perceptions of the tourism officials in Mallorca which generally prevail. They look upon the amorphous mass that is the tourism market with their eyes, not those of the tourist. It's the wrong way round, and so you end up with generic TV campaigns that boast of fine beaches and turquoise seas. Nothing wrong with this; they are Mallorca's core attributes. But how many other destinations have the same? How many other destinations have more culture, more of pretty much anything than Mallorca? This is the failure. The message doesn't stand out, but the belief, the wrong belief, is that generic campaigns will make it stand out. It doesn't.

To come back to Air Berlin and California, in Fray Juniper there exists the differentiation. His association is, if you like, a tourism calling-card from which all else can follow. The "position" is therefore quite different to the usual marketing of Mallorca, and so it should be for other markets. For the South Africans, it would have to be more than the beaches and the seas. It would have to be meaningful to them. It would have to be more sophisticated in understanding the thought processes that might appeal to a tourist. This is what marketing of Mallorca should be about, regardless of market, mature or new, not simply the scatter-gun chucking of money at one-size-fits-all campaigns.

* Professor Harsha Chacko, University of New Orleans, "Positioning A Tourism Destination To Gain A Competitive Edge".


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.