You Pays Your Money: Tourism prospects

You pays your money, you takes your choice. Or you pays rather less of your money than previously and you takes less of a choice. Or you pays less of your money, you takes a similar choice but you takes one that involves you paying less. Whatever.

Much though no one much believes tourism spend statistics, and they have good reason not to, given the way in which the data for the statistics are gathered and to what they relate, you can't accuse the statisticians of seeking to cook the books and wishing to issue feelgood stats regardless of realities, though some people have in the past been inclined to accuse them of just this, when these tourism spend statistics have revealed a scenario that appeared to bear little relation to what was in fact happening on the street or on the terrace.

Tourism spend in the Balearics was down by 8.6% in April (compared with April 2011). Oh woe. However, demonstrating that comparing one month per year with the same month in a previous year can be like comparing chalk with cheese, in April last year the spend rocketed by comparison with 2010. Why? There was no ash cloud last April and the Arab spring had fully sprung. For the first four months of this year, or so says the Egatur survey (which is the one that deals with these tourism spend stats), spend is actually up on last year. Oh joy.

I think I have in the past promised to never quote these spend statistics ever again, given that they only partially deal with what is spent on the ground by tourists (a goodly proportion relates to costs of packages etc.). I am only breaking my promise and doing so now as a means of highlighting what is a confused picture of expectations for this summer. We have already been variously told that 2012 would be a "record" year, outstripping last year's record, then we were told that it might not be a record year because the Brits were all planning on taking a staycation, then we were told ... . Sorry, I have rather lost track of what we have been told.

A survey which came out last week, that by the Mallorcan research organisation Gadeso, suggested that this summer would be pretty much the same as last year and that there was in fact a rise in business optimism. Then the hoteliers went and spoiled things by issuing their own findings in hinting that occupancy figures weren't as strong as had been anticipated.

What does seem to be the case, insofar as one can draw anything like firm conclusions, is that the domestic Spanish market is dragging things down and so is the Brit market. Prospects for the summer suggest that the volume of domestic tourists coming to the Balearics will be down by 20%, while the Brits will show a decline of just over 5%, this coming on top of an appreciable fall in the first four months of 2012.

Neither is particularly surprising, the domestic market especially. Yet countering this gloomy outlook, there are - as ever - the good old Germans to keep things bobbing along reasonably well, but far more spectacularly there are the Russians and the Scandinavians who are both knocking in increases of 30% more tourists. The Italians are also looking good, as are the Dutch and the Swiss, while events elsewhere may yet lead to the usual last-minute rush; there is overbooking in Turkey and Tunisia, while there are continuing worries about unrest in Egypt and now also in Greece. 

If you put all the other markets together, they do tend to compensate for losses elsewhere, though whether they are sufficient to fully compensate is another matter. The Spanish and British markets are two of the top three tourism markets by some fair old distance. Russian tourism up by 30% sounds good, but it is an increase from a comparatively low base, and while this 30% may well come laden with gold (most of it around their wrists or necks), it tends to end up in better quality all-inclusives. This accommodation will, because of the way in which the tourism spend stats are made up, help to probably show an increase in spend, but this is one reason why these statistics paint a false picture.

So, will 2012 be a better year than 2011, about the same or slightly down? Well, don't ask me, because I don't know. And nor does anyone else. It could be one thing, it could be another. You pays your money.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.