The Excursions Industry: Mallorca's travel agencies

Thomas Cook, the Mr. Thomas Cook that is, is attributed with having invented the package tour and the excursion. The trip from Leicester to Loughborough - train tickets and food all in - doesn't sound as though it was a barrel of fun, and the barrel most certainly wouldn't have been rolled out and included in the price; not when the excursionists were members of the Temperance Society.

Thomas Cook, today's Thomas Cook, still deals in excursions as well as package tours. The excursion, as far as tour operators are concerned, is a core part of their business. A Mallorcan attraction's business model may not be wholly dependent upon tour operators and their clients, but it does rely greatly on tour operators; you might be surprised to know just how much influence the tour operators wield with attractions, or there again, if you work for an attraction (or indeed a tour operator), you wouldn't be.

Travel agencies belonging to the AVIBA association reckon that the sale of excursions has declined by around a million over the past ten years. The decline is attributed to a number of factors, but economic crisis is the most obvious one. As such, therefore, there is an obvious question to ask. If economic crisis is so significant a factor, which it clearly is, why are the travel agencies referring to the last ten years and not the last five?

Reports of the decline in excursion sales are not new. In August 2009, the travel agencies announced that sales for that summer were down by 20%. What was interesting about the fall in 2009 was that it coincided with a shortage in the car-rental sector. Yet, rather than excursions receiving a boost from the lack of hire cars, they still experienced a fall in sales.

Three years on, there isn't the shortage of hire cars, but economic circumstances are much the same. The travel agencies now attribute the one million loss in part to the competition from hire cars, whereas in 2009 it was less of a factor. There are other issues.

Anecdotally, the evidence where excursion sales are concerned is similar to that with restaurant sales. Whereas a family might once have bought two or three excursions, they now only buy one, rather like they now only eat out once every two or three days and not every day. This is one issue. Another is the demand for certain types of excursion. 2009 is again quite revealing, as the travel agencies were pointing then to a dramatic fall in excursions to evening attractions; sales of these were down in 2009 by over a million compared with ten years before. The numbers sound rather familiar therefore.

Has this trend continued? Consider the experience of "Daddy Cool". How long did this show run this summer before it had to close? Not very long. It failed to meet expectations. I'm not surprised. It isn't the only evening attraction that isn't meeting expectations. Or so I understand.

While there has been a fall in the sale of excursions, the travel agencies are only part of the distribution channel. Which brings you back to the tour operators that have been pushing excursions ever harder as a means of compensating for any fall in margins on holidays. To the tour operators, you can add the independent excursions operators. And when one considers the efforts of one of these - No Frills Excursions - one begins to see another issue: marketing.

No Frills, licensed as a travel agency but not an AVIBA member, markets itself strongly, especially through social media as well as through multiple outlets (in the north of Mallorca). The travel agencies, by comparison, are essentially passive. They are complaining about falls in sales, but one fancies that they haven't moved with the times in confronting competition of different sorts, not just that posed by car-rental firms. There is also the whole issue of pricing; its own little story and not one I intend going into.

The overall picture would still, despite sales being made by other operators, reveal that fewer excursions are being taken than in the good old days. Yet the bread-and-butter excursions, such as to waterparks or the island tour, are holding up, seemingly at the expense of evening excursions which have the additional complication of entertainment that is now commonly available in hotels. It may not be entertainment of the same high standard, but if budgets are tight, one can understand that tourist purchase decisions might favour the day and not the evening out.

The story of the fall in excursion sales is not all it seems, but then such stories very rarely are. The travel agencies may be taking a hit, but theirs is not the only story in Mallorca's excursions industry.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.