From Woe To Joy: Tourism announcements

I hate to bang on about all this, but some decidedly odd and contradictory statements have been emanating from sectors of the tourism industry over the past few weeks.

Towards the end of August, the hoteliers federation came out with its now infamous statement about the economy being broken on account of a failure to register 100% occupancy in August, a statement I showed to be fallacious as historically August occupancy across Mallorca averages around 90%. At the same time predictions for September and October were said to be poor. From the middle of September, added the federation, bookings were set to fall drastically and from the start of October there would be "a massive closure of hotels".

We now have a situation in which September, according to the federation, will be "exceptional" and the "most profitable of the whole season, better than other years". Moreover, October is looking that good that the season, which had looked as though it would end prematurely with the massive closure of hotels in the first week of the month, will certainly extend until around the 20th of the month.

The simple explanation for this positive news appears to be an unexpectedly high level of last-minute bookings, with the British market performing particularly well. It is quite possible that bad weather, the Olympics and Paralympics can explain this late rush, but the British market is not unique; most markets are apparently performing well - German, Russian, Scandinavian, Italian, you name it.

While one can never truly understand tourist consumer behaviour and so dismiss a collective desire to book last minute across much of Europe, it seems more than slightly strange that the situation should have changed so dramatically from one of woe three weeks ago to one of joy now. But in fact, one didn't have to wait three weeks. On 3 September, a week after the federation was issuing its warnings about a poor second half of the month, certain hotel chains were explaining to the website preferente.com that their figures for September were already exceptional: Garden Hotels with seven establishments in the north, Arenal and Cala Millor were announcing 92.3% occupancy for September; Viva Hotels (thirteen hotels in the north and Palmanova) were anticipating at least 90% and possibly even 95%. Moreover, in Viva's case the first half of October was pretty much full.

This altogether rosier picture does appear taken some hotels and the federation by surprise, or so they say, but is it all attributable to last-minute bookings? Perhaps it is, but if it is, then it serves as a reminder (again) to be wary of what actually is announced by sources such as the hoteliers. Even poor forecasts should come with a caveat; they can apparently change dramatically.

Then we have the island's tourist attractions. At the end of the first week of August I wrote about how the attractions can blame the wrong sort of weather for a failure to bring in the punters. Too hot and people stay away. Yet we were told a week ago that August had been very good for many attractions (and we're not talking waterparks here). And this despite this August having been the second hottest since 1961. So, how can this very good August be explained? A change in the profile of visitor, it is said, to a family visitor and from a youthful tourist in previous months.

This in itself is odd. It's hardly news that August attracts more families than other months. I'm sure the attractions are well aware of this historical trend. Have they therefore been taken by surprise by good August sales as much as the hoteliers have been by September's and October's? It would appear that they have as the logic of the hot weather spin would suggest that they should have done poorly in August.

The explanation regarding the family tourist in August doesn't chime with what one is typically told on the streets. Plenty of businesses hate August because tourists, despite the numbers, spend less, precisely because they are families who, not unreasonably, are worried about the pennies when they have various juniors in tow. And as for tourists in June or July being more "youthful", I simply don't buy the argument. Apart from anything else, especially in July, there are plenty of families because of variations in school summer holidays in Europe.

I am left to conclude, and I shouldn't really need these latest examples as confirmation, that most of what one is fed by the local tourism industry is, for different reasons, at best questionable and at worst just plain wrong. Why do we (I) even bother reporting what they say or comment on it? God knows.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.