Two Stars In Their Eyes: All-inclusive

If you were looking to limit the effects of all-inclusive, what might be your suggestion? And you can't answer just get rid of the lot of it because that wouldn't happen. If you need some help, then why not seek the views of the complementary sector? You'll remember the complementary sector as I wrote about it the other day and about the fact it was going to come up with proposals to limit all-inclusive. And this is just what has happened. Stand back, everyone, here is the moment you've been waiting for, the moment when the rest of the tourism industry (more or less) which isn't hotels comes up with its great solution to the all-inclusive problem. Drums, please!

All-inclusives should be confined to hotels with a minimum of three stars. Sorry, what was that? All-inclusives should be confined to hotels with a minimum of three stars, so no more all-inclusive in hotels with one or two stars. That's it? That's the solution? Erm, well, yes, is there something wrong? I'll say there's something wrong. Talk about urinating in the wind, but more importantly, are you not aware, complementary sector, that the tourism law envisages the elimination of one and two-star (key) accommodation? That there won't be any within four years and that if it isn't upgraded it will be closed either temporarily or permanently.

Do you know the percentage of total hotel places in Mallorca that is made up by accommodation of lower than three stars? No, you probably don't, so I shall tell you. 7%. At least, this was the percentage in 2008, and there is no reason to believe it would now be greater. So, the complementary sector has come up with a cunning plan to lessen the harm of all-inclusives by suggesting a measure that would affect, at a rough estimate, about 20,000 hotel places in the whole of Mallorca, of which only a proportion would be offered on an all-inclusive basis (which wouldn't be full all-inclusive as there is no way that a one or two-star could offer it) and which won't be around for much longer in any case.

This cunning plan was so cunning that I assumed that I had misunderstood what I was reading when it was reported. So I read it again. No, there was and is no misunderstanding. Frankly, it's bizarre.

The other proposal regarding all-inclusives has more sense. It is one to stop the practice of hotels offering a day's all-inclusive rate, which has always seemed like the principle of free competition being stretched too far, so I have no problem with this proposal, but otherwise, if all that can be conjured up is the one and two-star solution, then I'm sorry but the complementary sector has made itself a laughing stock.

Of course, it could all just be an example of attempting to show muscle (not that there is any) and so feed the media with something with which the unquestioning media will nod its collective head and present as the complementary sector being active for once. The complementary sector must surely know that the proposal is a pointless gesture. Or does it? My worry is that it doesn't.

Like the hoteliers have been prone to making recent eccentric statements about occupancy, we now have their opponents in the complementary sector coming out with some eccentricity of their own. I am so stunned by the proposal that I can't figure out if it is a propaganda ploy, and so in the style of the hoteliers, or if it's a case of being genuinely clueless.

Meanwhile, the attractions part of the complementary sector, which has been reporting in certain cases record numbers of visitors in August (the Palma Aquarium, for example), has been expressing its concerns about this winter's tourism and about losses that are going to be suffered. This isn't anything new, but this winter's problems are going to be compounded by a significant reduction in assistance for the Imserso senior citizens tourism from the mainland.

Though Imserso does help the local tourism industry, this social-services tourism brings only limited benefits. It is not a big-spending tourism and it helps hotels more than it does other parts of the tourism industry. But it may also have contributed to a certain lack of initiative in the past. Because it was there, and could therefore tide over some parts of the industry, there wasn't the motivation to seek other remedies. Knowing what these other remedies are is of course the question, but don't go asking the complementary sector for them.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.