"We don't live from tourism, we survive from tourism ... (There has to be an alternative) based on agriculture and renewable energy." The quote comes from an interview with Margalida Ramis, the spokesperson for the GOB environmental pressure group. The interview was carried in the Diario de Mallorca on Sunday.
It is never satisfactory to quote out of the context of everything else being said, but the quote nevertheless gives a flavour of the GOB stance on tourism. Environmentalism and tourism make for uneasy bedfellows. In the case of GOB, they would rather kick tourism out of bed, if only over the edge rather than onto the floor. It isn't that GOB wish that there was no tourism, just that there was rather less dependence upon it, a dependence which results in what you get - massification and saturation, to use the buzzwords of the time - as well of course as environmental damage.
The survival from tourism brings with it, in GOB terms, a lowering in family purchasing power (these families being ones in the Balearics). This is a theme of the regional government. Despite the current bonanza, the wealth from tourism does not cascade downwards throughout all the socioeconomic food chain. There is merit to the argument insofar as salaries are as they are (not always great) and jobs can so often be temporary or be subject to dubious contractual arrangements.
There is an additional hazard from this survival. The bonanza, as we all know, owes much to sad events suffered by others. Safety and security in the Balearics have provided homes to holidaymakers "borrowed" from elsewhere. What would happen if security became an issue here? Safety, as we also all know, cannot be guaranteed anywhere.
This said, the islands' tourism has in the past faced difficulties not of its making. An example was the oil crisis of the 1970s. It was survived, although it took around four years for numbers to really recover. There was also the Icelandic ash cloud, which created a shortlived crisis but demonstrated the extent to which the wholly unexpected can suddenly explode.
Ramis was saying nothing new. The dependence on tourism and therefore the need for diversification have been discussed over and over. They are still being discussed: at great length by the current regime. But there is diversification realism and there is lack of realism. Agriculture? Really. It counts for around one per cent of GDP. It is also subject to the caprices of Mother Nature in the same way that tourism is. I give you the drought in evidence, while I can also give you the impact of pests. As for renewable energy, it remains something of a pipedream, and while it would represent diversification, it would need productive sectors to energise, such as tourism.
Having read this interview, the general impression one was left with was that GOB believe they should be listened to more and that they should be exerting greater influence. GOB are never short of things to say or of denuncias to be lodged, but might the sheer volume of noise that emanates from them be doing them a disfavour? One can believe that with the eco-nationalists Més in charge of the tourism and environment ministries, GOB felt they had the right people to bend to their influences. But Biel Barceló is described as a "total disappointment", while there seems to be some disenchantment with Vicenç Vidal at environment and agriculture as well.
GOB have in the past been told, by the right, to either put up and become a political party or shut up. Such criticism is unfair to a pressure group with legitimate aims and concerns, but they are only a pressure group. Més have enough pressure as it is because of the constant battles with the parties of the "pact". They don't need GOB hounding them and telling them what to do. One-time natural allies can now point out to GOB that being in government requires the consideration of more than a pressure group's demands.
It isn't as if GOB aren't pandered to. Although the organisation disagrees with how the tourist tax revenue is to be spent - it wants it all to go towards the environment - it has representation on the spending committee. Two places in fact; one more than the Council of Mallorca, for example.
Then there is the question of pressure that GOB might be feeling. I have previously wondered about the relationship with Terraferida, which shot to prominence over the Cabrera beach "privatisation" and Albufera waste spillage last summer. Ramis says that Terraferida are not a threat, which is revealing in itself. Aren't they both operating from the same hymn sheet? Yes, but in different ways, explained Ramis without being wholly convincing.
Terraferida have, though, captured the "saturation" mood in a more dramatic and direct way than GOB. Is it the case that GOB have become institutionalised and now form part of the establishment? Even pressure groups, it would seem, can come under pressure.
Showing posts with label Diversification. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diversification. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Arguing Over Little: Tourism Promotion
The regional government, in other words PSOE and Més, has fought off the budgetary challenge of Podemos and will stick to its spending for tourism promotion in 2017 - all of 3.6 million euros. Podemos had wanted the bulk of this budget (three million) to be devoted to the innovation and research part of Biel Barceló's ministry. The government parties were having none of this. Toni Reus of Més, a former mayor of Santa Margalida, said that the spending was targeted at precisely the objectives that Podemos had accepted in drawing up the agreement for government with PSOE and Més - such as cultural and gastronomy tourism and tackling tourism seasonality. Damià Borràs of PSOE told Podemos that the promotion will assist in extending the tourism season and therefore workers' contracts.
While Més, some elements within it at any rate, may be characterised as being sympathetic to the tourist limits or tourist reduction camp, this was not what came across during the debate on the promotion budget. Laura Camargo of Podemos insisted that her party was the only one that was wishing to "put a brake" on the number of tourists. As for tackling seasonality, this will be like "pouring petrol on the fire", she argued. "We do not want more tourists in summer or in winter." She then went on to say that after eight months of work during the season, workers were exhausted. They shouldn't now have to be called on to work in the winter as well.
Of Camargo's remarks, one might observe that workers who have put in eight-month stints are the lucky ones, and while it is undeniable that many workers in the tourism industry work long hours, why should it be deemed acceptable that they should not work more than eight months? This is the conclusion one draws from what Camargo was saying, and it is a conclusion which reinforces the skewed basis of the Balearic economy: work for x number of months and put your feet up for y months of the year, hopefully with sufficient benefit to see you through. Does she not also appreciate that there are workers who disappear in winter and look for and find work where there is a winter season, e.g. the Canaries? Not all of them are exhausted.
Podemos wanted the money to go towards innovation and research because the party believes that this will assist in creating the much-spoken-about changed economic model, one that is more diversified, less reliant on tourism and spreads wealth more evenly. But PSOE and Més want the same thing. Any political party with a modicum of common sense would want this. The difference with Podemos, or so it seems, is that this change can be brought about by diminishing the main sector of the islands' economic activity, which is plainly wrongheaded. The more that tourism is buoyant, the more it generates wealth and revenue for the government. Not all of this wealth is ploughed back or shared through decent salaries with the general workforce - that is a rightful beef - but much of it is and so can, with the right political and financial management, be targeted at diversification.
The announcement of a new Balearic stand for travel fairs will doubtless therefore have caused convulsions within Podemos. The promotional spend, such as it is, goes in great part towards travel fairs, and the new stand (its design at any rate) was revealed earlier this week. Its maiden appearance will be at Madrid's Fitur fair in January.
The Balearic Tourism Agency describes this as conveying a "fresher and more Mediterranean" image, and the message it will be helping to get across will be one aimed at tackling both seasonality and summer season "saturation". The slogan will be "best in winter", with emphasis being placed - you won't be surprised to learn - on gastronomy, culture and heritage.
While Més, some elements within it at any rate, may be characterised as being sympathetic to the tourist limits or tourist reduction camp, this was not what came across during the debate on the promotion budget. Laura Camargo of Podemos insisted that her party was the only one that was wishing to "put a brake" on the number of tourists. As for tackling seasonality, this will be like "pouring petrol on the fire", she argued. "We do not want more tourists in summer or in winter." She then went on to say that after eight months of work during the season, workers were exhausted. They shouldn't now have to be called on to work in the winter as well.
Of Camargo's remarks, one might observe that workers who have put in eight-month stints are the lucky ones, and while it is undeniable that many workers in the tourism industry work long hours, why should it be deemed acceptable that they should not work more than eight months? This is the conclusion one draws from what Camargo was saying, and it is a conclusion which reinforces the skewed basis of the Balearic economy: work for x number of months and put your feet up for y months of the year, hopefully with sufficient benefit to see you through. Does she not also appreciate that there are workers who disappear in winter and look for and find work where there is a winter season, e.g. the Canaries? Not all of them are exhausted.
Podemos wanted the money to go towards innovation and research because the party believes that this will assist in creating the much-spoken-about changed economic model, one that is more diversified, less reliant on tourism and spreads wealth more evenly. But PSOE and Més want the same thing. Any political party with a modicum of common sense would want this. The difference with Podemos, or so it seems, is that this change can be brought about by diminishing the main sector of the islands' economic activity, which is plainly wrongheaded. The more that tourism is buoyant, the more it generates wealth and revenue for the government. Not all of this wealth is ploughed back or shared through decent salaries with the general workforce - that is a rightful beef - but much of it is and so can, with the right political and financial management, be targeted at diversification.
The announcement of a new Balearic stand for travel fairs will doubtless therefore have caused convulsions within Podemos. The promotional spend, such as it is, goes in great part towards travel fairs, and the new stand (its design at any rate) was revealed earlier this week. Its maiden appearance will be at Madrid's Fitur fair in January.
The Balearic Tourism Agency describes this as conveying a "fresher and more Mediterranean" image, and the message it will be helping to get across will be one aimed at tackling both seasonality and summer season "saturation". The slogan will be "best in winter", with emphasis being placed - you won't be surprised to learn - on gastronomy, culture and heritage.
Tuesday, September 08, 2015
The Vagueness Of Technology: MICTT
The vice-president of the Balearics, Biel Barceló, is best known for being tourism minister. He has another specific ministerial responsibility that is less well known: innovation and research. This area of activity was one that featured as, if not more prominently than tourism in his party's manifesto. Més, like Podemos, place a great deal of emphasis on innovation and the development and exploitation of new technologies. While these are a feature of tourism, they obviously apply more widely, but whereas we have heard a good deal about Barceló's proposals for tourism, such as the tourist tax, we have heard very little about innovation and research.
Prior to the election, Més proposed creating a digital area out of the Gesa building and its surroundings in Palma. Quite what they had in mind wasn't entirely clear. We may get to know more, as the Més man in Palma, deputy mayor Antoni Noguera, works up his vision of the "model city". We can hope that whatever Noguera and Barceló want for technology, it doesn't go the same way as ambitions of previous regimes. Proudly proclaimed, they came to little or nothing, and yet it is new technologies which offer Mallorca a way out of its massive over-dependence on the tourism industry, if only a relatively small way out.
We have had (and still hear occasionally) the claims of a Silicon Valley in Mallorca, one mainly the product of the ParcBit estate. But such claims, with their extravagant use of hyperbole, are easily enough made. Actually doing something about them is a very different matter.
Back in the days of Francesc Antich and the PSOE-led administration of 2007 to 2011, there were two grand plans. One was the Plan Turismo 2020. Under this, tourist numbers were to be cut, but those that remained would be of greater "quality" and have more money. Sounds familiar, doesn't it. The other was the I&D plan, one for innovation and development. Come the election in 2011, and both had been more or less forgotten. The Antich administration could perhaps point to the mitigating effect of economic crisis for investment on I&D having fallen from the 2005 figure of 183 million euros of the previous Matas Partido Popular government to only 55 million euros in 2009. But the one third cut to this investment from 2008 to 2009 was not mirrored in other regions of Spain. There were increases elsewhere: 25% in Madrid, 12% in Aragon, for example.
Crisis or not, it wasn't as if Antich was being penalised by Madrid. He had Zapatero in charge and a PSOE government that was more generous in its financing of and investment in the Balearics than was to become the case with Rajoy. Yet somehow, the great scheme (never well enunciated) for innovation failed to materialise. Except in one way. Materialise it did in the form of the Big M: Microsoft.
Here was a marriage of new techologies and tourism. The clue was in the title: the Microsoft Innovation Center Tourism Technologies, MICTT, in ParcBit. In a way, it was a misleading name. Microsoft, though it gave the use of its name, didn't actually fund it. Yes, it was to be the principal client. Yes, it was to be involved in some significant projects of direct relevance to the tourism industry. Yes, it was to provide consultancy services in boosting the island's technology industry. But the funding was to come from elsewhere.
In 2010, the Antich administration did increase its I&D budget, but it was from such a low base that the percentage of GDP devoted to it was by then the lowest of any region of Spain. The Bauzá government wasn't much better. Indeed it was, as far as the MICTT was concerned, worse. Not only wasn't investment forthcoming, the government displayed, as is now being said by the board of its foundation, incompetence.
Yet Bauzá was able to show the then Crown Prince Felipe and his wife the touchscreen virtual map of all manner of tourist attractions, points of interest, beaches and so on for use at travel fairs. There was to be a "killer app", a Mallorca tourism hub for the Windows Phone. There was to be the database of locations around Mallorca where there had been filming, replete with relevant videos. The realities were to be different, and now there is nothing of the centre. It has filed for bankruptcy, unable any longer to sustain its debts.
The incompetence was not that of the Bauzá government alone. The Antich administration had launched the project with a great fanfare, but from the outset there was never a clear strategic plan for the centre. A lot of talk and not much else, which brings us to Barceló and to Noguera. What do they mean by a digital area? Do they know?
Prior to the election, Més proposed creating a digital area out of the Gesa building and its surroundings in Palma. Quite what they had in mind wasn't entirely clear. We may get to know more, as the Més man in Palma, deputy mayor Antoni Noguera, works up his vision of the "model city". We can hope that whatever Noguera and Barceló want for technology, it doesn't go the same way as ambitions of previous regimes. Proudly proclaimed, they came to little or nothing, and yet it is new technologies which offer Mallorca a way out of its massive over-dependence on the tourism industry, if only a relatively small way out.
We have had (and still hear occasionally) the claims of a Silicon Valley in Mallorca, one mainly the product of the ParcBit estate. But such claims, with their extravagant use of hyperbole, are easily enough made. Actually doing something about them is a very different matter.
Back in the days of Francesc Antich and the PSOE-led administration of 2007 to 2011, there were two grand plans. One was the Plan Turismo 2020. Under this, tourist numbers were to be cut, but those that remained would be of greater "quality" and have more money. Sounds familiar, doesn't it. The other was the I&D plan, one for innovation and development. Come the election in 2011, and both had been more or less forgotten. The Antich administration could perhaps point to the mitigating effect of economic crisis for investment on I&D having fallen from the 2005 figure of 183 million euros of the previous Matas Partido Popular government to only 55 million euros in 2009. But the one third cut to this investment from 2008 to 2009 was not mirrored in other regions of Spain. There were increases elsewhere: 25% in Madrid, 12% in Aragon, for example.
Crisis or not, it wasn't as if Antich was being penalised by Madrid. He had Zapatero in charge and a PSOE government that was more generous in its financing of and investment in the Balearics than was to become the case with Rajoy. Yet somehow, the great scheme (never well enunciated) for innovation failed to materialise. Except in one way. Materialise it did in the form of the Big M: Microsoft.
Here was a marriage of new techologies and tourism. The clue was in the title: the Microsoft Innovation Center Tourism Technologies, MICTT, in ParcBit. In a way, it was a misleading name. Microsoft, though it gave the use of its name, didn't actually fund it. Yes, it was to be the principal client. Yes, it was to be involved in some significant projects of direct relevance to the tourism industry. Yes, it was to provide consultancy services in boosting the island's technology industry. But the funding was to come from elsewhere.
In 2010, the Antich administration did increase its I&D budget, but it was from such a low base that the percentage of GDP devoted to it was by then the lowest of any region of Spain. The Bauzá government wasn't much better. Indeed it was, as far as the MICTT was concerned, worse. Not only wasn't investment forthcoming, the government displayed, as is now being said by the board of its foundation, incompetence.
Yet Bauzá was able to show the then Crown Prince Felipe and his wife the touchscreen virtual map of all manner of tourist attractions, points of interest, beaches and so on for use at travel fairs. There was to be a "killer app", a Mallorca tourism hub for the Windows Phone. There was to be the database of locations around Mallorca where there had been filming, replete with relevant videos. The realities were to be different, and now there is nothing of the centre. It has filed for bankruptcy, unable any longer to sustain its debts.
The incompetence was not that of the Bauzá government alone. The Antich administration had launched the project with a great fanfare, but from the outset there was never a clear strategic plan for the centre. A lot of talk and not much else, which brings us to Barceló and to Noguera. What do they mean by a digital area? Do they know?
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Company Law: Balearics farming legislation
Of ministers in the regional government, there is one who has been spent the period of this administration going about his business in a generally quiet and effective manner. Gabriel Company, minister for the environment, agriculture and land, has not courted attention, yet he has been responsible for laws with far-reaching consequences which are, for the most part, sound in their drafting and to be welcomed. These are the laws for land, fishing and farming.
It hasn't all been plain sailing for Company. He became embroiled in the controversy of the supposedly private trip to Cabrera with former education minister Rafael Bosch which benefited from public money and during which lobster and champagne were consumed; an extravagance which gave opponents a target at which to aim and one that they fired at with relish. He was criticised over the maintenance of forests following the Andratx fire last year, and more recently he failed to convince a sceptical public and opposition that the regional government was unaware of test soundings for oil in Balearic waters. A minister's life is never smooth, but on balance he has been doing a good job, so much so that he has been dubbed "untouchable"; the one minister who Bauzá could ill afford to lose or be prepared to move on.
This untouchability was put to the test over those oil tests. It appeared to many that Company was being hung out to dry by a president eager to distance himself from any hint of regional complicity in oil prospecting. The relationship between the two was already strained, but Bauzá would have appreciated that Company, with his remit for reform on several fronts, had to be held onto. These reforms, while they may have lacked the headlining qualities of those to do with education or tourism, have been central to the government's deregulatory philosophy (where it has suited the government to de-regulate).
The farming law has now finally received full parliamentary approval. It isn't without its controversies, but it is a law which, unusually for Balearics legislation, has been greeted with satisfaction by elements that typically might be expected to oppose Partido Popular legislation regardless of what it contains. The farmers' union has backed it, as has a former agriculture minister, Mateu Morro, who is a member of the PSM socialists, a party with a close association with the green and environmentalist lobby.
The main thrust of the law is to make agricultural land more productive through diversification. Over 60% of Mallorca's land is categorised as being for farming purposes, yet agriculture is a sector which contributes a mere 1.1% of Gross Value Added to the economy and employs a similarly meagre percentage of the workforce, 2.4%. And this workforce is one characterised by its age: there are far too few younger workers in the industry. The diversification, aimed at increasing productivity and at providing new opportunities for business and employment, envisages new activities, such as the opening of hostels for tourists, of shops and of sports facilities with an essentially rural flavour; the sports would, therefore, be related to equestrianism as well as to cycling and hiking. There is even provision for short-term camping. This only allows farms to host a maximum of ten people for two nights, but it is a measure which represents something of a breakthrough for an activity - camping - which has been repressed for too long.
There is a good deal of joined-up governmental thinking. The law will expand rural tourism, though this hasn't met with the full approval of hoteliers as it is farm proprietors who will benefit from this additional tourism. In order to remove any potential objections from the hotel sector, the tourism decree has recognised the changes in use of farming land and brought these within the scope of the tourism ministry's granting of permissions for rural tourism.
There may yet be a challenge to an aspect of the law to do with tree felling. The Balearics association of environment agents, i.e. professionals who work in forestry and the broader environment and is a self-styled environmental police, believes that permissiveness with regard to felling and logging will endanger certain species and increase risks of fires (because of the residue from felling). It is considering a challenge to the law, arguing that it conflicts with state law on natural spaces and the protection of species.
Objections from environmentalist groups are to be expected and are understandable, but this isn't a law that has been greeted with the full force of environmentalist ire. And a reason why may well lie with Company's credibility. He enjoys the confidence of the farming community and of opposition politicians because he comes from the agriculture industry. He was brought into the regional government as an independent precisely because he understood the industry. Other ministerial appointments might benefit from a similar profile.
It hasn't all been plain sailing for Company. He became embroiled in the controversy of the supposedly private trip to Cabrera with former education minister Rafael Bosch which benefited from public money and during which lobster and champagne were consumed; an extravagance which gave opponents a target at which to aim and one that they fired at with relish. He was criticised over the maintenance of forests following the Andratx fire last year, and more recently he failed to convince a sceptical public and opposition that the regional government was unaware of test soundings for oil in Balearic waters. A minister's life is never smooth, but on balance he has been doing a good job, so much so that he has been dubbed "untouchable"; the one minister who Bauzá could ill afford to lose or be prepared to move on.
This untouchability was put to the test over those oil tests. It appeared to many that Company was being hung out to dry by a president eager to distance himself from any hint of regional complicity in oil prospecting. The relationship between the two was already strained, but Bauzá would have appreciated that Company, with his remit for reform on several fronts, had to be held onto. These reforms, while they may have lacked the headlining qualities of those to do with education or tourism, have been central to the government's deregulatory philosophy (where it has suited the government to de-regulate).
The farming law has now finally received full parliamentary approval. It isn't without its controversies, but it is a law which, unusually for Balearics legislation, has been greeted with satisfaction by elements that typically might be expected to oppose Partido Popular legislation regardless of what it contains. The farmers' union has backed it, as has a former agriculture minister, Mateu Morro, who is a member of the PSM socialists, a party with a close association with the green and environmentalist lobby.
The main thrust of the law is to make agricultural land more productive through diversification. Over 60% of Mallorca's land is categorised as being for farming purposes, yet agriculture is a sector which contributes a mere 1.1% of Gross Value Added to the economy and employs a similarly meagre percentage of the workforce, 2.4%. And this workforce is one characterised by its age: there are far too few younger workers in the industry. The diversification, aimed at increasing productivity and at providing new opportunities for business and employment, envisages new activities, such as the opening of hostels for tourists, of shops and of sports facilities with an essentially rural flavour; the sports would, therefore, be related to equestrianism as well as to cycling and hiking. There is even provision for short-term camping. This only allows farms to host a maximum of ten people for two nights, but it is a measure which represents something of a breakthrough for an activity - camping - which has been repressed for too long.
There is a good deal of joined-up governmental thinking. The law will expand rural tourism, though this hasn't met with the full approval of hoteliers as it is farm proprietors who will benefit from this additional tourism. In order to remove any potential objections from the hotel sector, the tourism decree has recognised the changes in use of farming land and brought these within the scope of the tourism ministry's granting of permissions for rural tourism.
There may yet be a challenge to an aspect of the law to do with tree felling. The Balearics association of environment agents, i.e. professionals who work in forestry and the broader environment and is a self-styled environmental police, believes that permissiveness with regard to felling and logging will endanger certain species and increase risks of fires (because of the residue from felling). It is considering a challenge to the law, arguing that it conflicts with state law on natural spaces and the protection of species.
Objections from environmentalist groups are to be expected and are understandable, but this isn't a law that has been greeted with the full force of environmentalist ire. And a reason why may well lie with Company's credibility. He enjoys the confidence of the farming community and of opposition politicians because he comes from the agriculture industry. He was brought into the regional government as an independent precisely because he understood the industry. Other ministerial appointments might benefit from a similar profile.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Less Is Less: Tourism promotion
The Balearics ministry of tourism and sport has released its plan of action for 2013. Fifteen pages long, it could probably have all been fitted onto one sheet of A4 or even the back of a fag packet. But as there are fifteen pages, what gems of promotional action do they reveal?
The first thing to be said about this plan is that it is one of six elements in the "integral plan of tourism", by which is meant the "route that will make the Balearic Islands a motivational, competitive and modern destination". One might ask, therefore, if the Balearics have previously been none of these things. Whatever, the strategic objective of the promotional element is to "adapt to new consumer behaviour" in positioning a different tourist destination. Note the word "different". Supporting this objective are three further elements - brand management, positioning and Web E.0 (or the Web as consumer experience). Which is all terribly interesting and might be more so if the action plan mentioned Web E.0 again. It doesn't, and by the way, if you are wondering what is meant by Web E.0, then we're talking social media among some other jargon (knowledge management on-demand, digital media relationship management). If you don't know what these mean, don't worry, no one does.
Instead, the action plan is concerned exclusively with trade fairs and visits of various sorts. A total of 107 separate "actions" will be carried out this year in promoting the Balearics, and the average cost of these actions will be around a fifth of what 60 "actions" in 2009 cost. This greatly reduced average cost is of course designed to impress: more for less, the mantra according to Delgado.
It is when you delve into these actions that you begin to form a rather worrying conclusion. Where, for example, are all the actions designed to capture emerging tourist markets? Even the Russian market, held up as the great saviour of Balearics tourism, gets a mere three actions. One of these is the Moscow fair in March. As for the other two, the plan doesn't specifically say. Brazil and India both get one unspecified action. There isn't a single one for China, the Middle East or other Latin American countries apart from the solitary action in Brazil.
Yet, the next great boom in international tourism will come from such countries. The predicted growth in Chinese outward tourism over the next 20 years or so is 30%; Latin America is 15%. Where also is any attempt to take action in Japan or Canada, both of them with good growth prospects?
Instead, which country will get the lion's share of promotional attention? Germany. Over twice as much effort as the UK. Far from being strategic in being forward-thinking, the plan looks like more of the same. The key markets such as Germany can't be ignored, of course they can't, but the architects of the plan seem not to appreciate how international tourism is developing and will develop over the next few years.
Then there is what is "different" for the "different tourist destination" that the plan envisages. What type of attraction do you suppose will get most promotional attention? If you say sun and beach, you wouldn't be wrong, just that the plan refers to it as "coastal". Nothing else comes vaguely near, which sounds in one way a sensible understanding of where Mallorca and the Balearics strengths lie - flat out on the sand, soaking up the sun. But in devoting, for example, 1% of actions to nautical tourism, 2% to cycling, where's the diversification, the drive towards low-season, winter tourism? About as hidden as the diversification into the new emerging tourism markets. Yet, the tourism ministry has boasted that this plan is all about ensuring improvements to low-season tourism.
That the plan says absolutely nothing about the use of social media and other so-called Web E.0 techniques makes one wonder if its inclusion is simply there for show. Does the ministry even know how it intends to exploit these techniques? The fact that the plan is silent and the fact that the targeting of the actions is anything but innovative leads me to conclude that this plan is just an exercise in window-dressing. The government wants to be able to make its more or less boast, but what it has ended up with is less for more; more actions but with less strategy and less clarity as to future needs. A plan for inaction. If they want, they can give me the 25 grand average cost of the 107 actions and I'll come up with something better.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The first thing to be said about this plan is that it is one of six elements in the "integral plan of tourism", by which is meant the "route that will make the Balearic Islands a motivational, competitive and modern destination". One might ask, therefore, if the Balearics have previously been none of these things. Whatever, the strategic objective of the promotional element is to "adapt to new consumer behaviour" in positioning a different tourist destination. Note the word "different". Supporting this objective are three further elements - brand management, positioning and Web E.0 (or the Web as consumer experience). Which is all terribly interesting and might be more so if the action plan mentioned Web E.0 again. It doesn't, and by the way, if you are wondering what is meant by Web E.0, then we're talking social media among some other jargon (knowledge management on-demand, digital media relationship management). If you don't know what these mean, don't worry, no one does.
Instead, the action plan is concerned exclusively with trade fairs and visits of various sorts. A total of 107 separate "actions" will be carried out this year in promoting the Balearics, and the average cost of these actions will be around a fifth of what 60 "actions" in 2009 cost. This greatly reduced average cost is of course designed to impress: more for less, the mantra according to Delgado.
It is when you delve into these actions that you begin to form a rather worrying conclusion. Where, for example, are all the actions designed to capture emerging tourist markets? Even the Russian market, held up as the great saviour of Balearics tourism, gets a mere three actions. One of these is the Moscow fair in March. As for the other two, the plan doesn't specifically say. Brazil and India both get one unspecified action. There isn't a single one for China, the Middle East or other Latin American countries apart from the solitary action in Brazil.
Yet, the next great boom in international tourism will come from such countries. The predicted growth in Chinese outward tourism over the next 20 years or so is 30%; Latin America is 15%. Where also is any attempt to take action in Japan or Canada, both of them with good growth prospects?
Instead, which country will get the lion's share of promotional attention? Germany. Over twice as much effort as the UK. Far from being strategic in being forward-thinking, the plan looks like more of the same. The key markets such as Germany can't be ignored, of course they can't, but the architects of the plan seem not to appreciate how international tourism is developing and will develop over the next few years.
Then there is what is "different" for the "different tourist destination" that the plan envisages. What type of attraction do you suppose will get most promotional attention? If you say sun and beach, you wouldn't be wrong, just that the plan refers to it as "coastal". Nothing else comes vaguely near, which sounds in one way a sensible understanding of where Mallorca and the Balearics strengths lie - flat out on the sand, soaking up the sun. But in devoting, for example, 1% of actions to nautical tourism, 2% to cycling, where's the diversification, the drive towards low-season, winter tourism? About as hidden as the diversification into the new emerging tourism markets. Yet, the tourism ministry has boasted that this plan is all about ensuring improvements to low-season tourism.
That the plan says absolutely nothing about the use of social media and other so-called Web E.0 techniques makes one wonder if its inclusion is simply there for show. Does the ministry even know how it intends to exploit these techniques? The fact that the plan is silent and the fact that the targeting of the actions is anything but innovative leads me to conclude that this plan is just an exercise in window-dressing. The government wants to be able to make its more or less boast, but what it has ended up with is less for more; more actions but with less strategy and less clarity as to future needs. A plan for inaction. If they want, they can give me the 25 grand average cost of the 107 actions and I'll come up with something better.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Needed: A New Model Economy
The Centre for Economic Research (Centre de Recerca Econòmica - CRE) has put the Balearics economy on red alert. I don't know if alerts had previously been issued but red should have been the colour since the turn of the century. The CRE knows this. In March this year it made an announcement that has now produced its red-alert warning, one to the effect that the economic multiplier effect of tourism has been shrinking since 2000. Put simply, this has meant loss of competitiveness; tourism numbers have risen but revenues and jobs have not risen in line with these increased numbers.
The CRE believes that the current model of tourism in the Balearics is out of date. It is difficult to argue with this. In fact, it has been out of date for very much longer than the years of this century. You can go back to the start of the nineties to find evidence of a percentage of tourism (around 10%) that constituted a net loss. In March the CRE put forward the case for concentrating on more profitable tourism, which would almost inevitably mean fewer tourists but ones with greater spending power.
Such a shift in emphasis has been previously considered. Five years ago the Antich government proposed this as part of its "Plan Turismo 2020". The problem with this plan was that there never any plan as such, though in provisions of the current government's tourism law there are clear nods in the direction of the principle of fewer but greater value-adding tourists.
The pursuit of tourism profitability explains the expectations for Russian tourism. The director for Spanish tourism in Moscow has identified the fact that Russian tourists typically spend the equivalent of up to 40% over and above the cost of their holiday package. Or put another way, they spend at least 50% more than tourists from other countries.
Much as Russian tourism will grow over the next few years, the CRE has implied that there are the limits to this new tourism's capacity to adjust the current model of Balearics tourism. It is right to do so as it would be a case of short-termism to place so much emphasis and hope on a remodelling of the tourism industry without a simultaneous development of other parts of the economy. It is the lack of economic diversity that really concerns the CRE and it is one that should concern everyone and should have been concerning them for years.
In 2008 the IMF warned that Spain would be the country worst affected by the credit crunch. One can argue that it hasn't been the worst affected but such things are relative. Among what the IMF had identified, and which was pretty obvious, was the problem created by over-reliance on certain industries, notably tourism and construction. Such over-reliance was far greater in the Balearics than in Spain as a whole, and despite reassurances from regional government as to tourism's role in moving the Balearics out of recession or a state of very limited growth, these reassurances are weak when the capacity for growth that tourism offers is as feeble as the CRE suggests.
Short and medium term there may be a bounce because of tourism from the new markets, but it is the long term which counts and this entails diversification. The trouble is that this diversification, where it has ever been seriously addressed, suffers from vagueness as to what it might actually comprise.
Another of the Antich 2020 plans was for innovation and development. In that the ParcBIT technology park in Palma has grown over recent years, then one might suggest that this was a more successful plan than for tourism. Yet it remains unclear where Mallorca's technology is heading. Even more unclear is what it might mean in terms of employment or business creation. The island's talent will continue to be attracted to the mainland centres of industry rather than fanny around on Mallorca, while an absence of finance will prove an obstacle to entrepreneurship. But even if businesses are created, will they be anything more than small and so employ small numbers of people?
Diversification can mean all sorts of things. In the 1960s it meant one thing and one thing only - tourism - and the consequent loss of manufacturing and agricultural diversity. What Mallorca and the Balearics need is an overall industrial strategy, but who will develop it? The current government? This would be most unlikely when the minister ostensibly in charge of business affairs is the same one who is going around applying financial cuts. The CRE has pointed to structural failures in the Balearics economy. It might also add that there is a structural failure in government.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The CRE believes that the current model of tourism in the Balearics is out of date. It is difficult to argue with this. In fact, it has been out of date for very much longer than the years of this century. You can go back to the start of the nineties to find evidence of a percentage of tourism (around 10%) that constituted a net loss. In March the CRE put forward the case for concentrating on more profitable tourism, which would almost inevitably mean fewer tourists but ones with greater spending power.
Such a shift in emphasis has been previously considered. Five years ago the Antich government proposed this as part of its "Plan Turismo 2020". The problem with this plan was that there never any plan as such, though in provisions of the current government's tourism law there are clear nods in the direction of the principle of fewer but greater value-adding tourists.
The pursuit of tourism profitability explains the expectations for Russian tourism. The director for Spanish tourism in Moscow has identified the fact that Russian tourists typically spend the equivalent of up to 40% over and above the cost of their holiday package. Or put another way, they spend at least 50% more than tourists from other countries.
Much as Russian tourism will grow over the next few years, the CRE has implied that there are the limits to this new tourism's capacity to adjust the current model of Balearics tourism. It is right to do so as it would be a case of short-termism to place so much emphasis and hope on a remodelling of the tourism industry without a simultaneous development of other parts of the economy. It is the lack of economic diversity that really concerns the CRE and it is one that should concern everyone and should have been concerning them for years.
In 2008 the IMF warned that Spain would be the country worst affected by the credit crunch. One can argue that it hasn't been the worst affected but such things are relative. Among what the IMF had identified, and which was pretty obvious, was the problem created by over-reliance on certain industries, notably tourism and construction. Such over-reliance was far greater in the Balearics than in Spain as a whole, and despite reassurances from regional government as to tourism's role in moving the Balearics out of recession or a state of very limited growth, these reassurances are weak when the capacity for growth that tourism offers is as feeble as the CRE suggests.
Short and medium term there may be a bounce because of tourism from the new markets, but it is the long term which counts and this entails diversification. The trouble is that this diversification, where it has ever been seriously addressed, suffers from vagueness as to what it might actually comprise.
Another of the Antich 2020 plans was for innovation and development. In that the ParcBIT technology park in Palma has grown over recent years, then one might suggest that this was a more successful plan than for tourism. Yet it remains unclear where Mallorca's technology is heading. Even more unclear is what it might mean in terms of employment or business creation. The island's talent will continue to be attracted to the mainland centres of industry rather than fanny around on Mallorca, while an absence of finance will prove an obstacle to entrepreneurship. But even if businesses are created, will they be anything more than small and so employ small numbers of people?
Diversification can mean all sorts of things. In the 1960s it meant one thing and one thing only - tourism - and the consequent loss of manufacturing and agricultural diversity. What Mallorca and the Balearics need is an overall industrial strategy, but who will develop it? The current government? This would be most unlikely when the minister ostensibly in charge of business affairs is the same one who is going around applying financial cuts. The CRE has pointed to structural failures in the Balearics economy. It might also add that there is a structural failure in government.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
The Competitiveness Trap In Mallorca
For years, I have been beating the drum for the need for greater economic diversification in Mallorca. I have also been critical of a lack of competitiveness. I take no credit for having drawn attention to either as they are obvious.
Over the weekend, there was a gathering of the great and good (sic) of various business bodies and the regional government. They called on Brussels to recognise problems caused by the insularity of the Balearics. They referred to problems for competitiveness created by elevated transportation costs. They cried out for major investment in research and development. They insisted that there had to be diversification away from a reliance upon tourism.
It makes you want to scream. None of these issues are new, especially calling on Brussels to put its hands in its pockets. Apart from previous aid from Brussels, the other issues have either been handled badly or simply not been handled at all. What really makes you want to scream is the fact that Josep Aguiló, the government's finance and business minister, was there, trotting out mantras that would not now need to be trotted out if any meaningful action had been taken in the past to address the lack of competitiveness, R&D and diversification.
It would be instructive to learn from Aguiló what he actually believes competitiveness to mean. Perhaps he concurs with Air Berlin's Álvaro Middelmann, who implied that Balearic taxpayers were being ripped off by paying for mainland infrastructure and that transport (and transportation) systems in and for the Balearics are inadequate.
The greater costs of both import and export because of higher transportation costs are a further obvious factor. So why are the great and good only talking about it now? And what are they going to do about it? The answer is probably nothing, other than to hope that Brussels might come calling.
Balearic taxpayers were paid an inadvertent insult by President Bauzá when he made such a thing of bigging up the high-speed rail link from Algeciras to the French border. It will help to lower transportation costs to the Balearics, he said. Well, let's hope he's right because a conclusion one can draw from Middelmann is that he appears to think that it won't benefit the Balearics, and if you were to choose between a businessman who regularly speaks common sense and an ambitious politician only too willing to be seen allying himself with fellow PP leaders on the mainland, then I would suggest you choose the former.
While lending his support to the AVE train, what is Bauzá doing for Mallorca's transport system? He took a ride on the inaugural electrified train to Inca and gloried in the celebration of something set in motion by a previous government. Other than this?
He will argue that his hands are tied by the man with the money box, namely Aguiló. And to the question as to what Aguiló believes competitiveness to mean, the answer will be the same as his masters in Madrid. Lower wages. Reduce the pay packets of those already receiving a pittance for performing mainly McJobs in the tourism industry, and tourism will receive a boost and Mallorca's troubles will be over.
Except of course, he is wrong. Price competition isn't the same as competitiveness. Not competitiveness as it applies to a country or to a region or to an island. Competitiveness comprises among other things - and I borrow from Harvard professor Michael Porter here - good education, good roads, sound economic policies, trusted institutions (to include the legal system), privatisation and, perhaps above all, the right mentality for economic progress engrained in the local culture.
How many of these elements exist in Mallorca? The public education system is lousy, some roads are good, but many are not, economic policies have been anything but sound, the legal system is way too politicised, there is privatisation but could be more, the mentality is one of so long as there's enough to pay for a good fiesta, then the rest can go hang.
Lowering wages will achieve nothing in terms of improved competitiveness. The opposite is the case, because they do not contribute to higher living standards. Competitiveness equals productivity and maximising returns on all products and services and on human resources. And where the latter are concerned, the best are getting the hell out of the Balearics.
It's the same old story. Tourism is all there really is. The private sector might be able to do something about diversification and R&D, but if it comes up against a mentality that seems incapable of looking beyond a Brussels sugar daddy and that for years has failed to address these issues, then it won't.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Over the weekend, there was a gathering of the great and good (sic) of various business bodies and the regional government. They called on Brussels to recognise problems caused by the insularity of the Balearics. They referred to problems for competitiveness created by elevated transportation costs. They cried out for major investment in research and development. They insisted that there had to be diversification away from a reliance upon tourism.
It makes you want to scream. None of these issues are new, especially calling on Brussels to put its hands in its pockets. Apart from previous aid from Brussels, the other issues have either been handled badly or simply not been handled at all. What really makes you want to scream is the fact that Josep Aguiló, the government's finance and business minister, was there, trotting out mantras that would not now need to be trotted out if any meaningful action had been taken in the past to address the lack of competitiveness, R&D and diversification.
It would be instructive to learn from Aguiló what he actually believes competitiveness to mean. Perhaps he concurs with Air Berlin's Álvaro Middelmann, who implied that Balearic taxpayers were being ripped off by paying for mainland infrastructure and that transport (and transportation) systems in and for the Balearics are inadequate.
The greater costs of both import and export because of higher transportation costs are a further obvious factor. So why are the great and good only talking about it now? And what are they going to do about it? The answer is probably nothing, other than to hope that Brussels might come calling.
Balearic taxpayers were paid an inadvertent insult by President Bauzá when he made such a thing of bigging up the high-speed rail link from Algeciras to the French border. It will help to lower transportation costs to the Balearics, he said. Well, let's hope he's right because a conclusion one can draw from Middelmann is that he appears to think that it won't benefit the Balearics, and if you were to choose between a businessman who regularly speaks common sense and an ambitious politician only too willing to be seen allying himself with fellow PP leaders on the mainland, then I would suggest you choose the former.
While lending his support to the AVE train, what is Bauzá doing for Mallorca's transport system? He took a ride on the inaugural electrified train to Inca and gloried in the celebration of something set in motion by a previous government. Other than this?
He will argue that his hands are tied by the man with the money box, namely Aguiló. And to the question as to what Aguiló believes competitiveness to mean, the answer will be the same as his masters in Madrid. Lower wages. Reduce the pay packets of those already receiving a pittance for performing mainly McJobs in the tourism industry, and tourism will receive a boost and Mallorca's troubles will be over.
Except of course, he is wrong. Price competition isn't the same as competitiveness. Not competitiveness as it applies to a country or to a region or to an island. Competitiveness comprises among other things - and I borrow from Harvard professor Michael Porter here - good education, good roads, sound economic policies, trusted institutions (to include the legal system), privatisation and, perhaps above all, the right mentality for economic progress engrained in the local culture.
How many of these elements exist in Mallorca? The public education system is lousy, some roads are good, but many are not, economic policies have been anything but sound, the legal system is way too politicised, there is privatisation but could be more, the mentality is one of so long as there's enough to pay for a good fiesta, then the rest can go hang.
Lowering wages will achieve nothing in terms of improved competitiveness. The opposite is the case, because they do not contribute to higher living standards. Competitiveness equals productivity and maximising returns on all products and services and on human resources. And where the latter are concerned, the best are getting the hell out of the Balearics.
It's the same old story. Tourism is all there really is. The private sector might be able to do something about diversification and R&D, but if it comes up against a mentality that seems incapable of looking beyond a Brussels sugar daddy and that for years has failed to address these issues, then it won't.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
If Mallorca Were Really Like Trinidad
Where would we be without Wikipedia? Forget the dangers of putting Google into Google and breaking the internet, if you were to type Wikipedia into Wikipedia, the world would come to an end.
Apropos of very little, I happened the other day to enquire about the Balearics in Wikipedia. The most interesting bit was to do with how organisations like the IMF spend their time. You might think the IMF would be dashing across the globe with suitcases of notes to help bail out basket-case economies, but no, it does something altogether more important. And it's not just the IMF. The Spanish national statistics office as well; it's at it. Not content with coming up with useless information on how much tourists spend (or don't), the statistics office, together with the IMF, so says Wikipedia, which cites them as sources, are figuring out where Mallorca and the Balearics are comparable with.
On the scale of pointless exercises, this is one that leans towards the "nul point", but nevertheless I feel it incumbent upon me to let you know that the Balearics are like Trinidad and Tobago and also the Bahamas, while not of course forgetting East Timor.
It's all a matter of size, where T&T are concerned: the same or similar land area to the Balearics. The economy equates to that of the Bahamas and population to that of East Timor (aka Timor Leste). Why the IMF and the stats people bother drawing up these comparisons is anyone's guess. Perhaps it's some sort of work experience task for geography, economics and demographics internees. You wouldn't imagine that the head of the IMF is spending much time calculating the relative land masses of individual island groups, or maybe Christine Lagarde is.
Up to a point, I feel slightly insulted, and that's because I have previously compared Mallorca to Essex in terms of size. Maybe I should go on to Wikipedia and add this information, as it seems more relevant than a comparison with Trinidad. I mean, it's not as though you get many tourists from Trinidad. Essex, on the other hand ... .
But if Trinidad it is, what would it mean if Mallorca were really like Trinidad? Well, for a kick-off there would be more of a Carnival than the half-hearted affairs you normally get and so a bit of a plus point for the off-season tourism. And tourism wouldn't be promoted by Nadal on a boat but by Brian Lara on a sun-kissed, palm-lined beach playing cricket while happy, smiling locals drink milk straight from the coconut. Hmm, sun-kissed, palm-lined; sounds a bit familiar, I suppose, though whether they have the red beetle palm plague in Trinidad I couldn't honestly say.
And thanks to Lara, the Sa Pobla Cricket Club wouldn't have a grass-less field but a stadium welcoming the Barmy Army (more tourism of the drinking class, but, boy, can they put it away) rather than playing host to the All Essex Secondhand Car Dealers Veterans XI.
Apart from Carnival, cricket, calypso and a lot more curry, if Mallorca were really like Trinidad and were genuinely blessed by having one very important natural resource, it would be in a lot better place than it currently is, because, and to continue a recent theme, what has Trinidad got that the Balearics don't and that many would hope it doesn't have? Yep, you guessed it. Oil. Oil and gas. Oil by the barrel load. Oil and gas equate to 40% of GDP. They haven't worried too much if there is the odd refinery on the landscape. Rather than Port of Spain, it's a bit like Port Talbot.
The comparisons that the IMF and the statistics office give out could as easily put the Balearics on a par with Trinidad and Tobago in terms of GDP; it's how the GDP is comprised that matters. But in an uncertain future, what should it rather be? Tourism or oil?
This is not the first time I have, pretty much by accident, stumbled across a Mallorca is like somewhere comparison. It happened back in June (22 June: "The Weaver's Tale") when I looked at Mauritius and its textile industry. And the point about Mauritius was that the government there set out a deliberate strategy to diversify the economy, with textiles forming an important part.
Trinidad got lucky. It had the oil. Tourism is more important to Tobago and both islands benefit from it, but the diversification underlines the fact that island economies, such as Mallorca's, cannot rely so heavily on one industry and one so geared to only a part of the year. If Mallorca were really like Trinidad, it would be Carnival all year.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Apropos of very little, I happened the other day to enquire about the Balearics in Wikipedia. The most interesting bit was to do with how organisations like the IMF spend their time. You might think the IMF would be dashing across the globe with suitcases of notes to help bail out basket-case economies, but no, it does something altogether more important. And it's not just the IMF. The Spanish national statistics office as well; it's at it. Not content with coming up with useless information on how much tourists spend (or don't), the statistics office, together with the IMF, so says Wikipedia, which cites them as sources, are figuring out where Mallorca and the Balearics are comparable with.
On the scale of pointless exercises, this is one that leans towards the "nul point", but nevertheless I feel it incumbent upon me to let you know that the Balearics are like Trinidad and Tobago and also the Bahamas, while not of course forgetting East Timor.
It's all a matter of size, where T&T are concerned: the same or similar land area to the Balearics. The economy equates to that of the Bahamas and population to that of East Timor (aka Timor Leste). Why the IMF and the stats people bother drawing up these comparisons is anyone's guess. Perhaps it's some sort of work experience task for geography, economics and demographics internees. You wouldn't imagine that the head of the IMF is spending much time calculating the relative land masses of individual island groups, or maybe Christine Lagarde is.
Up to a point, I feel slightly insulted, and that's because I have previously compared Mallorca to Essex in terms of size. Maybe I should go on to Wikipedia and add this information, as it seems more relevant than a comparison with Trinidad. I mean, it's not as though you get many tourists from Trinidad. Essex, on the other hand ... .
But if Trinidad it is, what would it mean if Mallorca were really like Trinidad? Well, for a kick-off there would be more of a Carnival than the half-hearted affairs you normally get and so a bit of a plus point for the off-season tourism. And tourism wouldn't be promoted by Nadal on a boat but by Brian Lara on a sun-kissed, palm-lined beach playing cricket while happy, smiling locals drink milk straight from the coconut. Hmm, sun-kissed, palm-lined; sounds a bit familiar, I suppose, though whether they have the red beetle palm plague in Trinidad I couldn't honestly say.
And thanks to Lara, the Sa Pobla Cricket Club wouldn't have a grass-less field but a stadium welcoming the Barmy Army (more tourism of the drinking class, but, boy, can they put it away) rather than playing host to the All Essex Secondhand Car Dealers Veterans XI.
Apart from Carnival, cricket, calypso and a lot more curry, if Mallorca were really like Trinidad and were genuinely blessed by having one very important natural resource, it would be in a lot better place than it currently is, because, and to continue a recent theme, what has Trinidad got that the Balearics don't and that many would hope it doesn't have? Yep, you guessed it. Oil. Oil and gas. Oil by the barrel load. Oil and gas equate to 40% of GDP. They haven't worried too much if there is the odd refinery on the landscape. Rather than Port of Spain, it's a bit like Port Talbot.
The comparisons that the IMF and the statistics office give out could as easily put the Balearics on a par with Trinidad and Tobago in terms of GDP; it's how the GDP is comprised that matters. But in an uncertain future, what should it rather be? Tourism or oil?
This is not the first time I have, pretty much by accident, stumbled across a Mallorca is like somewhere comparison. It happened back in June (22 June: "The Weaver's Tale") when I looked at Mauritius and its textile industry. And the point about Mauritius was that the government there set out a deliberate strategy to diversify the economy, with textiles forming an important part.
Trinidad got lucky. It had the oil. Tourism is more important to Tobago and both islands benefit from it, but the diversification underlines the fact that island economies, such as Mallorca's, cannot rely so heavily on one industry and one so geared to only a part of the year. If Mallorca were really like Trinidad, it would be Carnival all year.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
The Seven Pillars Of Tourism Wisdom
Exceltur is the "alliance for touristic excellence". It is a body that comprises some of Spain's leading hotel groups (and therefore Mallorca's hotel groups as many of them are Mallorcan) as well as travel agencies, car-rental agencies, financial services companies and more. Its remit, as you might gauge from what it stands for, is to look at how to improve and develop Spanish tourism. As part of this mission, it undertakes annual surveys of tourism competitiveness in the different regions of Spain.
The survey for 2010 (MoniTUR - very clever) has just been published. A collaboration with the consultancy group Deloitte, the new survey doesn't make great reading for the Balearics. The islands are still in the top half of Spain's regions, but they have slipped one place to sixth. In itself, this doesn't sound particularly dramatic, but when you study closely the so-called "seven pillars" of competitiveness that form the basis of the survey, it is.
Of the seven regions that lost competitive value in 2010, the loss by the Balearics is greater than that of any other region. Of the seven "pillars", a gain has been made in only two, one of which (economic and social results) is insignificant. The other gain, that in transport accessibility and connections, is significant. More of this below.
The other five measures all register a fall. The two greatest are in "diversification and categorisation of tourism products" and in "strategic marketing vision and commercial support". This latter measure has tumbled almost ten points compared with 2009. Only one other region of Spain has performed worse - Murcia - and it is one of the least competitive parts of the country.
As with strategic vision, only one autonomous community does worse when it comes to diversification, the Basque Country. Yet, diversification has meant to have been one of the "big things". You might remember what this entails. Golf, hiking, gastronomy, culture ... . Do you really want me to go on?
Diversification and the vision thing are two sides of the same coin, a badly minted one in Balearics terms. One, diversification, leads from the other. Or at least I think this is how it's meant to go. A problem, however, is what strategic marketing vision means. In consultancy management speak, very little usually. But we can just about suss what they're on about: lack of leadership, lack of planning, lack of any meaningful action. In the Spanish league table of tourism competitiveness, the collective Balearics tourism officialdom has been the Avram Grant - they haven't known what they've been doing.
This isn't completely true. The disgraced ex-tourism minister Miguel Nadal knew full well what he was doing. Allegedly. Unfortunately, it wasn't anything to do with tourism. And Nadal did have a strategy institute that he could call on at the ministry, the now defunct Inestur, up to its neck in as much alleged wrongdoing as the one-time minister.
But let's not dwell too much on the past. A whole bright new tourism competitiveness future beckons for the Balearics, thanks to he In Whom We Trust. Unlike his predecessors, who gave the impression of not having graduated beyond the Janet and John book of tourism clichés, Carlos Delgado does seem to get it. He appears to have been on the 101 course of Strategic Marketing for New Balearics Tourism Ministers, if an observation as to how Calvia should be spoken about in marketing terms is anything to go by. Don't call it Calvia, because no one knows where Calvia is or what it is. Do call the individual resorts Santa Ponsa, Magalluf and so on. It's an encouraging start. Blindingly obvious to anyone other than a tourism official, but encouraging nonetheless.
And Delgado will, we hope, set in motion some diversification. Converting Mallorca into one giant theme park is an excellent idea. Not that he has actually said this, but he has given encouragement to the idea of theme parks that the enviro-lobby have hitherto so successfully managed to boot into the long grass of a finca or several.
So, next year we can look forward, with any luck, to MoniTUR giving the Balearics some better marks. But there just remains this business of transport accessibility and connections, the one area of improvement, according to the report. Which connections is it referring to exactly? Those with Germany? With Russia? Yes, both good and getting better. The UK? In winter?
Strategic marketing vision and diversification are fine. They can lead to new products and new opportunities for tourism. But they're not much use if no one can get a flight. Or perhaps the UK isn't part of the strategic marketing vision.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The survey for 2010 (MoniTUR - very clever) has just been published. A collaboration with the consultancy group Deloitte, the new survey doesn't make great reading for the Balearics. The islands are still in the top half of Spain's regions, but they have slipped one place to sixth. In itself, this doesn't sound particularly dramatic, but when you study closely the so-called "seven pillars" of competitiveness that form the basis of the survey, it is.
Of the seven regions that lost competitive value in 2010, the loss by the Balearics is greater than that of any other region. Of the seven "pillars", a gain has been made in only two, one of which (economic and social results) is insignificant. The other gain, that in transport accessibility and connections, is significant. More of this below.
The other five measures all register a fall. The two greatest are in "diversification and categorisation of tourism products" and in "strategic marketing vision and commercial support". This latter measure has tumbled almost ten points compared with 2009. Only one other region of Spain has performed worse - Murcia - and it is one of the least competitive parts of the country.
As with strategic vision, only one autonomous community does worse when it comes to diversification, the Basque Country. Yet, diversification has meant to have been one of the "big things". You might remember what this entails. Golf, hiking, gastronomy, culture ... . Do you really want me to go on?
Diversification and the vision thing are two sides of the same coin, a badly minted one in Balearics terms. One, diversification, leads from the other. Or at least I think this is how it's meant to go. A problem, however, is what strategic marketing vision means. In consultancy management speak, very little usually. But we can just about suss what they're on about: lack of leadership, lack of planning, lack of any meaningful action. In the Spanish league table of tourism competitiveness, the collective Balearics tourism officialdom has been the Avram Grant - they haven't known what they've been doing.
This isn't completely true. The disgraced ex-tourism minister Miguel Nadal knew full well what he was doing. Allegedly. Unfortunately, it wasn't anything to do with tourism. And Nadal did have a strategy institute that he could call on at the ministry, the now defunct Inestur, up to its neck in as much alleged wrongdoing as the one-time minister.
But let's not dwell too much on the past. A whole bright new tourism competitiveness future beckons for the Balearics, thanks to he In Whom We Trust. Unlike his predecessors, who gave the impression of not having graduated beyond the Janet and John book of tourism clichés, Carlos Delgado does seem to get it. He appears to have been on the 101 course of Strategic Marketing for New Balearics Tourism Ministers, if an observation as to how Calvia should be spoken about in marketing terms is anything to go by. Don't call it Calvia, because no one knows where Calvia is or what it is. Do call the individual resorts Santa Ponsa, Magalluf and so on. It's an encouraging start. Blindingly obvious to anyone other than a tourism official, but encouraging nonetheless.
And Delgado will, we hope, set in motion some diversification. Converting Mallorca into one giant theme park is an excellent idea. Not that he has actually said this, but he has given encouragement to the idea of theme parks that the enviro-lobby have hitherto so successfully managed to boot into the long grass of a finca or several.
So, next year we can look forward, with any luck, to MoniTUR giving the Balearics some better marks. But there just remains this business of transport accessibility and connections, the one area of improvement, according to the report. Which connections is it referring to exactly? Those with Germany? With Russia? Yes, both good and getting better. The UK? In winter?
Strategic marketing vision and diversification are fine. They can lead to new products and new opportunities for tourism. But they're not much use if no one can get a flight. Or perhaps the UK isn't part of the strategic marketing vision.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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