Ignoring The Spanish: Imserso

A figure one hears for the yearly number of tourists in the Balearics is in the 13 million region. In precise terms for 2016 it was 12,994,712, the figure given in the tourism ministry's annual report. This is, however, a misleading number as it applies to European and non-European tourists and not to Spanish tourists. That figure last year was 2,377,209, making Spain the third most important tourism market (there were 4.6 million Germans and 3.7 million Britons). So, the true figure for tourists was 15,371,922.

It is curious that the Spanish are so often disaggregated from the tourist equation and treated as though they are separate. As they constituted more than 15% of all tourists last year, they can hardly be ignored, and yet the impression is often given that they are. It might be, however, because they are less appreciated in terms of what they contribute. In the same annual report are our old friends the tourist spending statistics. And what do they reveal? Well, the plus-15% Spanish market equated to only 10.6% of the total spending. On average per day, the Spanish tourist forked out a mere 85 euros, which were 51.10 euros fewer than the foreign tourist average.

This difference may well of course have something to do with how that spending is worked out. It includes the cost of the actual holiday. But Spanish tourists do come on packages, even if this cost will tend to be lower than for tourists from abroad. Nevertheless, a daily margin of more than 50 euros is a significant amount.

Nationalities have an anecdotal tendency to be characterised by what they apparently spend. We hear, for example, that the British have slipped in the spending stakes. Yet, according to the figures last year, the British, the Germans, the Italians, the French and the Swiss all spend around the same amount (there's no more than 4.50 euros between the highest-spending Swiss and the lowest-spending Germans and French in this mini league table).

Spanish tourists, both anecdotally and according to the tourism ministry's numbers, are generally considered to be at the low end of the spending rankings, if not rank bottom. While this is, as always, a pretty wild generalisation, there is one category of Spanish tourist for which it is generally accurate, and that is the Imserso tourist.

By contrast to other Spanish tourists, the low-season Spanish pensioner holidaymaker is given a high level of attention. It can seem disproportionately so, given that Imserso is, according to the hoteliers, barely worth opening for. Yet each year when it comes around, Imserso fills the column inches in ways that Spanish tourists otherwise never do.

This said, the attention tends to be one driven from within the tourism industry. Politicians, when by and large failing to acknowledge Spanish tourists' existence in  summer, do not compensate for this by going on at any great length about Imserso. This could well be, as the hoteliers are also at pains to point out, because Balearic political institutions - the government, most obviously - don't involve themselves unduly with Imserso. It's a different story elsewhere: Benidorm, for instance, with its significantly greater level of hotel occupancy in the low season than any resort area in Mallorca can lay claim to.

The governmental indifference to Imserso only shakes itself into anything vaguely like enthusiasm when ministers can point to hotels being open and therefore people being employed. Even greater enthusiasm can be reserved for the airport arrivals and declarations that things are therefore clearly "better in winter". Yes, so they are, and they are better in part because of Spanish pensioners who, let's be blunt, might not normally figure in ministerial requirements for "quality tourism". This isn't because the OAPs are rolling around drunk next to Balneario 6 or along Punta Ballena but because they just don't spend anything.

Accordingly, the indifference will mean that those Imserso pensioners who might book for Mallorca will pitch up in February (which is when the hoteliers mainly expect them) and find to their horror that they have to fork out two euros a night tourist tax. Or, perish the thought, three euros if they're in a three-star superior. They'll be hoping that Més Menorca get their way and that the tourist tax rise in the low season will be frozen.

In fact, given the existence of the tourist tax one wonders why the Imserso brigade isn't simply booking itself into Benidorm, which can boast being a tourist-tax-free zone. Perhaps they were trying to, which might help to explain the queues outside travel agencies when the holidays went on sale earlier this week. Astonishingly enough, there were videos of these queues appearing on tourism media websites.

So, as I say, there is some attention paid to Spanish tourists but only to the pensioners. Some attention, but otherwise ignored.

What Is The Point Of Imserso?

The first Imserso vacationers arrived on the island earlier this week. Their arrival was much earlier than last year. Or should one say this year? The legal wrangle involving the two vacation plans - Mundosenior and Mundiplan - meant that the first Spanish pensioners didn't come until January. Even then, there was chaos. The divvying up of destinations between the two has now been clarified, and so the vacations are running smoothly and have all but sold out.

It isn't clear quite how many senior citizen holidaymakers will come to Mallorca over the following few months. Imserso - the institute for senior citizens and social services (part of the national social security administration) - will be the one which finally releases the figures, but it is understood that something over 1.1 million places were available: these are for all destinations and over several months.

Mundiplan has the lower number available, and it is principally focused on the Balearics and the Canaries. It has sold some 200,000 places for the two. When you start to break that number down and spread it over the months of autumn, winter and early spring, and it doesn't sound a lot. It isn't a lot. There are also Mundosenior holidaymakers coming to Mallorca. It has nine hotels available, much the same as Mundiplan. The Mundosenior offer has six hotels in Playa de Palma/Arenal, one in Magalluf (the only four-star among them), one in Alcudia and one in Can Picafort. Lucky old Playa de Palma.

A great deal of attention is paid by the Spanish media to the Imserso holidays. This is partly because of the state subsidy. This, however, doesn't apply to Mundosenior, the bigger of the two plans. Imserso oversees its operation but it doesn't directly fund it: the combined might of Barceló and Globalia is capable of extracting deals that make the holidays economic without the need for a subsidy. Imserso does, nevertheless, contribute to the cost of individual holidays for those who qualify for assistance.

There is also attention because of the apparent boost it gives destinations in the off-season. It is certainly better that some hotels stay open rather than close, but otherwise, what contribution do these vacations make to resort economies? Very little, and the number of resorts is very limited as well.

Mundiplan has announced that it will be undertaking a study of the "profile" of the senior citizen traveller and will be co-opting the Balearic and Canaries administrations in order to do this study. Its CEO, Guillermo González, says that the "senior segment is developing a great deal and has become a very attractive market for many operators". Which is no doubt true, but who, apart from the operators, really benefits?

The anecdotal evidence, while it provides a generalisation, isn't totally inaccurate. Stories are told of groups of "pensionistas" descending on bars with their bags containing food they've brought with them, occupying whole bars and ordering little more than a cortado while also insisting on free crisps and olives. This is a stereotyping which fails to appreciate a senior market that has good disposable income and is also very much more active than the stereotype would suggest. It is a market that is far wider than Spain. Why a concerted and coherent effort is not made to attract a European market to Mallorca (or other destinations) has been a question asked in the past, and it still needs asking. If the likes of Barceló and Globalia can come up with deals for Spanish pensioners, then is it beyond the capabilities of them and others to do likewise for a much greater market? Broaden the whole approach and then you might really notice an off-season difference.

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.