Tourist Satisfaction Not Guaranteed

We are told, repeatedly, that things have never been better for peak-summer tourism. In they come, the holidaymakers, great droves of them, boosting occupancy levels in some resorts to 100% (a figure which may be given but which is only truly attained in specific instances and never resort-wide). More passengers than ever before have passed through Son Sant Joan. The "irregular" offer of holiday accommodation is booming in much the same way as the legitimate offer is. But this joyous news is, as always, tempered by realities created by all-inclusives and of genuine spend. It may well be up, but the spread is not uniform.

It is also tempered by concerns that there are simply too many people. The strains on services, on infrastructure, on the environment are such that the regional government appears willing to consider what has not previously been unthinkable but which has not been acted upon or at least seen through: a deliberate and concerted strategy aimed at reduction, offset, the government would hope, by a smoothing of tourist numbers to create a longer season.

While the politicians agonise over this human and environmental pressure, dabble with financial engineering (tourist tax, off-season social security discounts) and constantly utter the mantra of a tourist base of greater quality, the hoteliers have been hard at it, raising their game along with their star classifications and so prices. Profit is up, turnover is up. Tour operators are gladdened by the upward trend in the quality of hotel stock. Mallorca may be more expensive - hotel-wise - than most of the Mediterranean, but to the advantages of reliability, safety and durability can be added this recent qualitative leap.

But if this is all the case, why are the people who really matter - the holidaymakers - not more satisfied? Are the strains causing them to be less satisfied? Are they more discerning, more demanding than ever before? Is dissatisfaction simply the result of their not having been asked before?

Gadeso, the Mallorcan research organisation, does ask tourists. It has been asking for a few years now. It isn't alone. Cala Millor is an example of a resort having finally cottoned on to the need to conduct surveys with the objective - it might be hoped - of the opinion-asking being more than just PR. But the surveying is limited; Gadeso's sample base is small - only 400 interviews.

Given the size of the sample, should the latest tourist satisfaction survey be considered credible? Can it ever be truly representative of what is, after all, a highly diverse market? Tourists form anything but a homogeneous market. It is one that differs in every way imaginable: demographics, attitudes, country of origin, expectations, to cite just a few.

The findings, therefore, come with this caveat. Nevertheless, there are worrying trends. Take the upping of the quality ante and of prices. The price-quality ratio for accommodation is deemed "adequate" (six out of ten), but it is slipping by a point year upon year. It's impossible to know if this is as a consequence of higher prices or of, for example, a more demanding attitude, one that may be influenced by experiences in other destinations. Whatever the cause, despite the efforts to raise quality, the satisfaction level stubbornly continues to drop.

It is when one leaves the hotel, however, that things go decidedly pear-shaped. The price-quality ratio satisfaction for the "specialised" offer - restaurants, beach services, shops, sports facilities, leisure activities - has gone from "deficient" to "very deficient" (2.9 out of ten). Gadeso supports this finding by referring to excessively high prices for food and shopping that are "repetitive and outmoded". It is an embarrassing finding, given that gastronomy is supposedly one of the great saviours of Mallorca's tourism.

Then there is what may be evidence of those strains of human pressure. Down have gone assessments for water quality (the sea's), for air pollution, for the general environment. Down also are opinions on what previous surveys had already identified as the two most deficient factors - cleanliness and noise (acoustic contamination).

Palma's new mayor, José Hila, has identified filth as a major problem for the city, and his administration is making efforts in rectifying this. But is Palma unique? Cast an eye around and observe, for example, plastics recycling containers that are overflowing and so not emptied often enough. Has it not occurred to anyone that there is high plastics waste on account of all those bottles of water and drinks being purchased? This is only one example, and standards of waste collection will doubtless vary from resort to resort, as will complaints about noise.

Gadeso cannot be taken as being definitive, but it is an indication. As such, therefore, it should serve not as the definitive word but as the starting-point. There should be far greater systematic surveying of visitors: resort by resort.

The First And Last Resort

The resorts of Mallorca are not subject to detailed research into what visitors make of them. They should all be. Every year there should be surveys. What you get instead is a mass of anecdotes, snotty letters to an editor here or there, soundings-off on the internet and precious little, if anything, by way of a coherent response.

Of resorts that are put under the researchers' lens, only one (or, strictly speaking, three) is paid much attention to: Playa de Palma (along with Arenal and Can Pastilla). History decrees that it should be. This is where it pretty much all began; mass tourism, that is. The resort's antiquity affords it a special status, one that has meant to be bringing about its transformation.

The research organisation Gadeso was in Playa de Palma in 2009. It has been back again recently. The transformation of Playa de Palma can't come soon enough, it would appear. Excusing a touch of the dramatic, the introduction to Gadeso's 2011 survey states that "every day it becomes more urgent" to improve and modernise Mallorca's resorts, and Playa de Palma in particular.

It's not all bad news, unless you happen to run a hotel, tourist apartments or residential tourist accommodation. For each category, the level of satisfaction has gone down since 2009, and the all-inclusive rates lower than the other categories. It's not surprising: the restaurants are worse than regular hotels; the comfort is worse; the standards of cleanliness and facilities are lower. Customers may demand all-inclusives - the tour operators keep insisting that they do - but they also demand a reasonable level of service.

The satisfaction with Playa de Palma is lower than with the rest of Mallorca and so is the likelihood of people coming back again. The report's conclusion: could do better, see me!

This year's survey and that in 2009 are not the only ones that Gadeso has done in Playa de Palma. It hasn't gone into other resorts, or hadn't until it went to Cala Bona and Cala Millor last year. The survey there didn't report in the same way. Though the conclusions said that there was an excessive amount of all-inclusive, it didn't specifically offer information on hotel satisfaction.

The focus on this factor in Playa de Palma is understandable. Hotels are really at the heart of the whole project to transform Playa de Palma. And much as there is a desire for an overall upgrading of hotels across Mallorca, there has been not insignificant resistance from Playa de Palma hoteliers who argue that the bread-and-butter of the three-star should not be interfered with.

Gadeso has appended documents to its survey. One is a paper that emanates from the University of Barcelona which highlights the fact that, six years on from the creation of a consortium, political scraps, opposition (from hoteliers who should mainly welcome it and some residents who haven't welcomed it) and general inertia have failed to effect a process of transformation that would make the resort the model for subsequent redevelopments elsewhere and also a model of which Mallorca could be proud. The paper emphasises the fact that the resort is deteriorating, thus reinforcing what Gadeso says in its survey introduction and what the survey itself suggests.

A different document, a letter to the tourism minister, argues that to continue with a consortium that is hamstrung by a lack of government finance is a "nonsense and a waste". There is a plea that the project should be in the hands of the private sector, given the inability of the politicians to carry out such projects and to wrong priorities.

And one of those priorities, about the only public project that appears to have escaped President Bauzá's axe, is the Palacio de Congresos, described as a bottomless pit that will do nothing to alleviate seasonality. The Palacio can't be abandoned now, but it should never have been a priority. Its whole being, apart from the vanity of Palma and Mallorca being able to claim that it has a conference complex - as do many other cities in Spain as well as the Canaries - is predicated on a market, that of "meetings, incentives, conferences and events (MICE)", which is largely unknown.

The sun and beach of Playa de Palma is known. It's been known for years. Hopefully, it will be known for many more years to come, but its future has been placed in the balance by inadequate political supervision. Hand it over to the private sector, and just let them get on with it.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Hidden Identities: Spanish or Mallorcan?

Let's imagine that you are minding your own business, walking down the street and some chap with a clipboard accosts you and starts asking you with what you identify; your country or island, that is. Were this to happen in Mallorca, you would, and I assume for a moment that you are English, reply in song, "England till I die", and then probably nut the interviewer. Were, though, you unable to opt for England or any other part of the British Isles, but had to select Mallorca or Spain or even the Balearics, what would be your reply?

Well, imagination is all fine and dandy, but chances are that you wouldn't be asked. Unlike 900 Balearic sorts. The research organisation Gadeso has been asking them whether they feel more Spanish, more Mallorcan (or Menorcan, Ibizan or Formenteran) or more Balearic. And what do they feel? For the most part, they are neither one thing nor the other. They are split personalities, as Spanish as they are Balearic. 55% of them. But of those who are one thing or the other, roughly equal numbers consider themselves more Spanish or more Balearic, while equal numbers (7%) believe they are either only Spanish or only Balearic.

There we are then. The islands mainly comprise people who, on given the compromise option, opt for it. Spanish and Balearic in equal measure. It's the don't know answer for those who probably normally never give the question a moment's thought. Gadeso is a worthy body, but this research is somewhat spurious. Or is it?

Not completely. Gadeso argues that an increase in those who feel more Spanish than the last time such research was conducted can be explained by dissatisfaction with government in the Balearics. Possibly. It could also be that they are just asking different people.

The more interesting stuff, though, lies in the detail behind the general findings. On first reading the report of this research, my own reaction was to question the degree to which local people associate themselves with the islands of the archipelago as a whole, the Balearics, or with an individual island. I cannot ever recall a Mallorcan referring even vaguely to the Balearics in terms of the islands being his or her homeland. To Mallorca, yes, but not the Balearics. The research bears this out. Around two-thirds of Mallorcans identify with Mallorca and not the Balearics; the numbers are higher in the other islands.

Is this either surprising or important? No, it isn't surprising, but, yes, it is important. Important because regional government is Balearic, because autonomy is that of the Balearics and because much impulse for positioning and promotion is Balearic, even that of tourism promotion. Just as the tourist thinks only of the individual islands, so too do the people of the individual islands. The Balearics are a geographical convenience, rather than a cohesive political, social or touristic unit.

The finding is also important because, if there genuinely is a desire for greater autonomy or indeed independence, then it is not the Balearics which are inspiring this desire; it is the islands themselves. But even here, the sympathy is skewed significantly. Of the four main political parties or groupings at the 2007 local elections, only those who voted for the left-wing Bloc (the Mallorcan socialist party and others) have a strong Balearics-only identity. This, though, is diluted when Balearic and island identity is asked about. Across the four parties - Bloc, Partido Popular, PSOE socialists and the now ex-Unió Mallorquina - identity is overwhelmingly with the island and not the Balearics.

Any drive towards independence and an association with another vague political and social construct, the "Catalan lands", is exposed as having virtually no ground swell of identity. A whole 2% of Bloc voters place a Catalan identity above a Balearic or island identity. The percentages are zero for the other parties. This will make uneasy reading for the likes of the Obra Cultural Balear and others on the independence wing who seem to believe that there is mileage in independence and a confederation of Catalan states. They may believe it, but the public may beg to differ.

Taking the findings as a whole, the case for greater autonomy or independence would seem, on the basis of personal identity at any rate, to have only a minority public support. Almost 80% of the public consider themselves to be either as Spanish as they are Balearic, more Spanish or Spanish alone. Another angle on this, and it should be something that the Partido Popular with its potentially dangerous tendency towards greater "Spanishness" should take note of, is that only a quarter of its supporters feel that they are more Spanish than Balearic and that only 10% feel more Spanish alone. They are not the majority, therefore.

What the findings also show is a confirmation of what has historically been the case. That the people of Mallorca and the islands are generally middle of the road and conservative with a small "c". It's a message that may not please the promoters of independence and it may contradict a growing sense of radicalism, but it is a message that is probably accurate.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Index for March 2011
Airport workers strike - 7 March 2011
Baltasar Garzón - 26 March 2011
Bars to close in smoking-ban protest - 9 March 2011
British, what Mallorcans think of the - 30 March 2011
Carlos Delgado: ambitions for office - 20 March 2011
Convergència per les Illes Balears - 6 March 2011
Cycling tourism - 8 March 2011
Earthquakes - 19 March 2011
Film in Mallorca - 21 March 2011
GESA building - 1 March 2011
Historic tourism season in 2011 - 23 March 2011
Identity, Mallorca v. Spanish - 31 March 2011
Infrastructure, expensive - 22 March 2011
Innovation and development - 25 March 2011
Insults, Balearics parliament and political - 17 March 2011
Magaluf death of a tourist - 29 March 2011
Mallorca Rocks - 16 March 2011
María Salom and the Council of Mallorca - 13 March 2011
Menorca: all-inclusives and restaurant offers - 28 March 2011
Miserable, Spanish the most - 11 March 2011
Oil and petrol prices - 7 March 2011
Partido Popular, corruption and - 6 March 2011
Photography, society and - 15 March 2011
Rain, pollen and dust - 18 March 2011
Ramón Socias - 6 March 2011
Royal wedding and street parties - 27 March 2011
Seasonal workers and expats - 14 March 2011
Sepia fair, Alcúdia's fishermen pull out of - 3 March 2011
Sobrasada - 4 March 2011
Speed limit reduction - 2 March 2011
Sustainable tourism - 24 March 2011
Tourism minister, President Antich and - 12 March 2011
Trains and public transport - 10 March 2011
"Wetten, dass ...?" broadcast from Palma - 5 March 2011

Can't Get No

There was a survey of tourist satisfaction recently, or perhaps one should make that dissatisfaction. You may recall my mentioning the questionnaire that does the rounds in Puerto Pollensa (29 June: Lemon Tree). That survey seems to tie in; the categories appear to be similar if not indeed the same. You may also recall in that previous piece my suggesting that much which occurs by way of market surveys gives results that are "lemons"; in other words, they prove nothing.

For what it's worth, there is a general decline in levels of satisfaction in Mallorca. Some of the lowest ratings are for public services - health being something of an exception. For all the banging on about the environment, the actual environmental settings experienced by tourists rate less than five (on a scale of one to ten). The number of people saying that they will return has fallen, yet it seems that price is not the issue some might claim it to be. The main reason for actually travelling to the island is price - which I find hard to believe - followed by the beaches and weather. Nowhere is there any mention of the likes of culture or other elements of "alternative" tourism. This is not surprising; I have said it often enough here that the Mallorca brand is all about sun and sea.

But what do we make of all of this? What do the users of the research make of all of this? The first point to make is that it is hard to know what the results actually mean. Ask people to put a quantity onto something essentially qualitative, and you immediately have a problem. What criteria does the respondent apply in making what can be a fairly arbitrary judgement? The researcher doesn't know. Unless he does, the answer is meaningless, except as an indicator, and then only a very general one.

Nevertheless, falls in satisfaction in many categories would seem to suggest that there should be concerns, but one needs to go behind such falls and appreciate the dynamics that may be affecting respondents' judgements.

Last week I spent a few hours with the assistant director at Bellevue in Alcúdia. The result of this time will be an article due to be published in "Talk Of The North". He explained to me that questionnaires Bellevue use reveal an 80% level of satisfaction with the hotel. I don't know if 20% being dissatisfied is bad or good. It depends what you are asking. Be that as it may, he had some quite revealing things to say about tourist expectations and also about the role of the internet. The crux of this was that many tourists' expectations are too high and are unrealistic. The internet, through review sites predominantly, has fuelled this. The sheer volume of information and opinion has stripped away what was once the sense of adventure in making a holiday. (When he was saying this, I could have almost heard myself speaking; precisely the same point has been made on this blog before.) Rather than experiencing holidays and hotels and so on for what they are and making a judgement as to the various aspects of those holidays with an independent mind, the judgement is prejudiced before the holiday even starts. Comparisons with other hotels, with other resorts, with other countries; all of them based on personal opinion and very often incomplete or biased information, and some of that personal opinion already informed by someone else's views. And so it goes on. But the result of all this is that the holidaymaker comes expecting either something unrealistic or expecting to find something to complain about.

Bellevue is just one example, and I should point out that from what I saw - of the apartments, the grounds, the pools etc. - there was little that one could gripe at, so long as one was being realistic. A solution to all this false expectation is to try and manage expectations - in advance. But how? The internet will always find a way of undermining this in any event: all that information, all that opinion, all those comparisons. And the tour operators don't always help either.

To discover, as the survey has, that dissatisfaction is rising may not be anything at all to do with falling standards. These may be just as good (or as bad) as they ever were; they may even actually have improved. But I come back to the point about the criteria that those interviewed adopt in conjuring up a number to put against intangible concepts of service or whatever, and those criteria are as likely to have been influenced or established by what he or she has been told on the internet as by his or her own experiences - more so in fact. We're still sitting under that lemon tree.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Kraftwerk, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXa9tXcMhXQ. Today's title - what?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)

Are You Experienced?

Another day, another tourist website. I suppose I shouldn't complain given that I have vague connections with such a thing myself, but does one reach a point at which destinations get websited out? The latest is yet another from the Balearic Government - all to do with culture, hence its name http://www.balearsculturaltour.es - and designed to make all-year-round tourists come to the islands. If only. To be fair, it is quite a decent site, quite informative, but it makes the mistake - again - of missing the Mallorcan (or Menorcan or Ibizan) target. People do not go to the Balearics, they go to Mallorca, or to Menorca or to Ibiza or even Formentera. Yet, here once more we have something in the name of the Balearics, and something that has cost close to 100,000 euros. Apparently, "a good part" of the moolah has been spent on getting the site into its different languages. Sounds like a fair amount to me for a site that hops around the islands giving some cultural recommendations. The trouble is that no-one would actually do a tour of that sort; it's one island or not at all.

Nevertheless, culture, if we are to believe another survey, ranks number three on the list of things of importance to the Brit holidaymaker. This is a survey by ABTA and was reported on in "The Bulletin" a couple of days ago. Culture appears to be defined here as local food and customs: it seems you can include pretty much anything under the culture banner these days, including local sausage. Whatever. Culture, however one wishes to categorise it, ranks higher - at 18% - than either sunshine in the form of sunbathing or having sex (with one's partner). Did it occur to ask if having sex with someone other than one's partner might have ranked higher? Chances are it might have done, and one should not forget that sex tourism in Mallorca is worth a significant amount of money - apparently. But be that as it may. The trouble, as always with surveys, is what the question is and who is asked. There is also the fact that people lie. Were one to try and draw a conclusion from this survey and to link it to this new "cultural tour" website and suggest that the survey proves the value of the site, I'm afraid one would be taking the wrong tour.

I was curious enough to find out some more about this survey. So I went to ABTA's website. The results, as presented in The Bulletin, were as they were stated in the press release on the site, but if you go to the actual survey - which you can - you will find that this "culture" aspect is made up of different components. In answer to the question "what do you value most about going on holiday", five per cent said "the culture", so it is not 18% after all, although it is 18% when one adds on "gaining life experience", "new people" and "the food". Food, though, was rated by only 1.63%. What "gaining life experience" is I'm not sure, but it has been assumed - by ABTA - to mean culture. I don't know that this follows; indeed I'm sure it doesn't follow. ABTA have made much of "culture-vulture Brits ... ditching their 'sex on the beach' image", but I stress - only 5% actually responded to the specific culture prompt. The survey, as such, doesn't say anything about a sex on beach image, only through this totally tenuous connection with rating sex with a partner lower than traipsing round a museum.

You do, I'm afraid, have to be very, very careful when it comes to surveys and especially when it comes to press releases offering a biased interpretation, because bias is exactly what there is. Oh, and you do also have to be careful when it comes to surveys which are reported on in the press that were actually published over a month before - http://www.abta.com/resources/news/view/85.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - A-Ha (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x24eif_aha-the-sun-always-shines-on-tv_music). Today's title - who did this? Pretty damn easy I'd reckon.

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)