It wouldn't be correct to assign full credit to a previous socialist-led administration for the establishment of Mallorca's technology park, but it is true to say that ParcBIT in Palma was officially inaugurated during the period of the first Antich government: the date was 30 May, 2002.
There really should be no need for political philosophies to invade the world of technological innovation and entrepreneurship, but somehow they do. Fourteen years on from ParcBIT's inauguration, technology, innovation and development and research are at the core of left-wing economic thinking. Do they not form part of the right's thinking as well? They do, but if you care to look at the programmes of what might be called the "new" left, you will find that technology is a key element of its economic strategy. Podemos espouse it. The now-forgotten Partido X, from which Podemos derived a good deal of its philosophy, emphasised it. Més, with its mish-mash brand of socialism, nationalism and ecology, are no different.
Technology, or this is how it seems, offers the hope of business democratisation, an opening-up to entrepreneurs, researchers and innovators, a means of creating and sharing wealth for the greater good. It's hard to see how this differs from what the right might believe, but there you go.
Biel Barceló is minister for more than just tourism. His portfolio was handmade for him, as it also includes innovation and research. Given the overriding importance of tourism and the attention given to touristic matters that this government has demanded, it is easy to overlook this dual responsibility. It has appeared at times as if Barceló has himself overlooked it. There again, his combined ministry for tourism and innovation and research has an in-built bias towards tourism - innovation and research account for around a tenth of the budget.
This amounts to some five million euros or so per annum, a tiny sum relative to the overall government budget. Whatever investment there therefore might be from the ministry will also be tiny, though there are other sources for innovation investment, not least Iago Negueruela's trade and industry ministry. Which does perhaps beg a question as to why innovation and research aren't with Negueruela. Other sources are state funds (if the government could ever lay its hands on them) and European funds, on which regular demands are made or planned. Palma town hall, also wedded through its Més deputy mayor Antoni Noguera to the notion of democratisation through technology, is one of the first to hold its cap out. In addition to ParcBIT, the town hall wants to establish a "creative economy" centred on the old Gesa building. Europe will help, it hopes.
The level of institutional investment in innovation and technology is pitiful, and it has been for years. Crisis wiped out much of what the Partido Popular under Jaume Matas had devoted to it, yet the decline in investment was much greater than in other regions of the country. The second Antich government saw to that. So much for democratisation through technology.
Barceló is clearly intent on reviving this. An announcement this week regarding ParcBIT might have hinted at something significant. What we got instead was a government plan to reduce costs for businesses located on the technology park. Every bit helps of course, but this hardly constituted a major initiative for new business development.
ParcBIT has its successes and it has its failures. It is, it is fair to say on the government's behalf, managed by a company in which the government holds 100% of the capital. But how much of its successes are attributable to the government is questionable. Habitissimo, for example, an online service for the building industry, grew on the back of ingenuity and some venture finance. A mark of it as a business was that it was founded and grew during the crisis - that took some doing. It isn't, however, a product of Mallorcan innovation.
It is the failures, though, which capture the headlines. Low Cost Travel has been the most notable, but there was the fiasco with the Microsoft Centre that preceded it. In terms of kudos, the decision by Trivago to up sticks and find more spacious facilities on the Paseo Marítimo was not the best of news.
The idea for ParcBIT, with its business incubation and its technology clusters for the likes of marine technologies, nautical, audiovisual and of course tourism, is sound, yet perversely it can be subject to the vagaries of governmental policies or inaction: the audiovisual sector is a prime example. It is a vital means of boosting economic diversification but if government hampers it, then the chances of real "killer" innovations breaking through which could provide a quantum leap for this diversification are lessened.
Ambitions for a creative economy, a minister for innovation and research. All fine, but ParcBIT and Mallorcan innovation require rather more than saving costs for waste management.
Showing posts with label Research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Research. Show all posts
Friday, August 26, 2016
Wednesday, April 06, 2016
In Search Of Balearic Innovation
What does Biel Barceló do with himself? He does have a great deal on his plate. Tourism, the tourist tax and the tax on the tourist tax. That's enough of a job for one politician, you might think, but Biel is also vice-president, which requires him being involved in all manner of things unrelated to his ministerial portfolio. And this portfolio also means innovation and research.
Looking at reported activities since last summer on the government's web page for the vice-president and minister for innovation, research and tourism, one finds comparatively little devoted to the innovation and research components. There are one or two activities where the worlds of his portfolio collide. Take 10 February this year. An agreement signed with the university for a collaboration on touristic innovation. One of its principal ingredients is a project for Big Data aimed at the segmentation of markets for niche tourist products - cultural tourism, health tourism, cycling and so on.
Yet there is nothing which might be described as major when it comes to innovation and research: certainly nothing comparable to the introduction of the tourist tax and to the other tourism dilemmas he is confronting, e.g. the regulation of holiday rentals. Might one conclude, therefore, that Biel has taken on rather more than one minister can handle? One might well do so. But the innovation stuff was a Biel project even before he landed in government last June. This is because it is very much the stuff of left-wing political agendas. Which is not to hint at anything critical. Quite the contrary. But glance at general and/or electoral programmes for Podemos and an often forgotten precursor to Podemos, namely Partido X, and you will find a great deal of prominence given to innovation.
Joy and wealth through innovation. This might be a slogan of the left. Innovation has an egalitarian feel to it. Wealth will be distributed thanks to it. Economies will be diversified because of it. Quite possibly. But much depends on how innovation is defined, what it is and what it actually means, what returns can be made on it. The greatest of returns come from different sources. They emerge from an unfettered spirit of entrepreneurialism, supported by a mentality geared to success and risk-taking as well as by an educational system which provides the knowledgeable raw material. They come also from Big Capitalism, the keepers of vast wealth with access to ever more from investors and debt and equity capital. Typically, they do not come from the state, unless the state is under strict centralised control.
For Barceló, an amalgam of tourism and innovation is a major step on a roadmap (they love roadmaps in current Balearic public administrations) to the Holy Grail of his much spoken-of new economic model. This is a model with a great deal to commend it. If, that is, we knew what it was and what it might look like. This is not a model which has shape, which is stuck together with glue and allowed to set before it is painted. It is a model of the abstract. Intangible, undefined.
For all the talk of a new model and of innovation, it's not as though we haven't been here before. In its rawest sense, innovation demands finance. It isn't simply a thought process. Flesh in an economic manner has to be applied to the bones of creative thinking.
Back in 2005, the amount which the Balearic government (the Matas government) dedicated to innovation and development (or R&D, call it what you like) was 183 million euros. The Antich administration which succeeded it was one that arrived in a flurry of talk about innovation. It was to be a big thing, just like new railways were to be, and we know what happened to those. Yes, there was crisis, and when recession hits there are things which are hurled from the window - research being one of them. But Balearic investment in R&D collapsed to a greater degree than other regions. By 2009, the amount had fallen to 55 million euros. It hasn't recovered. The overall level is now pitiful.
The report from the EAE Business School into R&D investment by Spain's regions makes for grim reading. The Balearics are bumbling along at the bottom of the league table. The principal industries - hospitality and construction - provide vastly lower levels of investment than those of oil, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and IT/telecoms.
The Balearics are caught in an economic vice of industries which, while they can be and are innovative, do not embark on programmes that generate major shifts in terms of economic welfare, returns on investment and wealth distribution. They don't have the need to. They are not those types of industry. So where does Barceló's innovation come from? Where does his economic model come from? Perhaps he can tell us.
Looking at reported activities since last summer on the government's web page for the vice-president and minister for innovation, research and tourism, one finds comparatively little devoted to the innovation and research components. There are one or two activities where the worlds of his portfolio collide. Take 10 February this year. An agreement signed with the university for a collaboration on touristic innovation. One of its principal ingredients is a project for Big Data aimed at the segmentation of markets for niche tourist products - cultural tourism, health tourism, cycling and so on.
Yet there is nothing which might be described as major when it comes to innovation and research: certainly nothing comparable to the introduction of the tourist tax and to the other tourism dilemmas he is confronting, e.g. the regulation of holiday rentals. Might one conclude, therefore, that Biel has taken on rather more than one minister can handle? One might well do so. But the innovation stuff was a Biel project even before he landed in government last June. This is because it is very much the stuff of left-wing political agendas. Which is not to hint at anything critical. Quite the contrary. But glance at general and/or electoral programmes for Podemos and an often forgotten precursor to Podemos, namely Partido X, and you will find a great deal of prominence given to innovation.
Joy and wealth through innovation. This might be a slogan of the left. Innovation has an egalitarian feel to it. Wealth will be distributed thanks to it. Economies will be diversified because of it. Quite possibly. But much depends on how innovation is defined, what it is and what it actually means, what returns can be made on it. The greatest of returns come from different sources. They emerge from an unfettered spirit of entrepreneurialism, supported by a mentality geared to success and risk-taking as well as by an educational system which provides the knowledgeable raw material. They come also from Big Capitalism, the keepers of vast wealth with access to ever more from investors and debt and equity capital. Typically, they do not come from the state, unless the state is under strict centralised control.
For Barceló, an amalgam of tourism and innovation is a major step on a roadmap (they love roadmaps in current Balearic public administrations) to the Holy Grail of his much spoken-of new economic model. This is a model with a great deal to commend it. If, that is, we knew what it was and what it might look like. This is not a model which has shape, which is stuck together with glue and allowed to set before it is painted. It is a model of the abstract. Intangible, undefined.
For all the talk of a new model and of innovation, it's not as though we haven't been here before. In its rawest sense, innovation demands finance. It isn't simply a thought process. Flesh in an economic manner has to be applied to the bones of creative thinking.
Back in 2005, the amount which the Balearic government (the Matas government) dedicated to innovation and development (or R&D, call it what you like) was 183 million euros. The Antich administration which succeeded it was one that arrived in a flurry of talk about innovation. It was to be a big thing, just like new railways were to be, and we know what happened to those. Yes, there was crisis, and when recession hits there are things which are hurled from the window - research being one of them. But Balearic investment in R&D collapsed to a greater degree than other regions. By 2009, the amount had fallen to 55 million euros. It hasn't recovered. The overall level is now pitiful.
The report from the EAE Business School into R&D investment by Spain's regions makes for grim reading. The Balearics are bumbling along at the bottom of the league table. The principal industries - hospitality and construction - provide vastly lower levels of investment than those of oil, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and IT/telecoms.
The Balearics are caught in an economic vice of industries which, while they can be and are innovative, do not embark on programmes that generate major shifts in terms of economic welfare, returns on investment and wealth distribution. They don't have the need to. They are not those types of industry. So where does Barceló's innovation come from? Where does his economic model come from? Perhaps he can tell us.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Residents And Mallorca's Tourism Image
Tourism 2.0 is a concept borrowed from Web 2.0 to refer to a movement from a model of tourism in which there had been lack of access to and transparency of information and a lack of knowledge exchange (Tourism 1.0) to a situation in which "collective intelligence" is harnessed. Put more simply, it is the movement to the use of networks via the internet to inform tourist decisions, and by networks, one principally means social networks.
Tourism, as with any industry, and not least the computer and communications industry, is littered with its jargon and junk terminology. Web 2.0, Tourism 2.0 have spawned a massive outpouring of worthy research, studies, learned papers and conferences all aimed at explaining the movement towards the use of social networks and yet which succeed in obscuring the subject through the sheer weight of their jargonistic newspeak.
As I write this, I have open in my Acrobat Reader a 492-page doctoral thesis about the management of the image of a destination in the context of Tourism 2.0. It is the work of Isabel Llodrà Riera, a technical expert with the Fundació BIT at Palma's ParcBIT technology park.
Though it is an academic work and though it would not be especially meaningful to anyone not steeped in academia, it is a far from uninteresting piece of research, and its interest stems from the association with ParcBIT and with one of its more revealing discoveries.
The regional government was recently able to announce that it had secured joint funding by the national government and the European Union for investment in technological innovations. Much of this investment is likely to end up in ParcBIT and all of it is intended to be for innovation that is tourism-themed. President Bauzá has made a commitment to the importance of the tourism industry (and also to ParcBIT) by presenting the case for and securing this investment; it is something for which, as I've noted before, he and the government should receive plaudits.
Through a combination of ParcBIT, the Universitat de les Illes Balears and the tourism industry on the island, Mallorca has a very strong case for making itself a leader in the application of tourism-themed technologies. But though Web 2.0 features heavily in the local tourism ministry's plans, there has been little evidence of theory being put into practice. Which isn't to say that it won't be put into practice, but the harnessing of the "collective intelligence" of Tourism 2.0 has, as yet, proved to be no more than a theoretical construct where the tourism agency and others are concerned.
Academic research, such as that by Isabel Llodrà, is of no real value unless there is a practical application. And in her research, she has pointed to one group of users of social networks who might typically have been overlooked when it comes to all the recommendations and information-sharing which occurs and which influence the image and choice of Mallorca as a tourist destination. If you live in Mallorca, then you are part of that group of users she is referring to. Residents.
There is a tendency to think that this information-sharing goes on between tourists and tourists alone, but it should be obvious that it doesn't. Trip Advisor may be skewed more towards tourist-to-tourist recommendation, but other social media aren't. Facebook is a good example. And what Isabel Llodrà has discovered is how information through "knowing" residents on social networks can differ to that through "knowing" other tourists. In the survey she conducted as part of the research, she found that the knowledge of residents is more highly regarded, while the impression of Mallorca differs for those users who have come to "know" residents than for those who haven't. In a nutshell, residents present a better image of Mallorca, one that stresses its charm, interest and relaxing nature. Residents do not tend to dwell on disagreeable aspects.
It may seem obvious that residents would present a more favourable and, in all likelihood, more informed impression of Mallorca, but sometimes the obvious needs stating. It also needs stating, though, that the more highly regarded knowledge of the resident might not always be so favourable, and there are examples one can point to where it isn't.
The title of Isabel Llodrà's thesis is important - "management of the image". A key question relates, therefore, to how this management is done and by whom. Web 2.0 and so therefore Tourism 2.0 is a virtual free-for-all of opinion, and if residents are as significant to creating an image for Mallorca as the thesis suggests, then they need to be kept onside as much as is feasibly possible. If there are aspects of Mallorca's tourism which are attracting negative opinion from residents, then they need addressing. Tourists trust what residents say. Good or bad.
Tourism, as with any industry, and not least the computer and communications industry, is littered with its jargon and junk terminology. Web 2.0, Tourism 2.0 have spawned a massive outpouring of worthy research, studies, learned papers and conferences all aimed at explaining the movement towards the use of social networks and yet which succeed in obscuring the subject through the sheer weight of their jargonistic newspeak.
As I write this, I have open in my Acrobat Reader a 492-page doctoral thesis about the management of the image of a destination in the context of Tourism 2.0. It is the work of Isabel Llodrà Riera, a technical expert with the Fundació BIT at Palma's ParcBIT technology park.
Though it is an academic work and though it would not be especially meaningful to anyone not steeped in academia, it is a far from uninteresting piece of research, and its interest stems from the association with ParcBIT and with one of its more revealing discoveries.
The regional government was recently able to announce that it had secured joint funding by the national government and the European Union for investment in technological innovations. Much of this investment is likely to end up in ParcBIT and all of it is intended to be for innovation that is tourism-themed. President Bauzá has made a commitment to the importance of the tourism industry (and also to ParcBIT) by presenting the case for and securing this investment; it is something for which, as I've noted before, he and the government should receive plaudits.
Through a combination of ParcBIT, the Universitat de les Illes Balears and the tourism industry on the island, Mallorca has a very strong case for making itself a leader in the application of tourism-themed technologies. But though Web 2.0 features heavily in the local tourism ministry's plans, there has been little evidence of theory being put into practice. Which isn't to say that it won't be put into practice, but the harnessing of the "collective intelligence" of Tourism 2.0 has, as yet, proved to be no more than a theoretical construct where the tourism agency and others are concerned.
Academic research, such as that by Isabel Llodrà, is of no real value unless there is a practical application. And in her research, she has pointed to one group of users of social networks who might typically have been overlooked when it comes to all the recommendations and information-sharing which occurs and which influence the image and choice of Mallorca as a tourist destination. If you live in Mallorca, then you are part of that group of users she is referring to. Residents.
There is a tendency to think that this information-sharing goes on between tourists and tourists alone, but it should be obvious that it doesn't. Trip Advisor may be skewed more towards tourist-to-tourist recommendation, but other social media aren't. Facebook is a good example. And what Isabel Llodrà has discovered is how information through "knowing" residents on social networks can differ to that through "knowing" other tourists. In the survey she conducted as part of the research, she found that the knowledge of residents is more highly regarded, while the impression of Mallorca differs for those users who have come to "know" residents than for those who haven't. In a nutshell, residents present a better image of Mallorca, one that stresses its charm, interest and relaxing nature. Residents do not tend to dwell on disagreeable aspects.
It may seem obvious that residents would present a more favourable and, in all likelihood, more informed impression of Mallorca, but sometimes the obvious needs stating. It also needs stating, though, that the more highly regarded knowledge of the resident might not always be so favourable, and there are examples one can point to where it isn't.
The title of Isabel Llodrà's thesis is important - "management of the image". A key question relates, therefore, to how this management is done and by whom. Web 2.0 and so therefore Tourism 2.0 is a virtual free-for-all of opinion, and if residents are as significant to creating an image for Mallorca as the thesis suggests, then they need to be kept onside as much as is feasibly possible. If there are aspects of Mallorca's tourism which are attracting negative opinion from residents, then they need addressing. Tourists trust what residents say. Good or bad.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Below Average: Balearics' tourism website
In an article of 21 November (http://alcudiapollensa.blogspot.com.es/2013/11/quality-of-official-tourist-websites-or.html) I considered pilot research at Barcelona's Universitat Pompeu Fabra into the quality of official tourism websites. The article said that more comprehensive research was on its way and that it would look into the quality of websites for all the autonomous regions of Spain. That research has now been published and it doesn't make for good reading for those responsible for the www.illesbalears.es website.
Though the researchers had not previously looked at the Balearics website, I, for the purposes of that article, had, and the conclusions I drew have more or less been echoed by what the researchers are now saying. Where illesbalears falls down in particular is in its interactivity with users (virtually non-existent) and in its "commercialisation" (the ability for users to be able to book something). Its content, though, is considered to be reasonable.
The research ranks the seventeen websites according to technical, persuasive, relational and communicative aspects, and the Balearics site, rated as below average, is placed fourteenth out of the websites for the different regions. Worse are those for Aragon and Extremadura, two areas of Spain which have comparatively limited tourism industries; Castile and León is the other one. Topping the list is Galicia, followed by the Canaries and Valencia.
Fourteenth position really isn't very impressive for a region that is so dependent upon tourism and that prides itself on its technological leadership when it comes to tourism. And this technological angle has been made even more acute since the announcement that nearly 450 million euros (half European Union, half Spanish Government) is to be made available for a Balearic Government strategy for technology initiatives with tourism at their core.
These initiatives will be for the private sector and the investment should be excellent news for entrepreneurs and small businesses seeking to develop new business. They will also be very much in line with the wishes of the regional government for the private sector to take the lead, as it has in tourism and as President Bauzá has very much admitted.
As the president has as good as said that the government doesn't have the know-how to run tourism and that the private sector does, then why doesn't it just hand over something like its tourism internet presence to the private sector? It doesn't seem interested in its own website and probably wouldn't have the resources to make it work meaningfully. The lack of interactivity and mobile communication that is apparent when one goes onto the website or when one searches on social media may well be evidence of a lack of resources. A meaningful web presence for tourism demands interactivity. If the government's tourism ministry cannot make it meaningful, then it should let people who can take care of the website.
The research findings are hardly surprising, but if the tourism ministry doesn't now act on them then there is something very wrong. It shows a lack of professionalism as well as interest to persist with a website that is inadequate. And in the scheme of things, putting a decent one together should not cost a fortune. Moreover, the website contradicts what was in the tourism plan that the ministry drew up in 2012. It was replete with stuff about web technologies, but one has the impression, in the absence of any real evidence as their exploitation, that this was window-dressing.
Perhaps the new man at the ministry, Jaime Martinez, will prove this impression to be a wrong one, but one thing is for sure, the ministry needs to pull its finger out. Its website is an embarrassment for islands which are at the very heart of Europe's tourism.
* The report's title is "Sitios web turísticos de las comunidades autónomas españolas". The research was sponsored by the national government's ministry for the economy and competitiveness.
Though the researchers had not previously looked at the Balearics website, I, for the purposes of that article, had, and the conclusions I drew have more or less been echoed by what the researchers are now saying. Where illesbalears falls down in particular is in its interactivity with users (virtually non-existent) and in its "commercialisation" (the ability for users to be able to book something). Its content, though, is considered to be reasonable.
The research ranks the seventeen websites according to technical, persuasive, relational and communicative aspects, and the Balearics site, rated as below average, is placed fourteenth out of the websites for the different regions. Worse are those for Aragon and Extremadura, two areas of Spain which have comparatively limited tourism industries; Castile and León is the other one. Topping the list is Galicia, followed by the Canaries and Valencia.
Fourteenth position really isn't very impressive for a region that is so dependent upon tourism and that prides itself on its technological leadership when it comes to tourism. And this technological angle has been made even more acute since the announcement that nearly 450 million euros (half European Union, half Spanish Government) is to be made available for a Balearic Government strategy for technology initiatives with tourism at their core.
These initiatives will be for the private sector and the investment should be excellent news for entrepreneurs and small businesses seeking to develop new business. They will also be very much in line with the wishes of the regional government for the private sector to take the lead, as it has in tourism and as President Bauzá has very much admitted.
As the president has as good as said that the government doesn't have the know-how to run tourism and that the private sector does, then why doesn't it just hand over something like its tourism internet presence to the private sector? It doesn't seem interested in its own website and probably wouldn't have the resources to make it work meaningfully. The lack of interactivity and mobile communication that is apparent when one goes onto the website or when one searches on social media may well be evidence of a lack of resources. A meaningful web presence for tourism demands interactivity. If the government's tourism ministry cannot make it meaningful, then it should let people who can take care of the website.
The research findings are hardly surprising, but if the tourism ministry doesn't now act on them then there is something very wrong. It shows a lack of professionalism as well as interest to persist with a website that is inadequate. And in the scheme of things, putting a decent one together should not cost a fortune. Moreover, the website contradicts what was in the tourism plan that the ministry drew up in 2012. It was replete with stuff about web technologies, but one has the impression, in the absence of any real evidence as their exploitation, that this was window-dressing.
Perhaps the new man at the ministry, Jaime Martinez, will prove this impression to be a wrong one, but one thing is for sure, the ministry needs to pull its finger out. Its website is an embarrassment for islands which are at the very heart of Europe's tourism.
* The report's title is "Sitios web turísticos de las comunidades autónomas españolas". The research was sponsored by the national government's ministry for the economy and competitiveness.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
For Whose Benefit?: All-inclusives
"The benefit it brought its surrounding area."
If you make a statement such as this, without qualifying it, you can bet your life that someone - me - will hunt for some qualification.
The quote is from a short piece on Saturday in "The Bulletin" about TUI conducting a pilot study of the effects of all-inclusive hotels.
The study was undertaken in Turkey. At the Holiday Village in Sarigerme. The news item gave no detail, so let me now do so.
The benefit that TUI claims relates to what the hotel complex spends within Turkey itself. 55% of its total outgoings. This is not, though, the complete story. The study found that only 11% of tourist spending benefited the regional economy, a mere fifth of which found its way into the pockets of businesses in the village of Sarigerme (not the village's actual name, but let's not worry about this) and the surrounding area. How much does this equate to? One million euros. The study would appear to have been for the 2009 season.
According to First Choice's website, the Holiday Village has 500 rooms, sleeping up to four people. Work it out for yourselves. Over a six-to-seven month period, one million euros will be spread pretty thinly; though Sarigerme is not a huge resort, it is a resort nevertheless.
The gloss in the report about the study is the so-called benefit of spending within the country. But so what? Hotels, in all sorts of places, source stuff locally, including Mallorca and including Mallorca's all-inclusives. There's nothing particularly remarkable about this. And even when stuff is sourced locally, as with the local booze that is commonly served in all-inclusives, and would appear to be at the Holiday Village, it isn't always to the punter's delight.
TUI know full well that all-inclusives have an impact. With the release of the information about this pilot study, the company is seeking to change the bad impression of all-inclusives. "Little research has been carried out" into the effects of all-inclusives, say TUI, implying that an absence of research means that the harm caused by all-inclusives has not been proven.
It is a diversion on the part of TUI to highlight matters of sourcing and employment, as it finds it hard to make a good case for all-inclusive impact on other elements of the local business scene. It is a diversion that shields behind its much-publicised and self-aggrandising sustainable tourism, of which purchasing local produce and giving people a job are two aspects.
I don't question TUI's sincerity, but they aren't being quite straight. It seems no coincidence that, a month after First Choice made the announcement that it would only offer all-inclusive packages as from next year, TUI should now wish to show how such holidays can be of benefit.
The latest announcement echoes one of the laughable bits of spin that First Choice came out with - that of excursions which will enable its guests to get a taste for their destinations and to spend some money. At the Holiday Village, the guests will be able to enjoy a "walking tour" to the local village. For God's sake.
Don't be fooled by any of this. The pilot study may be "research", it might even be good and rigorous research, but it is being done in the name of public relations. TUI have a point in that the impact of all-inclusives has not been well-researched, but the body of knowledge is growing. The company may like to know that the 11% of tourist spending is below that of 20% found by research in Hawaii. It may also like to know that Mallorcan research has revealed spend by all-inclusive guests to not just be the lowest among all categories of tourist but also over a third less than the next lowest-spending group.
But there is research and there is research, and it depends on the characteristics of different markets. Mallorca is not the same as Turkey because it is a far more mature tourism destination. The impact of all-inclusives might well be greater in more mature markets; this should be a strand of research in its own right. TUI say that more studies will be done. If so, then let them come to Alcúdia or Magalluf. Better still, give me the research spec, and I'll do it for them.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
If you make a statement such as this, without qualifying it, you can bet your life that someone - me - will hunt for some qualification.
The quote is from a short piece on Saturday in "The Bulletin" about TUI conducting a pilot study of the effects of all-inclusive hotels.
The study was undertaken in Turkey. At the Holiday Village in Sarigerme. The news item gave no detail, so let me now do so.
The benefit that TUI claims relates to what the hotel complex spends within Turkey itself. 55% of its total outgoings. This is not, though, the complete story. The study found that only 11% of tourist spending benefited the regional economy, a mere fifth of which found its way into the pockets of businesses in the village of Sarigerme (not the village's actual name, but let's not worry about this) and the surrounding area. How much does this equate to? One million euros. The study would appear to have been for the 2009 season.
According to First Choice's website, the Holiday Village has 500 rooms, sleeping up to four people. Work it out for yourselves. Over a six-to-seven month period, one million euros will be spread pretty thinly; though Sarigerme is not a huge resort, it is a resort nevertheless.
The gloss in the report about the study is the so-called benefit of spending within the country. But so what? Hotels, in all sorts of places, source stuff locally, including Mallorca and including Mallorca's all-inclusives. There's nothing particularly remarkable about this. And even when stuff is sourced locally, as with the local booze that is commonly served in all-inclusives, and would appear to be at the Holiday Village, it isn't always to the punter's delight.
TUI know full well that all-inclusives have an impact. With the release of the information about this pilot study, the company is seeking to change the bad impression of all-inclusives. "Little research has been carried out" into the effects of all-inclusives, say TUI, implying that an absence of research means that the harm caused by all-inclusives has not been proven.
It is a diversion on the part of TUI to highlight matters of sourcing and employment, as it finds it hard to make a good case for all-inclusive impact on other elements of the local business scene. It is a diversion that shields behind its much-publicised and self-aggrandising sustainable tourism, of which purchasing local produce and giving people a job are two aspects.
I don't question TUI's sincerity, but they aren't being quite straight. It seems no coincidence that, a month after First Choice made the announcement that it would only offer all-inclusive packages as from next year, TUI should now wish to show how such holidays can be of benefit.
The latest announcement echoes one of the laughable bits of spin that First Choice came out with - that of excursions which will enable its guests to get a taste for their destinations and to spend some money. At the Holiday Village, the guests will be able to enjoy a "walking tour" to the local village. For God's sake.
Don't be fooled by any of this. The pilot study may be "research", it might even be good and rigorous research, but it is being done in the name of public relations. TUI have a point in that the impact of all-inclusives has not been well-researched, but the body of knowledge is growing. The company may like to know that the 11% of tourist spending is below that of 20% found by research in Hawaii. It may also like to know that Mallorcan research has revealed spend by all-inclusive guests to not just be the lowest among all categories of tourist but also over a third less than the next lowest-spending group.
But there is research and there is research, and it depends on the characteristics of different markets. Mallorca is not the same as Turkey because it is a far more mature tourism destination. The impact of all-inclusives might well be greater in more mature markets; this should be a strand of research in its own right. TUI say that more studies will be done. If so, then let them come to Alcúdia or Magalluf. Better still, give me the research spec, and I'll do it for them.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Squeezing Lemons: Puerto Pollensa wants a tourism study
The protest against conditions in Puerto Pollensa at the start of June has led to there being meetings between the town hall and representatives of businesses and residents in Puerto Pollensa. At the latest meeting the town hall decided to invite the university in Palma to investigate reasons why the port has been losing tourists and its image (as reported in "The Diario").
When all fails, call for a study, but there is an obstacle: Mayor Cerdà doesn't know who will pay for it. Which just goes to prove that money can indeed not buy everything, if you don't have any. There is an awful lot of everything in Pollensa that cannot be paid for.
The mayor says that he doesn't know whether the tourism problem is as a result of tourists deciding against staying in the port, of the tour operators going elsewhere, of a bad image or of inadequate hotels. Things he might know are that there has been a recession, that the British market, upon which Puerto Pollensa is over-reliant, has been particularly affected, that the pound has been weak. Any study would have to establish that there was a discernible downward trend BC (before crisis). If there wasn't, then the mayor might think a study to be a waste of time and money, were there any. Its mere suggestion smacks of a dose of PR and of attempting to mollify the Moll revolutionaries.
There is a colossal amount of garbage spoken about the apparent malaise that has laid Puerto Pollensa low. Garbage being one aspect, along with what you'd rather not tread on and even, for God's sake, road signs not pointing people in the direction of the Moll. All of it is irrelevant. Cerdà's unknown unknowns are not all unknown. Funnily enough, yes, tour operators do choose to go elsewhere. And perhaps some of the hotels aren't up to scratch. Perhaps there simply aren't enough hotels, a point to which the revolutionaries have alluded.
But let's suppose a study were to be conducted. What do you think would happen? Chances are that the hefty tome of a report would gather dust on shelves somewhere in the improved town hall building that cost a mere couple of million euros along with shelved tourism ideas, such as the lunatic notion of using the image of Agatha Christie to promote Puerto Pollensa. Whatever happened to that? Let me hazard a guess. It would have cost an arm, a leg and the equivalent of several studies by the university to dosh up for image rights.
Research is fine. Nothing wrong with it, so long as it is meaningful and might result in some action. Trouble is that in Puerto Pollensa they do research, and have done so for some time. Remember? June 29 last year - "The Lemon Tree". That was about the questionnaire of tourism satisfaction that does the rounds. I doubted then that anything was done with the survey results, and I doubt it even more now. So, Pollensa town hall, go find some money down the back of the mayoral sofa, hand it over to the university and wait for another bunch of lemons. Ridiculous.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
When all fails, call for a study, but there is an obstacle: Mayor Cerdà doesn't know who will pay for it. Which just goes to prove that money can indeed not buy everything, if you don't have any. There is an awful lot of everything in Pollensa that cannot be paid for.
The mayor says that he doesn't know whether the tourism problem is as a result of tourists deciding against staying in the port, of the tour operators going elsewhere, of a bad image or of inadequate hotels. Things he might know are that there has been a recession, that the British market, upon which Puerto Pollensa is over-reliant, has been particularly affected, that the pound has been weak. Any study would have to establish that there was a discernible downward trend BC (before crisis). If there wasn't, then the mayor might think a study to be a waste of time and money, were there any. Its mere suggestion smacks of a dose of PR and of attempting to mollify the Moll revolutionaries.
There is a colossal amount of garbage spoken about the apparent malaise that has laid Puerto Pollensa low. Garbage being one aspect, along with what you'd rather not tread on and even, for God's sake, road signs not pointing people in the direction of the Moll. All of it is irrelevant. Cerdà's unknown unknowns are not all unknown. Funnily enough, yes, tour operators do choose to go elsewhere. And perhaps some of the hotels aren't up to scratch. Perhaps there simply aren't enough hotels, a point to which the revolutionaries have alluded.
But let's suppose a study were to be conducted. What do you think would happen? Chances are that the hefty tome of a report would gather dust on shelves somewhere in the improved town hall building that cost a mere couple of million euros along with shelved tourism ideas, such as the lunatic notion of using the image of Agatha Christie to promote Puerto Pollensa. Whatever happened to that? Let me hazard a guess. It would have cost an arm, a leg and the equivalent of several studies by the university to dosh up for image rights.
Research is fine. Nothing wrong with it, so long as it is meaningful and might result in some action. Trouble is that in Puerto Pollensa they do research, and have done so for some time. Remember? June 29 last year - "The Lemon Tree". That was about the questionnaire of tourism satisfaction that does the rounds. I doubted then that anything was done with the survey results, and I doubt it even more now. So, Pollensa town hall, go find some money down the back of the mayoral sofa, hand it over to the university and wait for another bunch of lemons. Ridiculous.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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