Early last week, it was reported that Cehat, the Spanish hoteliers confederation, had sent a stern letter to UK tour operators regarding false holiday compensation claims. Tui, Thomas Cook, Jet2 and Monarch were left in no doubt that Spain's hoteliers were sick and tired both of the claims and of the system by which tour operators deduct claims' amounts from hotelier invoices. The confederation has also suspected that tour operators simply don't do enough. It was therefore warning that "commercial relations" could be damaged if there wasn't firmer action.
The hoteliers, included among them the Mallorca Hoteliers Federation, have to an extent been playing to the gallery for Spanish public consumption. While it is obvious that UK legislation needs to be reformed (and will be eventually), tour operators aren't to blame for a system which makes it so easy for claims to be made. Moreover, although there is contractual small print which allows tour operators to make deductions from invoices, it hasn't been the case that tour operators have just been rolling over and accepting the situation with the claims. Jet2's initiative with private detectives is a case in point.
Nevertheless, the hoteliers are fully justified in being angry, so more is now emerging of how tour operators are reacting. Tui has admitted that the volume of claims has gone up by 1400% over the past two years. Nick Longman, Tui UK and Ireland's managing director, has told Travel Weekly that the claims are "a massive problem for us; a huge problem for the industry". These are not the words of a senior executive lying down and accepting the situation.
Blacklisting customers is nothing new. Tour operators have a long history of doing this, especially if customers have tried it on in making specious compensation claims. Hoteliers have also had blacklists for the very same reason. The blacklisting is now being done in a more thorough fashion, certainly by Tui. In addition, the company is sending letters to those who set out on a claims process and is warning that they will be liable if claims are dismissed. It won't be the claims farming companies which put them up to making the claims who are charged with fraud; it will be their clients.
Longman says that some 50% of the letters have resulted in claims being dropped. Tui is now sending out more letters. Meanwhile, it is understood that police in the UK are becoming active in investigating potential fraud and are working with tour operators. So, far from being as inactive as the hoteliers have been alleging, it is the tour operators who have taken matters into their own hands and appear to be having some success.
The national secretary of state for tourism, Matilde Asián, has been telling hoteliers to be more proactive in denouncing the presence of claims farmers. If they are aware of vehicles or individuals outside their establishments, they are being encouraged to report them to the prosecution service. She says that more is being done to curb their activities but "more should be done". The fraudulent claims, she adds, are "putting Spain's image at risk".
It may or may not have been hotelier proactivity that helped to get the Guardia Civil involved, but they are. Two Britons have been arrested in Alcudia, accused of inciting holidaymakers to lodge false claims. Not so long ago, there were two British women hanging around outside a chemist's shop (as well as Bellevue and Club Mac) approaching holidaymakers.
This is the way to go. Or one way. Conspiracy to incite others to commit a crime. Well done, the Guardia.
Showing posts with label TUI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TUI. Show all posts
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Playing Hardball With Tour Operators
In a book published in 2011 entitled The British On Holiday, author Hazel Andrews wrote that in 1998 the head of the Palmanova-Magalluf hoteliers association had told her that the most important relationship in the resorts was that between hotels and tour operators and that the most important tour operator was Thomson.
Earlier this month, a Frontur report concerning international tourist movement into Spain revealed that slightly under 23 million tourists travelled with a tour operator on a holiday package. That is to say that in 2016 the percentage of holidaymakers relying exclusively on a tour operator was just short of 22%. Twenty years before, so a little time before Hazel Andrews spoke to the hoteliers' president, over 80% of holidaymakers booked packages with a tour operator.
A great deal has therefore happened in the past twenty years, one aspect of which is that Thomson, important or not as a provider of Magalluf tourists, is to be consigned to the brand waste bin.
Another obvious development since the late 1990s is the extent to which holidaymaker booking behaviour has altered. The package holiday's obituary has been written often enough, but - and bearing in mind also the significant increase in the number of tourists in the past twenty years - it remains resilient, not least if it is an all-inclusive one. Moreover, these are figures for Spain, to which low-cost airlines fly in abundance and where there is no shortage of alternative accommodation: alternative to hotels, that is. Other destinations aren't necessarily quite as easy as Spain is for the independent traveller.
The package holiday, for all the predictions of its demise, still holds a decent share of the market, decent enough for tour operators like Tui to snaffle up as many hotel beds as they can. There need be no tears being wept for the tour operators in this shifting scenario. They still exert great power and they still have massive offer to sell.
But can it be said, as it was in 1998, that the hotel-tour operator relationship remains the most important one, and not just in Magalluf and Palmanova? The Frontur figure of 22%, one suspects, is a good deal higher in resorts, so arguably it is, even though it won't be anything like the 80% of 1998. Tour operator power has thus been diminished, if only to a degree, and the scramble for beds (along with increased prices) that has been occurring just recently because of the elevated demand for Mallorca holidays demonstrates how the hotel-tour operator relationship has changed.
Historically, tour operators have always held the whip hand. Mallorca was almost solely reliant on foreign companies at the start of the boom, a fact that was dramatically exposed by the oil crisis of the 1970s and by the collapse of Court Line and Clarkson. This shock to the tourism industry was such that there was a determination to assert Mallorca's own power over it, but this never happened. The package holiday and its selling by foreign tour operators just kept on getting stronger.
Given this strength, tour operators were able to keep control over prices. Although there have long been partnerships with hotel chains - direct ones in certain instances, such as between Tui and Riu - the tour operator was the more powerful partner. It could also dictate the type of offer. Few hotels have genuinely wanted to provide all-inclusive, because of the lower margins and the far lower possibilities for making add-on sales to clients. At the bottom end of the AI market, as a hotel manager once admitted to me, the hotel would have much rather been in a position to provide greater quality. But it couldn't. The quality was crap, and he recognised that it was.
Something else which has significantly altered the scene since the late 1990s is the level of competition, to which can be added the demands of a more critical and sophisticated holidaymaker. It is this context which goes a long way to explaining the apparent abandonment of Mallorca (and the Canaries) by Thomas Cook. While this has been greatly exaggerated, the tour operator is ditching a number of hotels as part of an overall strategy of moving up-market.
Thomas Cook has also taken into account the elevated prices being demanded by hotels. The relationship in terms of power has been disrupted by current circumstances, and while there seems to have been some glee among hoteliers as well as indifference to continuing relationships with certain markets, notably the British, the hoteliers are taking risks. There may not have been such statements in Mallorca, but in the Canaries the president of the hoteliers association has warned against "abuse" of prices. Some hoteliers may believe they can play hardball with tour operators. For the moment maybe they can. In the Canaries at least, there is concern about the harmful effect on the historical relationship.
Earlier this month, a Frontur report concerning international tourist movement into Spain revealed that slightly under 23 million tourists travelled with a tour operator on a holiday package. That is to say that in 2016 the percentage of holidaymakers relying exclusively on a tour operator was just short of 22%. Twenty years before, so a little time before Hazel Andrews spoke to the hoteliers' president, over 80% of holidaymakers booked packages with a tour operator.
A great deal has therefore happened in the past twenty years, one aspect of which is that Thomson, important or not as a provider of Magalluf tourists, is to be consigned to the brand waste bin.
Another obvious development since the late 1990s is the extent to which holidaymaker booking behaviour has altered. The package holiday's obituary has been written often enough, but - and bearing in mind also the significant increase in the number of tourists in the past twenty years - it remains resilient, not least if it is an all-inclusive one. Moreover, these are figures for Spain, to which low-cost airlines fly in abundance and where there is no shortage of alternative accommodation: alternative to hotels, that is. Other destinations aren't necessarily quite as easy as Spain is for the independent traveller.
The package holiday, for all the predictions of its demise, still holds a decent share of the market, decent enough for tour operators like Tui to snaffle up as many hotel beds as they can. There need be no tears being wept for the tour operators in this shifting scenario. They still exert great power and they still have massive offer to sell.
But can it be said, as it was in 1998, that the hotel-tour operator relationship remains the most important one, and not just in Magalluf and Palmanova? The Frontur figure of 22%, one suspects, is a good deal higher in resorts, so arguably it is, even though it won't be anything like the 80% of 1998. Tour operator power has thus been diminished, if only to a degree, and the scramble for beds (along with increased prices) that has been occurring just recently because of the elevated demand for Mallorca holidays demonstrates how the hotel-tour operator relationship has changed.
Historically, tour operators have always held the whip hand. Mallorca was almost solely reliant on foreign companies at the start of the boom, a fact that was dramatically exposed by the oil crisis of the 1970s and by the collapse of Court Line and Clarkson. This shock to the tourism industry was such that there was a determination to assert Mallorca's own power over it, but this never happened. The package holiday and its selling by foreign tour operators just kept on getting stronger.
Given this strength, tour operators were able to keep control over prices. Although there have long been partnerships with hotel chains - direct ones in certain instances, such as between Tui and Riu - the tour operator was the more powerful partner. It could also dictate the type of offer. Few hotels have genuinely wanted to provide all-inclusive, because of the lower margins and the far lower possibilities for making add-on sales to clients. At the bottom end of the AI market, as a hotel manager once admitted to me, the hotel would have much rather been in a position to provide greater quality. But it couldn't. The quality was crap, and he recognised that it was.
Something else which has significantly altered the scene since the late 1990s is the level of competition, to which can be added the demands of a more critical and sophisticated holidaymaker. It is this context which goes a long way to explaining the apparent abandonment of Mallorca (and the Canaries) by Thomas Cook. While this has been greatly exaggerated, the tour operator is ditching a number of hotels as part of an overall strategy of moving up-market.
Thomas Cook has also taken into account the elevated prices being demanded by hotels. The relationship in terms of power has been disrupted by current circumstances, and while there seems to have been some glee among hoteliers as well as indifference to continuing relationships with certain markets, notably the British, the hoteliers are taking risks. There may not have been such statements in Mallorca, but in the Canaries the president of the hoteliers association has warned against "abuse" of prices. Some hoteliers may believe they can play hardball with tour operators. For the moment maybe they can. In the Canaries at least, there is concern about the harmful effect on the historical relationship.
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
The Slow Death Of The Holiday Brochure
It was one of those annually exciting times. Off you went to the travel agents and back you came with armfuls of brochures. Hours would then be devoted to poring over their contents. Families would come together to select their favoured destination and hotel. Groups of friends would argue over the merits of one place or another. Others had no intention of going anywhere. Brochures were the closest they got to velvety white sands, turquoise seas and hotels that may or may not have actually been built.
The holiday brochure has the feeling of the past. It is somehow symbolic of the days of Cliff Michelmore and Judith Chalmers; of the days of holiday innocence and inexperience. If the brochure said there was a sea view, then it was accepted that there would be. Only on arrival did the hotel turn out to be a mile from the coast with other hotels in the way blocking what little view there might have been.
Eventually, consumer law was to bring to an end the misrepresentation. Brochures became more reliable and they also became more exotic, as did the destinations on offer. No more was it a straight fight between Mallorca and the Costa Brava. This additional lavishness spawned greater sophistication and an endless supply of imagery and verbiage. Brochure talk and brochure views demanded velvety white sands, crystal clear waters, turquoise seas. There are those - and not just brochure writers - who insist on using such hackneyed descriptions. The brochure views, depending on the market segment, also required smiling, happy families splashing at a water's edge; couples looking at each other adoringly as the sun set and the wine glass was filled; and for the youth there were riotous scenes of wet t-shirt contests.
All this talk, all these views became clichés. Destinations were indistinguishable. What mattered was the standardised marketing: families were all like those in the brochures, the children never older than ten; the couples were firmly middle-class and well-heeled; youth was boisterous but never with its arse hanging out of its shorts. They could have been anywhere.
Somewhere along the line came emotion. This represented an upping of the touchstone stakes. Thomson's 2011 telly ad with the line "holidays are the most precious time of all" did this more brilliantly than ever: it was marketing genius. Against this background, far better conveyed by audiovisual media, the brochure started to become less and less relevant. Its uni-dimensionality, its absence of interactivity, its sheer antiquity was making it redundant.
And redundant is what it is due to be, at least where Tui and Thomas Cook are concerned. Both plan to phase out brochures by 2020. They have for some while cut back on their printing and distribution in any event. Cost has been one reason; the inflexible nature of print is another. A consumer world consumed by multimedia no longer responds to the brochure in the same way. The tourist-consumer wants prior experience of what holiday experiences can be expected. It is no longer sufficient to explain how many square metres a room might have. The tourist-consumers want to be able, for example, to see what this means, and rightly so: how many people can actually conceive what x amount of square metres really represents?
A form of virtual reality is now to replace the brochure. Tui will "digitise" some 600 agencies in the UK so that the consumer, courtesy of high-definitiion technology, can "live" the destinations that are being offered: resorts themselves as well as hotel interiors and exteriors. It all makes total sense to do so and to therefore dispense with the brochure. There is no need for the velvety-white sand written cliché; the actual cliché, its very existence, can be confirmed in a virtual environment. Brochure copywriters are to be made redundant, and not before time.
But anachronistic as the brochure may be, should it pass totally into tourist marketing history? Old technologies, old ways of doing things have stubborn habits of persisting and indeed of making comebacks. Think vinyl, for example. Downloads cannot aspire to match the mystery of the LP cover, the smell of the cover and the hugeness of 33 rpm. Newspapers have yet to succumb to the threat of the internet; likewise books have staved off the advances of Kindle. People, consumers continue to have a taste for the physical, and this isn't simply a generational thing; the young take to vinyl partly because of its curiosity, partly because of its sound, partly because of its aesthetics.
These, however, are products. A brochure is not. It sells a product. And for any business with a view on the bottom line, the cost of sales and ultimate profit will always outweigh a nostalgic hankering for paper. The brochure is going. How many will mourn its passing?
The holiday brochure has the feeling of the past. It is somehow symbolic of the days of Cliff Michelmore and Judith Chalmers; of the days of holiday innocence and inexperience. If the brochure said there was a sea view, then it was accepted that there would be. Only on arrival did the hotel turn out to be a mile from the coast with other hotels in the way blocking what little view there might have been.
Eventually, consumer law was to bring to an end the misrepresentation. Brochures became more reliable and they also became more exotic, as did the destinations on offer. No more was it a straight fight between Mallorca and the Costa Brava. This additional lavishness spawned greater sophistication and an endless supply of imagery and verbiage. Brochure talk and brochure views demanded velvety white sands, crystal clear waters, turquoise seas. There are those - and not just brochure writers - who insist on using such hackneyed descriptions. The brochure views, depending on the market segment, also required smiling, happy families splashing at a water's edge; couples looking at each other adoringly as the sun set and the wine glass was filled; and for the youth there were riotous scenes of wet t-shirt contests.
All this talk, all these views became clichés. Destinations were indistinguishable. What mattered was the standardised marketing: families were all like those in the brochures, the children never older than ten; the couples were firmly middle-class and well-heeled; youth was boisterous but never with its arse hanging out of its shorts. They could have been anywhere.
Somewhere along the line came emotion. This represented an upping of the touchstone stakes. Thomson's 2011 telly ad with the line "holidays are the most precious time of all" did this more brilliantly than ever: it was marketing genius. Against this background, far better conveyed by audiovisual media, the brochure started to become less and less relevant. Its uni-dimensionality, its absence of interactivity, its sheer antiquity was making it redundant.
And redundant is what it is due to be, at least where Tui and Thomas Cook are concerned. Both plan to phase out brochures by 2020. They have for some while cut back on their printing and distribution in any event. Cost has been one reason; the inflexible nature of print is another. A consumer world consumed by multimedia no longer responds to the brochure in the same way. The tourist-consumer wants prior experience of what holiday experiences can be expected. It is no longer sufficient to explain how many square metres a room might have. The tourist-consumers want to be able, for example, to see what this means, and rightly so: how many people can actually conceive what x amount of square metres really represents?
A form of virtual reality is now to replace the brochure. Tui will "digitise" some 600 agencies in the UK so that the consumer, courtesy of high-definitiion technology, can "live" the destinations that are being offered: resorts themselves as well as hotel interiors and exteriors. It all makes total sense to do so and to therefore dispense with the brochure. There is no need for the velvety-white sand written cliché; the actual cliché, its very existence, can be confirmed in a virtual environment. Brochure copywriters are to be made redundant, and not before time.
But anachronistic as the brochure may be, should it pass totally into tourist marketing history? Old technologies, old ways of doing things have stubborn habits of persisting and indeed of making comebacks. Think vinyl, for example. Downloads cannot aspire to match the mystery of the LP cover, the smell of the cover and the hugeness of 33 rpm. Newspapers have yet to succumb to the threat of the internet; likewise books have staved off the advances of Kindle. People, consumers continue to have a taste for the physical, and this isn't simply a generational thing; the young take to vinyl partly because of its curiosity, partly because of its sound, partly because of its aesthetics.
These, however, are products. A brochure is not. It sells a product. And for any business with a view on the bottom line, the cost of sales and ultimate profit will always outweigh a nostalgic hankering for paper. The brochure is going. How many will mourn its passing?
Saturday, May 07, 2016
No Celebrations For Cruise Ships
There were eight cruise ships in port on Tuesday, a record in terms of the number of ships at one time. The president of the Balearic Ports Authority, Juan Gual de Torrella, said that they were happy because this reflected all the work that has been going into promoting this type of tourism. Not everyone was happy though.
Gual de Torrella noted that there won't be many days similar to Tuesday, when there was a total of 22,000 passengers: not a record, as there were 23,000 one day last summer. Of the eight ships, it should be noted that three were at the end of their cruises. Their passengers, both embarking and disembarking, were less likely than the passengers of the other five to have been wandering around the centre of the city. Wandering around and spending, by all accounts, comparatively little.
This was partly because there were coaches whisking passengers off to other parts of the island. The passengers are damned if they do, damned if they don't. If they do go into the city, then there are the complaints about human saturation, a factor that provoked the anti-tourist graffiti. If they don't, then the hostelries complain they're not making enough. No one, apart from the ports authority, seems particularly happy.
Getting hard and fast information about the benefits of cruise shipping for Palma is not easy. There needs to be more systematic evaluation. But according to some numbers from a few years ago - so they will have changed to a degree - the economic impact of cruising for the Balearics as a whole was put at 115 million euros. That's quite a lot of euros, but it was less than for golf tourism and under a quarter of the impact generated by nautical tourism.
The issue of spending by cruise passengers has long been argued about, often on the basis of no more than anecdote. But if a city - and not just the port itself, which clearly has its own benefits - is to admit several thousands of passengers on certain days and fewer on others, then should there not be a realistic and hopefully accurate assessment of the costs and benefits? Rather like statistics for airport passengers, it can seem that all that anyone is interested in are the human numbers (and the number of planes or ships) rather than figures for the costs - services, resources, environment - and for benefits, i.e. the wealth generated.
Tuesday's ships arrived against a background of Barcelona's mayor, Ada Colau, intimating that the city is looking to charge a tax on tourists who don't stay overnight. Among them would be cruise passengers who are currently exempt from paying Catalonia's tourist tax if ships are in port for under twelve hours. The city council argues that there are costs incurred because of cruises, such as those of cleaning, security and general infrastructure, as well as a social cost in terms of the impact on residents.
There was the further background of the announcement by TUI Cruises regarding its ships coming into Palma. What better way of demonstrating TUI's investment in its product and customer experience, the company's statement said, than unveiling a new addition - TUI Discovery - and introducing all-inclusive as standard? This apparent self-congratulation can be interpreted as insensitive. All-inclusive as standard? Would this be beneficial to Palma? There again, here is a tour company which, via its First Choice brand, once promoted all-inclusive hotels with the slogan of leaving your wallet at home, something for which there was an admission that this wasn't terribly sensitive in a BBC documentary about all-inclusives with which I was involved.
Announcements of all-inclusive cruises and record numbers of ships might be cause for celebration where some are concerned, but they are not for others. Given the political and social issues as they obtain at present, it might be wise to quieten the celebratory noises.
Gual de Torrella noted that there won't be many days similar to Tuesday, when there was a total of 22,000 passengers: not a record, as there were 23,000 one day last summer. Of the eight ships, it should be noted that three were at the end of their cruises. Their passengers, both embarking and disembarking, were less likely than the passengers of the other five to have been wandering around the centre of the city. Wandering around and spending, by all accounts, comparatively little.
This was partly because there were coaches whisking passengers off to other parts of the island. The passengers are damned if they do, damned if they don't. If they do go into the city, then there are the complaints about human saturation, a factor that provoked the anti-tourist graffiti. If they don't, then the hostelries complain they're not making enough. No one, apart from the ports authority, seems particularly happy.
Getting hard and fast information about the benefits of cruise shipping for Palma is not easy. There needs to be more systematic evaluation. But according to some numbers from a few years ago - so they will have changed to a degree - the economic impact of cruising for the Balearics as a whole was put at 115 million euros. That's quite a lot of euros, but it was less than for golf tourism and under a quarter of the impact generated by nautical tourism.
The issue of spending by cruise passengers has long been argued about, often on the basis of no more than anecdote. But if a city - and not just the port itself, which clearly has its own benefits - is to admit several thousands of passengers on certain days and fewer on others, then should there not be a realistic and hopefully accurate assessment of the costs and benefits? Rather like statistics for airport passengers, it can seem that all that anyone is interested in are the human numbers (and the number of planes or ships) rather than figures for the costs - services, resources, environment - and for benefits, i.e. the wealth generated.
Tuesday's ships arrived against a background of Barcelona's mayor, Ada Colau, intimating that the city is looking to charge a tax on tourists who don't stay overnight. Among them would be cruise passengers who are currently exempt from paying Catalonia's tourist tax if ships are in port for under twelve hours. The city council argues that there are costs incurred because of cruises, such as those of cleaning, security and general infrastructure, as well as a social cost in terms of the impact on residents.
There was the further background of the announcement by TUI Cruises regarding its ships coming into Palma. What better way of demonstrating TUI's investment in its product and customer experience, the company's statement said, than unveiling a new addition - TUI Discovery - and introducing all-inclusive as standard? This apparent self-congratulation can be interpreted as insensitive. All-inclusive as standard? Would this be beneficial to Palma? There again, here is a tour company which, via its First Choice brand, once promoted all-inclusive hotels with the slogan of leaving your wallet at home, something for which there was an admission that this wasn't terribly sensitive in a BBC documentary about all-inclusives with which I was involved.
Announcements of all-inclusive cruises and record numbers of ships might be cause for celebration where some are concerned, but they are not for others. Given the political and social issues as they obtain at present, it might be wise to quieten the celebratory noises.
Wednesday, March 06, 2013
The Brave New World Of Tourism Products
Holidays have long ceased to be a simple matter of promoting a resort, a hotel and a flight. In fact, one could argue that none of these are that important any longer. Holidays are all about selling specific needs, aspirations and lifestyles. The selling is no longer directed at one homogeneous market, that of the typical family breadwinner who, in the past, would consult with his or her spouse as they pored over a brochure in which the choice was all but uniform. This selling can be directed at single people, adults-only, gay people, those people on limited or all but unlimited budgets, older or younger people, and at the very young; children never used to be heard when the decisions were made about holidays, now theirs is the loudest voice.
The days of merely heading off to sunny Spain and praying to God that the Clarkson Dan-Air Comet would deliver you in one piece are long, long gone. Were there any marketing sophistication applied by the pioneering tour operators, it was limited to conceiving an unsophisticated travelling consumer according to socioeconomics. The ABC classification could as easily have also been an Alpha to Epsilon system lifted from Aldous Huxley. Alphas would end up in a three-star palace with running water and a pool, the Epsilons would be herded into a starless hovel where, assuming there was any water, it would be doubly fortunate if water in a sink was actually capable of disappearing down the plug hole.
Nowadays, this simplistic classification has been superseded by innumerable segments. There is no one holidaymaker, other than the holidaymaker who conforms to whatever system of segmentation a tour operator wishes to adopt in selling a niched holiday. Ah but, is it not the tour operator selling on the basis of what the holidaymaker-consumer demands?
Unquestionably, holidaymakers are vastly more sophisticated and demanding than was once the case. Also unquestionably, tour operators engage in massive amounts of market research in determining how they might position their holidays. But is it really true that tour operators respond to demand?
The holiday offer is now a bewildering array of products. Branded in one way, branded in another, niched for this consumer group and for that. Holidays have become like technology, little of which over the past thirty years or so has actually met a stated need. Did anyone actually ever say that they needed a Sony Walkman or a PC? They got them not because of demand but because of wherewithal, that created through miniaturisation and the microprocessor. The product came first, not the demand.
The best example of tour operator product that highlights marketing dissembling on behalf of tour operators is the all-inclusive. It is in response to consumer demand, they insist. Yes, now it is. But it didn't used to be. Tour operators, and some hoteliers, looked on what Club Med was doing, nicked the concept and moulded it. The product came first. And product is what all-inclusive is. It is not a paragon of customer-driven virtuousness.
A consequence of all this alleged demand, trend-monitoring, segmentation etc. is that tour operators are creating multiple product lines to meet what they maintain are the specific needs of all those groups I identified above. But they are still products, and in the classic marketing mix, it is product that dominates at the top of the marketing pyramid. It is supported by the lavish promotion and to a lesser extent, depending on the target market, by price. At the bottom comes the place, and this is the crux of this development. The destination is no longer important. It is the product that matters, and the tour operators select the place - the island, the resort, the hotel - not the consumer, as he or she has already decided that he or she wants a particular product. And this can be seen no better than in TUI's marketing. Its Family Fly 4 segment, the typical, rather old-fashioned family holiday group, is now overwhelmingly offered in Turkey. The Balearics are way down. But then Fly 4 Friends, a newer group for those seeking fun and activities, are shepherded mainly to the Balearics - Mallorca and Ibiza.
What all this means is that, in a similar way to all-inclusives having made specific destinations immaterial, so will the new products of the tour operators. Resorts will become repositories for certain market segments. It is tourism engineering on a grand scale, one that will lead to resorts needing to conform to the demands of the product and, in the process, shed themselves of idiosyncrasy and individualism. It is the brave new world of tour operator product.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The days of merely heading off to sunny Spain and praying to God that the Clarkson Dan-Air Comet would deliver you in one piece are long, long gone. Were there any marketing sophistication applied by the pioneering tour operators, it was limited to conceiving an unsophisticated travelling consumer according to socioeconomics. The ABC classification could as easily have also been an Alpha to Epsilon system lifted from Aldous Huxley. Alphas would end up in a three-star palace with running water and a pool, the Epsilons would be herded into a starless hovel where, assuming there was any water, it would be doubly fortunate if water in a sink was actually capable of disappearing down the plug hole.
Nowadays, this simplistic classification has been superseded by innumerable segments. There is no one holidaymaker, other than the holidaymaker who conforms to whatever system of segmentation a tour operator wishes to adopt in selling a niched holiday. Ah but, is it not the tour operator selling on the basis of what the holidaymaker-consumer demands?
Unquestionably, holidaymakers are vastly more sophisticated and demanding than was once the case. Also unquestionably, tour operators engage in massive amounts of market research in determining how they might position their holidays. But is it really true that tour operators respond to demand?
The holiday offer is now a bewildering array of products. Branded in one way, branded in another, niched for this consumer group and for that. Holidays have become like technology, little of which over the past thirty years or so has actually met a stated need. Did anyone actually ever say that they needed a Sony Walkman or a PC? They got them not because of demand but because of wherewithal, that created through miniaturisation and the microprocessor. The product came first, not the demand.
The best example of tour operator product that highlights marketing dissembling on behalf of tour operators is the all-inclusive. It is in response to consumer demand, they insist. Yes, now it is. But it didn't used to be. Tour operators, and some hoteliers, looked on what Club Med was doing, nicked the concept and moulded it. The product came first. And product is what all-inclusive is. It is not a paragon of customer-driven virtuousness.
A consequence of all this alleged demand, trend-monitoring, segmentation etc. is that tour operators are creating multiple product lines to meet what they maintain are the specific needs of all those groups I identified above. But they are still products, and in the classic marketing mix, it is product that dominates at the top of the marketing pyramid. It is supported by the lavish promotion and to a lesser extent, depending on the target market, by price. At the bottom comes the place, and this is the crux of this development. The destination is no longer important. It is the product that matters, and the tour operators select the place - the island, the resort, the hotel - not the consumer, as he or she has already decided that he or she wants a particular product. And this can be seen no better than in TUI's marketing. Its Family Fly 4 segment, the typical, rather old-fashioned family holiday group, is now overwhelmingly offered in Turkey. The Balearics are way down. But then Fly 4 Friends, a newer group for those seeking fun and activities, are shepherded mainly to the Balearics - Mallorca and Ibiza.
What all this means is that, in a similar way to all-inclusives having made specific destinations immaterial, so will the new products of the tour operators. Resorts will become repositories for certain market segments. It is tourism engineering on a grand scale, one that will lead to resorts needing to conform to the demands of the product and, in the process, shed themselves of idiosyncrasy and individualism. It is the brave new world of tour operator product.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Sponsored By TUI: Spanish tax policy
Who are the real powers in the lands? Prime Minister Rajoy and his government nationally, President Bauzá and his regional government in the Balearics, other presidents and other governments in other Spanish regions? The answer is none of these. Not if TUI wields its influence.
When TUI or the hotels speak, governments sit up and take note. When the European Union and the IMF urge the Spanish Government to bump up the rate of IVA (VAT), they neglect the fact that this is not a decision for the government. This, at any rate, is how one might style the opposition of TUI and the tourism sector to an increase in IVA that might see the current reduced rate for the tourism sector scrapped. If the government buckles under pressure from tour operators based in other countries, then the game is pretty much up; its impotence is revealed and its role is diminished. Welcome to the Kingdom of Spain, sponsored by TUI.
There is a sour deliciousness about a German company wishing to direct Spanish financial policy when the German Government is doing the same thing, albeit that the policies differ. Spain is now reduced to an argument between German commerce and German politics. What a strange world we live in.
TUI is threatening (and to say threat is not being hyperbolic) to reduce its operations in Spain if the rate of IVA goes up to 18%, the current general rate of IVA. Companies do from time to time issue certain "hints" to all sorts of governments if they don't do what they want them to. The British Government was once warned of the dire consequences of not joining the euro by Japanese car manufacturers. Mostly everyone seems to now have forgotten about this, as there were no dire consequences.
But then the Spanish tourism industry isn't quite like the British motor industry. It is the motor of the economy, as governments nationally and regionally keep reminding us, which the motor industry in Britain wasn't. Woe betide, therefore, any government that wants to get the economy motoring but which ignores the protests of a company so firmly in the driving-seat as TUI is.
TUI does have a point. Of course it does. And its point, though it isn't necessarily stating this, is that an economies, including that of the Balearics, with varying levels of dependence upon tourism cannot be revived if starved of the consumer's euro because of a rise in tax, and a whopping one at that in the case of the tourist rate going up from 8% to 18%.
It isn't just TUI which has a point. The Spanish hostelry federation has put the job losses that would result at 130,000 (9% of all those employed), the fall in consumption at up to 8%, and the loss to gross value added of 6,000 million euros. These losses would come on top of accumulated losses of 20% in the wider hostelry sector since economic crisis took hold.
The impact at the bar or restaurant coalface is not difficult to figure out. Whereas the previous one-point rise from 7% had little effect and could be swallowed by businesses if they wished to, a 10% rise couldn't be without harming even more the bottom line. For a dish costing five euros, for example, the price would increase by 50 cents. This may not sound a lot but multiply it by demand for meals out and then it starts to become so. Reduced spending by tourists is already a fact. Spending would be reduced further. And in Catalonia, where the tourist tax is due to be introduced, they must be having kittens at the thought of an IVA rise.
When you look at potential losses and when you hear the threats from the likes of TUI, you would have to think that the Spanish Government would need its head examining were it to go ahead. However, is it morally right that one sector, tourism, should be given special consideration when most of the rest of the economy isn't? The consumer has experienced increases in prices as it is and may well yet be faced with a rise in the general rate of IVA, thus compounding the effects of rising prices (petrol, gas, electricity, food etc.).
Whether morally right or not, the economic rightness of increasing IVA is being subject to ever more questioning. And so it should be. Austerity economics are being given a hard time because their chances of bringing about recovery or growth are extremely limited, certainly in the short to medium term. But austerity economics are being imposed on Spain, so indirect taxation bears the brunt, as does therefore the consumer. The question, where tourism is concerned, is who has the greater say. The austerity politicians of Europe or Europe's leading tour operator.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
When TUI or the hotels speak, governments sit up and take note. When the European Union and the IMF urge the Spanish Government to bump up the rate of IVA (VAT), they neglect the fact that this is not a decision for the government. This, at any rate, is how one might style the opposition of TUI and the tourism sector to an increase in IVA that might see the current reduced rate for the tourism sector scrapped. If the government buckles under pressure from tour operators based in other countries, then the game is pretty much up; its impotence is revealed and its role is diminished. Welcome to the Kingdom of Spain, sponsored by TUI.
There is a sour deliciousness about a German company wishing to direct Spanish financial policy when the German Government is doing the same thing, albeit that the policies differ. Spain is now reduced to an argument between German commerce and German politics. What a strange world we live in.
TUI is threatening (and to say threat is not being hyperbolic) to reduce its operations in Spain if the rate of IVA goes up to 18%, the current general rate of IVA. Companies do from time to time issue certain "hints" to all sorts of governments if they don't do what they want them to. The British Government was once warned of the dire consequences of not joining the euro by Japanese car manufacturers. Mostly everyone seems to now have forgotten about this, as there were no dire consequences.
But then the Spanish tourism industry isn't quite like the British motor industry. It is the motor of the economy, as governments nationally and regionally keep reminding us, which the motor industry in Britain wasn't. Woe betide, therefore, any government that wants to get the economy motoring but which ignores the protests of a company so firmly in the driving-seat as TUI is.
TUI does have a point. Of course it does. And its point, though it isn't necessarily stating this, is that an economies, including that of the Balearics, with varying levels of dependence upon tourism cannot be revived if starved of the consumer's euro because of a rise in tax, and a whopping one at that in the case of the tourist rate going up from 8% to 18%.
It isn't just TUI which has a point. The Spanish hostelry federation has put the job losses that would result at 130,000 (9% of all those employed), the fall in consumption at up to 8%, and the loss to gross value added of 6,000 million euros. These losses would come on top of accumulated losses of 20% in the wider hostelry sector since economic crisis took hold.
The impact at the bar or restaurant coalface is not difficult to figure out. Whereas the previous one-point rise from 7% had little effect and could be swallowed by businesses if they wished to, a 10% rise couldn't be without harming even more the bottom line. For a dish costing five euros, for example, the price would increase by 50 cents. This may not sound a lot but multiply it by demand for meals out and then it starts to become so. Reduced spending by tourists is already a fact. Spending would be reduced further. And in Catalonia, where the tourist tax is due to be introduced, they must be having kittens at the thought of an IVA rise.
When you look at potential losses and when you hear the threats from the likes of TUI, you would have to think that the Spanish Government would need its head examining were it to go ahead. However, is it morally right that one sector, tourism, should be given special consideration when most of the rest of the economy isn't? The consumer has experienced increases in prices as it is and may well yet be faced with a rise in the general rate of IVA, thus compounding the effects of rising prices (petrol, gas, electricity, food etc.).
Whether morally right or not, the economic rightness of increasing IVA is being subject to ever more questioning. And so it should be. Austerity economics are being given a hard time because their chances of bringing about recovery or growth are extremely limited, certainly in the short to medium term. But austerity economics are being imposed on Spain, so indirect taxation bears the brunt, as does therefore the consumer. The question, where tourism is concerned, is who has the greater say. The austerity politicians of Europe or Europe's leading tour operator.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - TUI issues threat over proposed IVA increase
TUI has indicated that it will revise its operations into Spain (i.e. reduce them) if the national government goes ahead with an increase in the rate of IVA (VAT) that would bring what is currently a reduced rate for the tourism sector of 8% in line with the general rate of 18%.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Monday, October 03, 2011
The Russians Aren't Coming, They've Arrived
Do you know who Alexei Mordashov is? No? Well, you should do, and so I shall tell you. His name gives a bit of the game away. Yes, he's Russian. He doesn't like being referred to as an oligarch, but that is what he is. He is the main shareholder in Severstal, Russia's largest steel company, and the 29th richest man in the world, according to the "Forbes" billionaires list. His personal wealth is said to exceed, twelve-fold, that of one of Spain's richest men, Gabriel Escarrer of Meliá Hotels International.
Mr. Mordashov, like Sr. Escarrer, has a keen interest in tourism. Mr. Mordashov owns 25.06% of TUI AG; that's TUI, the German tour operator and the most important player in tourism in Mallorca and Europe. His shareholding makes him the largest single owner of TUI shares. He intends to increase further this shareholding, though probably not beyond 30% at which point he would be obliged to make an offer for all the company's shares. He has been described as the most powerful man in Mallorca, which, for those of you who had, until now, never heard of him, might come as a surprise.
A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Mordashov did a helicopter tour of Mallorca. He dined at the Robinson Club Cala Serena in Cala d'Or, winner incidentally of first prize in TUI's "Umwelt" championship 2011 (environment to you and me). There he was joined by the man who has done more than anyone to make TUI what it now is, the company president, Michael Frenzel, and various associates of TUI, such as the head of RIU hotels which own 5.1% of TUI shares.
This other-worldliness of extreme wealth and luxury might be deemed relevant only for the celebrity or VIP pages of certain publications, but there is far greater relevance.
To describe Mr. Mordashov as Mallorca's most powerful man is not to overstate his importance. His personal power is derived from that of TUI. And TUI is the power in the land.
The past few days have been good ones for the mega rich. The Meliá plans for Magalluf could not have been conceived without very deep pockets. The money that has been directed towards Sóller and that will be sunk into Capdepera is courtesy of Dubai and Qatar. Put into the equation the vast wealth of Mr. Mordashov and a picture may be emerging; one that will have the cash-strapped regional government, minded to give the private sector its tourism industry head, salivating.
Mr. Mordashov has said that his interest in TUI is strategic, which it undoubtedly is. A shrewd businessman, a trait he shares with Herr Frenzel, he is well aware of what this strategy will involve. Russian and Ukrainian tourism, only at present in its infancy, will go massive. Last year, as an indication of Mr. Mordashov and TUI's interests, a joint venture between TUI and Severstal was launched.
The Russian overseas tourism market is only starting to realise its potential. In 2008, a mere 11.3 million Russians travelled abroad on holiday, less than a tenth of the country's population. To put this into some perspective, in 2006, 69.5 million trips abroad were made by Britons, two-thirds at least of these trips being on holiday.
Russian tourists may not be everyone's cup of tea or shot of vodka, but they tend not to be short of readies, to the point of flaunting their money. The BBC "Fast Track" show recently ran a feature on how new money (much of it Russian) was affecting an old resort in Tuscany (Forte dei Marmi). It wasn't to everyone's glass of vino. The resort had undergone a change, with luxury brand name fashion stores evident and, yes, some uncouth flaunting of wealth.
The brand names are not unsurprising, however, as Russians are said to be heavily influenced by them. In my local pharmacy the other day, a Russian man was holding a bag with a Prada label, while his wife engaged the chemist in an uncomprehending exchange. And the exchange was itself relevant. The chemist, she can speak English and German more than adequately, said that these new languages were making life very difficult.
She, though, as with many people in Mallorca, is going to have get used to the new languages. And quickly. The Russians aren't just coming, they've arrived and they are going to be arriving in far greater numbers. Mallorca will be very different in ten years time. That's what Mr. Mordashov calls strategy.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Mr. Mordashov, like Sr. Escarrer, has a keen interest in tourism. Mr. Mordashov owns 25.06% of TUI AG; that's TUI, the German tour operator and the most important player in tourism in Mallorca and Europe. His shareholding makes him the largest single owner of TUI shares. He intends to increase further this shareholding, though probably not beyond 30% at which point he would be obliged to make an offer for all the company's shares. He has been described as the most powerful man in Mallorca, which, for those of you who had, until now, never heard of him, might come as a surprise.
A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Mordashov did a helicopter tour of Mallorca. He dined at the Robinson Club Cala Serena in Cala d'Or, winner incidentally of first prize in TUI's "Umwelt" championship 2011 (environment to you and me). There he was joined by the man who has done more than anyone to make TUI what it now is, the company president, Michael Frenzel, and various associates of TUI, such as the head of RIU hotels which own 5.1% of TUI shares.
This other-worldliness of extreme wealth and luxury might be deemed relevant only for the celebrity or VIP pages of certain publications, but there is far greater relevance.
To describe Mr. Mordashov as Mallorca's most powerful man is not to overstate his importance. His personal power is derived from that of TUI. And TUI is the power in the land.
The past few days have been good ones for the mega rich. The Meliá plans for Magalluf could not have been conceived without very deep pockets. The money that has been directed towards Sóller and that will be sunk into Capdepera is courtesy of Dubai and Qatar. Put into the equation the vast wealth of Mr. Mordashov and a picture may be emerging; one that will have the cash-strapped regional government, minded to give the private sector its tourism industry head, salivating.
Mr. Mordashov has said that his interest in TUI is strategic, which it undoubtedly is. A shrewd businessman, a trait he shares with Herr Frenzel, he is well aware of what this strategy will involve. Russian and Ukrainian tourism, only at present in its infancy, will go massive. Last year, as an indication of Mr. Mordashov and TUI's interests, a joint venture between TUI and Severstal was launched.
The Russian overseas tourism market is only starting to realise its potential. In 2008, a mere 11.3 million Russians travelled abroad on holiday, less than a tenth of the country's population. To put this into some perspective, in 2006, 69.5 million trips abroad were made by Britons, two-thirds at least of these trips being on holiday.
Russian tourists may not be everyone's cup of tea or shot of vodka, but they tend not to be short of readies, to the point of flaunting their money. The BBC "Fast Track" show recently ran a feature on how new money (much of it Russian) was affecting an old resort in Tuscany (Forte dei Marmi). It wasn't to everyone's glass of vino. The resort had undergone a change, with luxury brand name fashion stores evident and, yes, some uncouth flaunting of wealth.
The brand names are not unsurprising, however, as Russians are said to be heavily influenced by them. In my local pharmacy the other day, a Russian man was holding a bag with a Prada label, while his wife engaged the chemist in an uncomprehending exchange. And the exchange was itself relevant. The chemist, she can speak English and German more than adequately, said that these new languages were making life very difficult.
She, though, as with many people in Mallorca, is going to have get used to the new languages. And quickly. The Russians aren't just coming, they've arrived and they are going to be arriving in far greater numbers. Mallorca will be very different in ten years time. That's what Mr. Mordashov calls strategy.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Smiley, Smile
"The Balearics (are) a summer destination and in winter there are not many alternatives."
These are words that will not be music to the ears of anyone much in Mallorca or the other Balearic islands. And certainly not to a succession of tourism officials who have sought to promote Mallorca in the winter and to promote specifically its "alternatives". We are treated, through the words of these officials, to an endless diet of gastronomy, to an endless round of golf, to an endless tour of cultural sites. But to no avail. There aren't many alternatives. Who says so? TUI. And worse still, TUI Germany.
The moaning that occurs regarding the lack of winter tourism is primarily one inspired by the absence of British tourists and by the absence of aircraft belonging to airlines from the British Isles rumbling along the runway in Palma. There are tourists in winter, however, and they are mainly German, courtesy of Air Berlin's regular services from all over Germany.
Notwithstanding the winter lifeline that Air Berlin throws Mallorca, for TUI Germany to state that the Balearics are a summer destination should make tourism officialdom and all others who claim that there are alternatives to "sol y playa" (sun and beach) squirm in the vacuity of their endless desires to promote the alternatives. The desires count for little or nothing, as do whatever is meant to have been happening to realise them. "There is a lack of initiative to give life to the (winter) season." Who says so? TUI.
If it really wanted to, TUI could probably do something about the "many places that are dead" in winter (again, its words). But why should it? There are plenty of other places that aren't dead. Anywhere but Mallorca, let alone Ibiza or God-forsaken Menorca.
TUI Germany's director-general and his two able lieutentants were holding court the other day in Palma. The three wise men followed the ibero star to Mallorca, bearing gifts but unable to turn dross into gold. But what gifts they were. The level of all-inclusive will rise to 33% from its current 20. Gifts to the consumer who has driven the demand (says TUI). And the consumer is the gift to Mallorca this summer. "The level of sales is very, very good." And guess what type of hotel is increasingly enjoying these very, very good sales.
At roughly the same time as the kingdom of TUI and its court was assembling in Palma, elsewhere in the city a different type of court was amassing. The new kingdom of Bauzá. It must be utterly disheartening for a Mallorcan and Balearic leader to know that his own court is largely irrelevant and that the real power has just arrived from the north.
You know that story about the German businessmen who wanted to buy Mallorca. I've never known if there was any substance to it or if it was simply an urban myth. It doesn't really matter, because Germany runs Mallorca anyway. The castle and stripes are not the flag of Mallorca. The real one is a smiley logo. TUI's.
When TUI puts in its court-like appearance, it is offered tribute by the media and the lickspittles of officialdom. When Völker Böttcher, the TUI boss, speaks, it is as though there were a papal visit and address. What TUI says is far more important than anything that comes out of the Balearic parliament or from the mouths of a Balearic president or tourism minister.
It is in the gift of TUI to do something about winter tourism, were it minded to. And were it minded to, it would simply reinforce the fact that Mallorcan officialdom has been incapable of doing anything. This officialdom talks a good game - of golf, mainly - but knows, or should know, as TUI knows, that the only real game in town and across the island is sun and beach. It always has been and always will be.
It is also in the gift of TUI to do something about summer tourism. Like turning its back on it. It wouldn't do so, of course it wouldn't, but it can do pretty much as it wishes. Hence, a 13% increase in all-inclusives. What's to stop it? TUI can make or break the island. It's the real power. You just have to lump it, and smiley, smile.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
These are words that will not be music to the ears of anyone much in Mallorca or the other Balearic islands. And certainly not to a succession of tourism officials who have sought to promote Mallorca in the winter and to promote specifically its "alternatives". We are treated, through the words of these officials, to an endless diet of gastronomy, to an endless round of golf, to an endless tour of cultural sites. But to no avail. There aren't many alternatives. Who says so? TUI. And worse still, TUI Germany.
The moaning that occurs regarding the lack of winter tourism is primarily one inspired by the absence of British tourists and by the absence of aircraft belonging to airlines from the British Isles rumbling along the runway in Palma. There are tourists in winter, however, and they are mainly German, courtesy of Air Berlin's regular services from all over Germany.
Notwithstanding the winter lifeline that Air Berlin throws Mallorca, for TUI Germany to state that the Balearics are a summer destination should make tourism officialdom and all others who claim that there are alternatives to "sol y playa" (sun and beach) squirm in the vacuity of their endless desires to promote the alternatives. The desires count for little or nothing, as do whatever is meant to have been happening to realise them. "There is a lack of initiative to give life to the (winter) season." Who says so? TUI.
If it really wanted to, TUI could probably do something about the "many places that are dead" in winter (again, its words). But why should it? There are plenty of other places that aren't dead. Anywhere but Mallorca, let alone Ibiza or God-forsaken Menorca.
TUI Germany's director-general and his two able lieutentants were holding court the other day in Palma. The three wise men followed the ibero star to Mallorca, bearing gifts but unable to turn dross into gold. But what gifts they were. The level of all-inclusive will rise to 33% from its current 20. Gifts to the consumer who has driven the demand (says TUI). And the consumer is the gift to Mallorca this summer. "The level of sales is very, very good." And guess what type of hotel is increasingly enjoying these very, very good sales.
At roughly the same time as the kingdom of TUI and its court was assembling in Palma, elsewhere in the city a different type of court was amassing. The new kingdom of Bauzá. It must be utterly disheartening for a Mallorcan and Balearic leader to know that his own court is largely irrelevant and that the real power has just arrived from the north.
You know that story about the German businessmen who wanted to buy Mallorca. I've never known if there was any substance to it or if it was simply an urban myth. It doesn't really matter, because Germany runs Mallorca anyway. The castle and stripes are not the flag of Mallorca. The real one is a smiley logo. TUI's.
When TUI puts in its court-like appearance, it is offered tribute by the media and the lickspittles of officialdom. When Völker Böttcher, the TUI boss, speaks, it is as though there were a papal visit and address. What TUI says is far more important than anything that comes out of the Balearic parliament or from the mouths of a Balearic president or tourism minister.
It is in the gift of TUI to do something about winter tourism, were it minded to. And were it minded to, it would simply reinforce the fact that Mallorcan officialdom has been incapable of doing anything. This officialdom talks a good game - of golf, mainly - but knows, or should know, as TUI knows, that the only real game in town and across the island is sun and beach. It always has been and always will be.
It is also in the gift of TUI to do something about summer tourism. Like turning its back on it. It wouldn't do so, of course it wouldn't, but it can do pretty much as it wishes. Hence, a 13% increase in all-inclusives. What's to stop it? TUI can make or break the island. It's the real power. You just have to lump it, and smiley, smile.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
All That Noise And All That Sound: Playa de Palma
"The noise that is made does not correspond with the reality."
This could be a maxim for much of what occurs - or rather doesn't - in Mallorca, especially when it comes to major projects. Never a truer word spoken, and it took a German to speak them. A couple of weeks ago TUI's Volker Böttcher expressed his frustration with plans for the regeneration of Playa de Palma. "We hear many things but don't know what they will be." All that noise and all that sound.
Playa de Palma, where TUI are concerned, is important. It represents a stable, staple even, element of the tour operator's portfolio. Böttcher said that in twenty years time it will still be important, but this future importance doesn't overlook present deterioration and a future which includes new and exclusive hotels. This is meant to be the future. Or was. The plan for Playa de Palma is in disarray.
The noise surrounding the regeneration has emanated from far and wide, even from higher echelons of national government. The iconic significance that has been attached to the project makes the wailing because of its collapse, partial or total, that much louder amidst the sounds of false icons and ambitions crashing into the bay of Palma.
The project has always been highly ambitious, which is not a reason for its deserving to fail. It has envisaged a transformation of the extended resort, one designed to establish long-term competitiveness for what is the most emblematic of Mallorca's tourist areas. The scale of the ambition has, though, been its downfall.
The regeneration has been proposed for what are currently productive hotels and for residences. It is this that distinguishes it from urban renewal programmes, some of them aimed at creating tourism which doesn't already exist, and from altogether smaller, essentially one-off projects to upgrade coastal towns, such as have been the case in the UK. Add to this the need for wholesale expropriation of hotels and dwellings, and what you have with Playa de Palma is something of a leap into the unknown, the remodelling of a tourist area in people's lifetimes. As far as I know, it is unique.
Talk of expropriation raises its own issues. Apart from a psychological dimension, there is that of agreeing valuation and all the likely legal wrangles that would arise, the swiftness with which compensation might be forthcoming (and it hasn't always been swift in the past with other infrastructure schemes) and precisely where the money would come from, not just for compulsory purchase but also for the whole project. There is the mere matter of some four billion euros to be found, roughly a third of it from the public purse. We now have the Balearics president calling on the European Union to cough up for tourist-resort modernisation. For Playa de Palma in other words.
The consortium that is overseeing the plan accepts that it has made mistakes, mainly of a presentational nature. It believes though that regeneration cannot be effected without expropriation and re-building. It's right. It can't be. When its director of planning, Joseba Dañobeitia, speaks of hotels built from the '60s into the '90s being incapable of competing with other, newer destinations, he should also be adding that whole resorts can't compete. Playa de Palma, and the same applies elsewhere, is hamstrung by its past, by having been a first-mover in mass tourism and having been left behind both by greater modernity and by tourist expectations.
But what is now left of the regeneration plan is some tarting-up and a piecemeal approach whereby individual owners can seek to enter into agreements with the consortium for their property or land to be purchased. Rather than an integrated, root-and-branch approach, you end up with the worst of all solutions; something which is neither here not there.
The consortium insists that what has been envisaged is not a "revolution" or "luxury" but simply an improvement to tourism quality. The trouble is, as TUI's boss has alluded to, that no one has been clear as to what has been really envisaged. Hoteliers insist that what is needed is a maintenance of three-star accommodation, that which satisfies the sort of market that has been meat and drink to Playa de Palma for years. Perhaps so, but going forward would this be acceptable to the likes of TUI which has called for hotel upgrades? The plan, in basic terms, is not complicated. Aesthetic improvements and better hotels, and if this means fewer hotels, then so be it; there is over-supply as it is.
Playa de Palma will remain important to TUI, but twenty years is a long time. It has been long enough to see Playa de Palma and much of Mallorca engulfed by what maybe should have been foreseen but wasn't, namely the emergence of quality rivals. I have no wish to make light of the proposals for expropriation and of the impact this would have, but they should send in the bulldozers tomorrow. And not just in Playa de Palma.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
This could be a maxim for much of what occurs - or rather doesn't - in Mallorca, especially when it comes to major projects. Never a truer word spoken, and it took a German to speak them. A couple of weeks ago TUI's Volker Böttcher expressed his frustration with plans for the regeneration of Playa de Palma. "We hear many things but don't know what they will be." All that noise and all that sound.
Playa de Palma, where TUI are concerned, is important. It represents a stable, staple even, element of the tour operator's portfolio. Böttcher said that in twenty years time it will still be important, but this future importance doesn't overlook present deterioration and a future which includes new and exclusive hotels. This is meant to be the future. Or was. The plan for Playa de Palma is in disarray.
The noise surrounding the regeneration has emanated from far and wide, even from higher echelons of national government. The iconic significance that has been attached to the project makes the wailing because of its collapse, partial or total, that much louder amidst the sounds of false icons and ambitions crashing into the bay of Palma.
The project has always been highly ambitious, which is not a reason for its deserving to fail. It has envisaged a transformation of the extended resort, one designed to establish long-term competitiveness for what is the most emblematic of Mallorca's tourist areas. The scale of the ambition has, though, been its downfall.
The regeneration has been proposed for what are currently productive hotels and for residences. It is this that distinguishes it from urban renewal programmes, some of them aimed at creating tourism which doesn't already exist, and from altogether smaller, essentially one-off projects to upgrade coastal towns, such as have been the case in the UK. Add to this the need for wholesale expropriation of hotels and dwellings, and what you have with Playa de Palma is something of a leap into the unknown, the remodelling of a tourist area in people's lifetimes. As far as I know, it is unique.
Talk of expropriation raises its own issues. Apart from a psychological dimension, there is that of agreeing valuation and all the likely legal wrangles that would arise, the swiftness with which compensation might be forthcoming (and it hasn't always been swift in the past with other infrastructure schemes) and precisely where the money would come from, not just for compulsory purchase but also for the whole project. There is the mere matter of some four billion euros to be found, roughly a third of it from the public purse. We now have the Balearics president calling on the European Union to cough up for tourist-resort modernisation. For Playa de Palma in other words.
The consortium that is overseeing the plan accepts that it has made mistakes, mainly of a presentational nature. It believes though that regeneration cannot be effected without expropriation and re-building. It's right. It can't be. When its director of planning, Joseba Dañobeitia, speaks of hotels built from the '60s into the '90s being incapable of competing with other, newer destinations, he should also be adding that whole resorts can't compete. Playa de Palma, and the same applies elsewhere, is hamstrung by its past, by having been a first-mover in mass tourism and having been left behind both by greater modernity and by tourist expectations.
But what is now left of the regeneration plan is some tarting-up and a piecemeal approach whereby individual owners can seek to enter into agreements with the consortium for their property or land to be purchased. Rather than an integrated, root-and-branch approach, you end up with the worst of all solutions; something which is neither here not there.
The consortium insists that what has been envisaged is not a "revolution" or "luxury" but simply an improvement to tourism quality. The trouble is, as TUI's boss has alluded to, that no one has been clear as to what has been really envisaged. Hoteliers insist that what is needed is a maintenance of three-star accommodation, that which satisfies the sort of market that has been meat and drink to Playa de Palma for years. Perhaps so, but going forward would this be acceptable to the likes of TUI which has called for hotel upgrades? The plan, in basic terms, is not complicated. Aesthetic improvements and better hotels, and if this means fewer hotels, then so be it; there is over-supply as it is.
Playa de Palma will remain important to TUI, but twenty years is a long time. It has been long enough to see Playa de Palma and much of Mallorca engulfed by what maybe should have been foreseen but wasn't, namely the emergence of quality rivals. I have no wish to make light of the proposals for expropriation and of the impact this would have, but they should send in the bulldozers tomorrow. And not just in Playa de Palma.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Empire Of The Sun: German and British tourism
The sunbeds' battle has been won. The question is how long the war will drag on. Some hoteliers are preparing for the withdrawal of the vanquished, accepting the dominant hotel occupancy force. Sunbedsraum. Peace in our time. The resorts quietening to the sound of retreating Tommies now whistling in the distance and drowning in the horizon where the sun goes down on a modern empire.
From the mid-70s to the mid-80s, at the height of imperial might, the British represented 40% of the foreign tourism market on Mallorca's beaches. It was a tourism army that, in its numbers, eclipsed that of Germany. At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century the percentages have been more than just reversed. German tourism, at around 50% of the total, is double that from Britain.
It is indeed the case that some hotels are adapting to a weaker British market or are contemplating the previously unthinkable - a post-British market. This may all be in response to the short-term shock of the past couple of years and the collapse of the pound, but as alternative tourism markets emerge for the hotels and tour operators to sink their teeth into, could it be we that we are witnessing the end of Mallorca's Britannic tourism industry?
Chances are that we are not. Talk of the apocalyptic demise of British tourism - not now, but some time - is an absurd exaggeration. These things have a habit of going in cycles. German tourism itself has not always enjoyed a completely harmonious relationship with Mallorca, despite a love affair between Germany and the island that goes back half a century. Not so long ago, Mallorca had to repair a rupture caused by a perception that German tourists were somehow unwelcome. Repaired it was, and the relationship has been given new life.
But the relationship with Germany has always seemed, even during the period of British dominance, to be stronger. And the relationship goes deeper than just tourism. It can be seen on the high streets, such as they are - Lidl, Schlecker, Müller and, at some point, Media Markt. Two of the best-known estate agencies are of German origin - Kühn & Partner and Engel & Völkers. TUI is bigger than its rival Thomas Cook, a company which has reclaimed its "Britishness" since the MyTravel merger, but which retains a strong German flavour. Air Berlin is more than simply an airline shuttling German tourists to and from the island; its local boss has headed the Mallorca Tourism Board.
It is a relationship, therefore, which has appeared to be altogether more "serious". "Real" business rather than just the bar. Not that there aren't of course German-run bars. There are. But it's an oddity that even in a place like Alcúdia, which is not as "British" as some might have you believe, the German bar is thin on the ground, almost to the point of non-existence.
This "seriousness" may all have to do with the nature of the relationship and a competing historical perception of Mallorca. For years, many a Brit would look down his or her nose at Mallorca, the consequence of an image problem that was only partly accurate. Notwithstanding the emergence of a beer, sausage and oompah German tourism culture in the likes of Arenal, Mallorca did not suffer to anything like the same degree from being viewed negatively in Germany.
The Germans have bought into the whole "paradise island" deal in a way that the British have never done. Clichéd it is, but the Germans use the expression quite unashamedly. For Mallorca and its tourism at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, it is just as well that they do. TUI says that its winter tourism to Mallorca from Germany has started with "much dynamism" and that next summer there will be a growth in the numbers of German tourists.
The Germans are still very much in love with Mallorca, but even with the Germans, the signs are there. More tourists next year, but more in all-inclusives. Hotel prices have been lowered while those in other destinations have increased. And the Germans are being tempted into a different affair, that with Turkey. TUI in Germany now takes more tourists to Turkey than it does to Mallorca.
The battle in Mallorca may have been won, but the eastern front has been well and truly breached. And that is a war Mallorca is in danger of losing, if indeed it hasn't already lost it.
"We lived an adventure. Love in the summer."
"Lie in the sand and visualise. Like it's '75 again."
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
From the mid-70s to the mid-80s, at the height of imperial might, the British represented 40% of the foreign tourism market on Mallorca's beaches. It was a tourism army that, in its numbers, eclipsed that of Germany. At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century the percentages have been more than just reversed. German tourism, at around 50% of the total, is double that from Britain.
It is indeed the case that some hotels are adapting to a weaker British market or are contemplating the previously unthinkable - a post-British market. This may all be in response to the short-term shock of the past couple of years and the collapse of the pound, but as alternative tourism markets emerge for the hotels and tour operators to sink their teeth into, could it be we that we are witnessing the end of Mallorca's Britannic tourism industry?
Chances are that we are not. Talk of the apocalyptic demise of British tourism - not now, but some time - is an absurd exaggeration. These things have a habit of going in cycles. German tourism itself has not always enjoyed a completely harmonious relationship with Mallorca, despite a love affair between Germany and the island that goes back half a century. Not so long ago, Mallorca had to repair a rupture caused by a perception that German tourists were somehow unwelcome. Repaired it was, and the relationship has been given new life.
But the relationship with Germany has always seemed, even during the period of British dominance, to be stronger. And the relationship goes deeper than just tourism. It can be seen on the high streets, such as they are - Lidl, Schlecker, Müller and, at some point, Media Markt. Two of the best-known estate agencies are of German origin - Kühn & Partner and Engel & Völkers. TUI is bigger than its rival Thomas Cook, a company which has reclaimed its "Britishness" since the MyTravel merger, but which retains a strong German flavour. Air Berlin is more than simply an airline shuttling German tourists to and from the island; its local boss has headed the Mallorca Tourism Board.
It is a relationship, therefore, which has appeared to be altogether more "serious". "Real" business rather than just the bar. Not that there aren't of course German-run bars. There are. But it's an oddity that even in a place like Alcúdia, which is not as "British" as some might have you believe, the German bar is thin on the ground, almost to the point of non-existence.
This "seriousness" may all have to do with the nature of the relationship and a competing historical perception of Mallorca. For years, many a Brit would look down his or her nose at Mallorca, the consequence of an image problem that was only partly accurate. Notwithstanding the emergence of a beer, sausage and oompah German tourism culture in the likes of Arenal, Mallorca did not suffer to anything like the same degree from being viewed negatively in Germany.
The Germans have bought into the whole "paradise island" deal in a way that the British have never done. Clichéd it is, but the Germans use the expression quite unashamedly. For Mallorca and its tourism at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, it is just as well that they do. TUI says that its winter tourism to Mallorca from Germany has started with "much dynamism" and that next summer there will be a growth in the numbers of German tourists.
The Germans are still very much in love with Mallorca, but even with the Germans, the signs are there. More tourists next year, but more in all-inclusives. Hotel prices have been lowered while those in other destinations have increased. And the Germans are being tempted into a different affair, that with Turkey. TUI in Germany now takes more tourists to Turkey than it does to Mallorca.
The battle in Mallorca may have been won, but the eastern front has been well and truly breached. And that is a war Mallorca is in danger of losing, if indeed it hasn't already lost it.
"We lived an adventure. Love in the summer."
"Lie in the sand and visualise. Like it's '75 again."
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Dress-Up Weekend: Carnival
Carnival. Just when you thought everyone was thoroughly fiesta-ed out, up comes another opportunity for a bit of street party and a DJ or two. Carnival often seems like an after-thought to the revelries of January, but it captures the imagination largely because of the dressing-up. Even more than Sant Antoni, which offers the chance to become a devil for a day, Carnival has the scope to let the imagination run wild. Despite recession, the demand for costumes is high, and the specialist shops are doing a roaring trade, especially where children's outfits are concerned.
Today is "Dijous Llarder", first day of Carnival (in that Carnival can be said to have a first day, as its chronology is lengthy, to say the least). At the weekend, the local towns will have their parades and their costume parties, and costumes are "obligatory", the poster for Alcúdia's party on Saturday night says. TV characters, Disney characters, pop stars, superheroes, these are the most popular, certainly with the children. Political figures have fallen out of favour, except perhaps as the objects of satire or utter contempt. Anyone for a Miquel Nadal?
Carnival in Mallorca is not on the scale of Carnival in parts of the mainland, in particular Seville and Cadiz, or in Tenerife, but any excuse for a bit of a do is not to be sniffed at. Pollensa has its parade on Saturday, Muro and Alcúdia have theirs on Sunday.
Tourism confusion and car hire
Good news on the tourism front on the front page of yesterday's "Bulletin". Or is it? TUI is reported as announcing that summer sales in the UK have risen by ten per cent. Sounds good, even if it's not clear what period we're talking about. When it says that TUI had an "increased first-quarter operating loss" but has seen improved trading in the second quarter, I confess that I am somewhat confused. Are we not still in the first quarter? Whatever. To add to the confusion, I was told yesterday that the figures were rubbish and that someone from TUI had said that the reverse was the case, i.e. ten per cent down. Who knows? You pays your money and you takes your choice, or maybe you don't pays your money and you don't makes a choice - First or otherwise. But look closely at the report in the paper, and you will realise that nowhere is Mallorca mentioned. The TUI announcement refers to sales in general. It also goes on to say that TUI has seen an increase of six per cent in British sales. Six per cent, ten per cent, Mallorca, the world? What is all this? Confused? I am, and so, I'd imagine, are you.
Elsewhere in the paper, one must congratulate a letter-writer for stamping on "the whining of some part-timers and tourists about conditions on the island". He refers in particular to a previous letter about that something about which the authorities should be doing something and about which they have no right to intervene, the apparently inflated prices being charged by car-hire companies. That letter claimed a charge of a thousand pounds per week. So this latest letter-writer, "tired of the whining", did a bit of googling and came up with a couple of quotes (among thousands of hits) that were anything other than unreasonable. Yes, there have been and are examples of high prices for car hire, but the recourse to single cases to seek to prove a point and with which to beat Mallorca with the "too-expensive" stick is tiresome and unbalanced. Look around, shop around and it never is as expensive. Now, just stop it.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Man On The Moon", REM, http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1f9sm_rem-man-on-the-moon_music.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Today is "Dijous Llarder", first day of Carnival (in that Carnival can be said to have a first day, as its chronology is lengthy, to say the least). At the weekend, the local towns will have their parades and their costume parties, and costumes are "obligatory", the poster for Alcúdia's party on Saturday night says. TV characters, Disney characters, pop stars, superheroes, these are the most popular, certainly with the children. Political figures have fallen out of favour, except perhaps as the objects of satire or utter contempt. Anyone for a Miquel Nadal?
Carnival in Mallorca is not on the scale of Carnival in parts of the mainland, in particular Seville and Cadiz, or in Tenerife, but any excuse for a bit of a do is not to be sniffed at. Pollensa has its parade on Saturday, Muro and Alcúdia have theirs on Sunday.
Tourism confusion and car hire
Good news on the tourism front on the front page of yesterday's "Bulletin". Or is it? TUI is reported as announcing that summer sales in the UK have risen by ten per cent. Sounds good, even if it's not clear what period we're talking about. When it says that TUI had an "increased first-quarter operating loss" but has seen improved trading in the second quarter, I confess that I am somewhat confused. Are we not still in the first quarter? Whatever. To add to the confusion, I was told yesterday that the figures were rubbish and that someone from TUI had said that the reverse was the case, i.e. ten per cent down. Who knows? You pays your money and you takes your choice, or maybe you don't pays your money and you don't makes a choice - First or otherwise. But look closely at the report in the paper, and you will realise that nowhere is Mallorca mentioned. The TUI announcement refers to sales in general. It also goes on to say that TUI has seen an increase of six per cent in British sales. Six per cent, ten per cent, Mallorca, the world? What is all this? Confused? I am, and so, I'd imagine, are you.
Elsewhere in the paper, one must congratulate a letter-writer for stamping on "the whining of some part-timers and tourists about conditions on the island". He refers in particular to a previous letter about that something about which the authorities should be doing something and about which they have no right to intervene, the apparently inflated prices being charged by car-hire companies. That letter claimed a charge of a thousand pounds per week. So this latest letter-writer, "tired of the whining", did a bit of googling and came up with a couple of quotes (among thousands of hits) that were anything other than unreasonable. Yes, there have been and are examples of high prices for car hire, but the recourse to single cases to seek to prove a point and with which to beat Mallorca with the "too-expensive" stick is tiresome and unbalanced. Look around, shop around and it never is as expensive. Now, just stop it.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Man On The Moon", REM, http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1f9sm_rem-man-on-the-moon_music.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
This Mess We're In
Real Mallorca. Pronounce "Real" correctly and it sounds "ray-ahl". Pronounce it incorrectly, in English, and it is real. Real mess, as in right mess. Not even a hundred days have passed since the new owner, Javier Martí Mingarro, took over, having paid something around 4 million euros for this basket-case of a club. Yet now, he has announced that he has nary a euro to spend. And so the club is up for sale - again. Part of the problem is that banks won't extend credit. Well, what a surprise. Perhaps someone might have asked them before pen was put to paper and the club went into new ownership.
Even less of a surprise is the fact that Real Mallorca is awash with debt. Anyone could have read the papers to learn that some 64 million euros (and rising) of short-term debt existed, to say nothing of the other 20 million or so. Anyone could have checked the books and discovered that monthly outgoings on first-team players and other staff amounted to 360,000 euros. Not everyone would have been able to say that other players and staff would not have been paid for two months.
A real mess. A real mess that has been gathering force for some time, thanks to the debt run up by the former owner, Vicente Grande. Force and farce, the latter surrounding the ludicrous episode with Paul Davidson who made a monkey of the fans, the club and his one-time cheerleaders in the local English-speaking press.
What is it with football clubs and pretenders to the ownership thrones? For Real Mallorca, read many others, such as Portsmouth or Newcastle United. Whatever one thinks of Mike Ashley, he did at least have money and did pay off the club's debts. Real Mallorca cannot even bank on this happening, because the banks won't chip in. And who can blame them?
Football appears to attract, more than any other "business", charlatans, dreamers, egoists and nutters. In England, there is at least more money sloshing around from TV. Not so in Spain, unless the club happens to be Real Madrid or Barça. What does Mallorca get from TV? 1.3 million a month. One comes back also to the fact that the club doesn't even own the stadium with its capacity not that much greater than that of ... hmm, Portsmouth's Fratton Park. There may be real estate lurking elsewhere, but what would be its prime asset, one that might act as collateral, is not its to put up as security. Again, small wonder that the banks are unwilling to play along. The only salvation is that the team, remarkably, is doing well this season.
The so-called "humid space" that is La Gola in Puerto Pollensa enjoyed a visitation a couple of days ago. Up popped the environment minister, Grimalt, alongside Mayor Cerdà to do some sort of topping-out ceremony on the parking area. For once, he wasn't cutting some tape or helping to plant a tree. The environment minister does get about. One day he's opening walkways in Son Bauló, then he's doing the same around Artà, the next he's giving the boss of TUI Germany a hand with the spade and planting the first pine in the TUI Bosc (forest). The latter is a splendid example of corporate sponsorship for parts of Mallorca. I am all in favour. Indeed, I have previously suggested that resorts could be sponsored. Maybe they will be. The sale of naming rights can bring in a pretty centimo. Just ask Mike Ashley who wants to flog off the naming of St. James's Park. But there is one more sponsorship that TUI should consider. Indeed one ownership it should consider.
TUI Real Mallorca. TUI-owned, lock, stock and barrel. There you go. Problem solved.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Mamas and the Papas, "California Dreamin' ", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN3GbF9Bx6E. Today's title - collaboration between miserabilist band singer and one of the finest "indie" female UK artists.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Index for October 2009
Abortion and assisted suicide - 19 October 2009
Andrés Montes - 21 October 2009
Camino de Ternelles re-claim walk - 14 October 2009
Can Picafort football tournament political spat - 13 October 2009
Christopher Columbus - 24 October 2009
City of culture and Olympics 2016 - 4 October 2009
Climate change - 17 October 2009
Council of Mallorca - 2 October 2009
Crisis in government averted - 15 October 2009
Fire-runs, European directive & - 23 October 2009, 26 October 2009
Golf in Campos - 15 October 2009
History and stories of Mallorca - 3 October 2009
IVA (VAT) and tourism - 7 October 2009, 8 October 2009, 9 October 2009
La Gola, Puerto Pollensa - 31 October 2009
Language learning - 20 October 2009
Malarial mosquitoes - 17 October 2009, 22 October 2009
October in Mallorca - 1 October 2009, 18 October 2009, 30 October 2009
Playa de Muro - 30 October 2009
Principe de Asturias awards 2009 - 22 October 2009
Real Mallorca for sale - 31 October 2009
Robberies from villas in Puerto Pollensa - 29 October 2009
Sa Pobla-Alcúdia railway - 5 October 2009
Season 2009 - 10 October 2009, 30 October 2009
Sephardic Jews, Ladino culture & - 16 October 2009
Ses Casetes des Capellans, Playa de Muro - 21 October 2009, 25 October 2009, 26 October 2009
Smoking in bars - 29 October 2009
Speed limits, driving - 27 October 2009
Temperatures exaggerated - 11 October 2009
Things that are wrong with Mallorca - 12 October 2009
Thomas Cook express concerns - 7 October 2009
TUI: trees, green hotels and state of tourism - 28 October 2009
Types you meet in a bar - 6 October 2009
Unió Mallorquina councillors' resignation - 2 October 2009, 15 October 2009
Even less of a surprise is the fact that Real Mallorca is awash with debt. Anyone could have read the papers to learn that some 64 million euros (and rising) of short-term debt existed, to say nothing of the other 20 million or so. Anyone could have checked the books and discovered that monthly outgoings on first-team players and other staff amounted to 360,000 euros. Not everyone would have been able to say that other players and staff would not have been paid for two months.
A real mess. A real mess that has been gathering force for some time, thanks to the debt run up by the former owner, Vicente Grande. Force and farce, the latter surrounding the ludicrous episode with Paul Davidson who made a monkey of the fans, the club and his one-time cheerleaders in the local English-speaking press.
What is it with football clubs and pretenders to the ownership thrones? For Real Mallorca, read many others, such as Portsmouth or Newcastle United. Whatever one thinks of Mike Ashley, he did at least have money and did pay off the club's debts. Real Mallorca cannot even bank on this happening, because the banks won't chip in. And who can blame them?
Football appears to attract, more than any other "business", charlatans, dreamers, egoists and nutters. In England, there is at least more money sloshing around from TV. Not so in Spain, unless the club happens to be Real Madrid or Barça. What does Mallorca get from TV? 1.3 million a month. One comes back also to the fact that the club doesn't even own the stadium with its capacity not that much greater than that of ... hmm, Portsmouth's Fratton Park. There may be real estate lurking elsewhere, but what would be its prime asset, one that might act as collateral, is not its to put up as security. Again, small wonder that the banks are unwilling to play along. The only salvation is that the team, remarkably, is doing well this season.
The so-called "humid space" that is La Gola in Puerto Pollensa enjoyed a visitation a couple of days ago. Up popped the environment minister, Grimalt, alongside Mayor Cerdà to do some sort of topping-out ceremony on the parking area. For once, he wasn't cutting some tape or helping to plant a tree. The environment minister does get about. One day he's opening walkways in Son Bauló, then he's doing the same around Artà, the next he's giving the boss of TUI Germany a hand with the spade and planting the first pine in the TUI Bosc (forest). The latter is a splendid example of corporate sponsorship for parts of Mallorca. I am all in favour. Indeed, I have previously suggested that resorts could be sponsored. Maybe they will be. The sale of naming rights can bring in a pretty centimo. Just ask Mike Ashley who wants to flog off the naming of St. James's Park. But there is one more sponsorship that TUI should consider. Indeed one ownership it should consider.
TUI Real Mallorca. TUI-owned, lock, stock and barrel. There you go. Problem solved.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Mamas and the Papas, "California Dreamin' ", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN3GbF9Bx6E. Today's title - collaboration between miserabilist band singer and one of the finest "indie" female UK artists.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Index for October 2009
Abortion and assisted suicide - 19 October 2009
Andrés Montes - 21 October 2009
Camino de Ternelles re-claim walk - 14 October 2009
Can Picafort football tournament political spat - 13 October 2009
Christopher Columbus - 24 October 2009
City of culture and Olympics 2016 - 4 October 2009
Climate change - 17 October 2009
Council of Mallorca - 2 October 2009
Crisis in government averted - 15 October 2009
Fire-runs, European directive & - 23 October 2009, 26 October 2009
Golf in Campos - 15 October 2009
History and stories of Mallorca - 3 October 2009
IVA (VAT) and tourism - 7 October 2009, 8 October 2009, 9 October 2009
La Gola, Puerto Pollensa - 31 October 2009
Language learning - 20 October 2009
Malarial mosquitoes - 17 October 2009, 22 October 2009
October in Mallorca - 1 October 2009, 18 October 2009, 30 October 2009
Playa de Muro - 30 October 2009
Principe de Asturias awards 2009 - 22 October 2009
Real Mallorca for sale - 31 October 2009
Robberies from villas in Puerto Pollensa - 29 October 2009
Sa Pobla-Alcúdia railway - 5 October 2009
Season 2009 - 10 October 2009, 30 October 2009
Sephardic Jews, Ladino culture & - 16 October 2009
Ses Casetes des Capellans, Playa de Muro - 21 October 2009, 25 October 2009, 26 October 2009
Smoking in bars - 29 October 2009
Speed limits, driving - 27 October 2009
Temperatures exaggerated - 11 October 2009
Things that are wrong with Mallorca - 12 October 2009
Thomas Cook express concerns - 7 October 2009
TUI: trees, green hotels and state of tourism - 28 October 2009
Types you meet in a bar - 6 October 2009
Unió Mallorquina councillors' resignation - 2 October 2009, 15 October 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Getting Better All The Time
You may remember that the chief exec of Thomas Cook hit town a couple of weeks back and had some damning things to say about the projected IVA rise and the amount of money that is spent on promoting Balearics tourism. At the time, I wondered what TUI might have to say. Not very much, it would seem. Whereas Thomas Cook came to metaphorically partially bury the local tourism industry (well, I do exaggerate of course), TUI came to plant a tree in the same Mallorcan earth. The Germans wear their green credentials with pride, and so the boss of TUI Germany headed off to a nature park with a spade and a baby pine. There would appear to be a TUI forest - really, TUI Bosc it is called - in the Llevant park. From small pines do mighty tour operations grow. TUI has been banging on about sustainable hotels, or something like that, for a while, all part of making the über-green Germans feel at home when the recycling gestapo rifle through the hotels' litter bins.
The only slight drawback to this TUI forest malarkey is that some wag might append an "h" to the end of the Catalan word Bosc, and I make this point not with reference to a well-known German manufacturer of white goods and quality gardening equipment. As part of the TUI greening of Mallorca, the obermeister was also on hand to dish out prizes to local hotels that are doing their bit to save the world. TUI may be applauded for its environmental responsibility, but it doesn't stop them taking away in other areas - like launching an exclusively all-inclusive brochure.
In the circumstances, a troll off to the nature park with the environment minister was probably not the time to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Thomas Cook and have a go at the rise in tax. Instead, as reported in the "Diario", the TUI boss reckoned that this year had been "complicated" and that 2010 would also be complicated. The year of living complicatedly. Or two years of doing so. Swine flu, bombs and bad weather make life complicated, or in the case of the former some irresponsible, sensationalist reporting by the German red-tops make life complicated. The lousy weather in the second part of September, a time when the Länder normally disgorge great numbers of Germans to come for a late burst of Mallorcan sun, may have curbed these visitors' enthusiasm, but rubbish weather in September is hardly unknown. Maybe every year is complicated.
Fortunately, not everyone sees complications. Take the secretary-general of the World Tourism Organization. He's been on walkabout in Spain** as well, not with a Bosch spade and a bag of fertiliser, but with some reassuring words for Spanish tourism - to the effect that things will get better from the middle of next year. From which the tourism industry will doubtless take heart.
Setting aside the fact that "complicated" and "getting better" do appear to be at odds with each other, are these about it when it comes to pronouncements? One fancies that there is rather more to all this tourism bossery than offering vague statements about complication and getting better. If not, then I am at their disposal, willing and able. And I'll even bring my own spade.
** The WTO is in fact based in Madrid.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Simon and Garfunkel, "The 59th Street Bridge Song", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e36gLfrmRCw. Today's title - well, possibly. Which album was it from?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
The only slight drawback to this TUI forest malarkey is that some wag might append an "h" to the end of the Catalan word Bosc, and I make this point not with reference to a well-known German manufacturer of white goods and quality gardening equipment. As part of the TUI greening of Mallorca, the obermeister was also on hand to dish out prizes to local hotels that are doing their bit to save the world. TUI may be applauded for its environmental responsibility, but it doesn't stop them taking away in other areas - like launching an exclusively all-inclusive brochure.
In the circumstances, a troll off to the nature park with the environment minister was probably not the time to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Thomas Cook and have a go at the rise in tax. Instead, as reported in the "Diario", the TUI boss reckoned that this year had been "complicated" and that 2010 would also be complicated. The year of living complicatedly. Or two years of doing so. Swine flu, bombs and bad weather make life complicated, or in the case of the former some irresponsible, sensationalist reporting by the German red-tops make life complicated. The lousy weather in the second part of September, a time when the Länder normally disgorge great numbers of Germans to come for a late burst of Mallorcan sun, may have curbed these visitors' enthusiasm, but rubbish weather in September is hardly unknown. Maybe every year is complicated.
Fortunately, not everyone sees complications. Take the secretary-general of the World Tourism Organization. He's been on walkabout in Spain** as well, not with a Bosch spade and a bag of fertiliser, but with some reassuring words for Spanish tourism - to the effect that things will get better from the middle of next year. From which the tourism industry will doubtless take heart.
Setting aside the fact that "complicated" and "getting better" do appear to be at odds with each other, are these about it when it comes to pronouncements? One fancies that there is rather more to all this tourism bossery than offering vague statements about complication and getting better. If not, then I am at their disposal, willing and able. And I'll even bring my own spade.
** The WTO is in fact based in Madrid.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Simon and Garfunkel, "The 59th Street Bridge Song", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e36gLfrmRCw. Today's title - well, possibly. Which album was it from?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Smooth Operators
The positive soundings a few days ago that tourism will help to stave off recession in the Balearics may have been somewhat pre-emptory. Despite the Spanish Secretary of State for Tourism suggesting that there has already been an increase of 20% in sales for the coming year, the tour operators are begging to differ. One is inclined to take their word for it, rather than that which may just be political spin.
Word coming out of the World Travel Market in London this past week has not been reassuring. Thomas Cook is reporting a fall in British tourism sales to Mallorca of 15% (Menorca is worse at 24%), while TUI is giving similarly worrying figures - Mallorca down by 22%. The winter tourism, such as it is, is also taking a knock; the recession-hit German market, for instance, has cut back on its Mallorcan off-season.
The only bright spot in all this is that tourists may well be holding off and hoping for some better deals. There was a thing on "Five Live" the other day which said that TUI, in general, has increased its prices by around 12% while also reducing capacity. That TUI feels it can do this at a time of economic downturn is largely due to the failure of XL, which has taken out some 2 million seats in total. In other sectors where capacity is reduced, prices do not necessarily rise or rise as steeply. The tourism market, however, appears to operate by a different set of rules, and important among these is that, although times are tight, people will forego other purchases in order to ensure they have their two weeks in the sun. The person interviewed on the BBC said that sales were brisk, which may seem to contradict the soundings from TUI and Thomas Cook, but there could still be grounds for optimism in that travellers are taking their time, doing their research and then making the purchase. They may also be hoping that TUI decides that those price increases are not going to work, and are therefore waiting for offers.
While TUI may be hiking its prices, the hoteliers on the island are under great pressure to lower theirs, i.e. what they receive from the tour operators. Naturally enough, there is some resistance to this. But one of the more interesting aspects of this is that the hoteliers are "progressively abandoning" all-inclusive offers because of the "ridiculous" daily returns they receive (quotes from "The Diario"). Maybe the price pressures being applied are going to be good news in one respect - the removal of more all-inclusive places. This all does go to emphasise that it is not necessarily the hotels who are, or who have ever been, the driving force behind all-inclusive offers; it is, and has been, the tour operators. I know, for example, of one hotel in Puerto Alcúdia that basically told TUI to sling its hook when it was presented with a demand to move to all-inclusive. I also know of hotels which are all-inclusive, but which would much rather not be. And when one learns of the sort of amounts the hotels can actually receive from the tour operators, it is little surprise that what they then provide as service as part of the all-inclusive package can be so poor. They're just not making enough money out of it. So when one reads all those comments slagging off this and that hotel, just remember that it may be the tour operator who deserves the criticism and not the hotel.
Meanwhile also at the travel market, Balearic Government head, Francesc Antich, together with the minister for tourism, Miquel Nadal, have been trying to offer their own positive take on things, talking about the "opportunity" that the current difficulties offer. Well, always try and make a positive out of a negative, I guess, but they are banging on about modernisation and renovation, which are all well and good but don't actually address the short-term need. They are also mentioning - yet again - different types of tourism, but without, seemingly, putting any flesh on its scrawny bones. There is, though, one campaign to be implemented in that short-term, and if you happen to live in Manchester you will doubtless become aware of it. This coming spring there will be a programme entitled "Manchester discovers the Balearic Islands". This is presumably not some sort of Columbus expedition but an attempt to inform the good people of Manchester that the Balearics exist. Hmm, yes well, I'll have to mention that to friends of mine from Manchester who come to Mallorca each year.
Elsewhere, Antich has been presiding over the little club that is the Eurorregión Pirineos Mediterráneo (areas around this part of the Mediterranean). This rather curious self-help grouping has had its share of spats in the past, but at least now they seem to be as one in having a common perspective on tourism innovation. To this end, there is to be a centre of research and development based in the Balearics, the aim of which is to come up with "cutting-edge strategy and attractions" (says "The Bulletin"). Well I think we've been here before with all this tourism R&D stuff, whatever it might be. They talk about it but never make it clear what it is exactly. And as for attractions. Good. Just make sure they are large-scale and meaningful.
As an additional thought - the government has spoken, time and time again, about upping the quality of hotels and their service as part of an overall improvement of the islands' tourism offer. However, how can the hotels do this if they are being squeezed and pressurised when it comes to both prices and offering all-inclusive? Against this background, much as the hotels themselves may wish to upgrade and much as the government may harp on about it, it needs to born in mind that the real power in the tourism chain resides not with the hotels, not with the government, but with the tour operators. Ultimately you antagonise the tour operators at your potential peril. Without TUI and Thomas Cook, Mallorca has nothing. The government can do some gentle persuading, but it is largely impotent. It may be a harsh fact for the government to appreciate, but fact it is. Of course, neither TUI nor Thomas Cook would abandon Mallorca; it is far too important to them as well. But the balance of power lies with them. The hotels may be kicking, and good luck to them if they want to cut the all-inclusive, but they, too, must know who holds the whip hand.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Robert Palmer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S9Or_bEGQI). Today's title - pluralised; in the singular who did this tremendous song?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Word coming out of the World Travel Market in London this past week has not been reassuring. Thomas Cook is reporting a fall in British tourism sales to Mallorca of 15% (Menorca is worse at 24%), while TUI is giving similarly worrying figures - Mallorca down by 22%. The winter tourism, such as it is, is also taking a knock; the recession-hit German market, for instance, has cut back on its Mallorcan off-season.
The only bright spot in all this is that tourists may well be holding off and hoping for some better deals. There was a thing on "Five Live" the other day which said that TUI, in general, has increased its prices by around 12% while also reducing capacity. That TUI feels it can do this at a time of economic downturn is largely due to the failure of XL, which has taken out some 2 million seats in total. In other sectors where capacity is reduced, prices do not necessarily rise or rise as steeply. The tourism market, however, appears to operate by a different set of rules, and important among these is that, although times are tight, people will forego other purchases in order to ensure they have their two weeks in the sun. The person interviewed on the BBC said that sales were brisk, which may seem to contradict the soundings from TUI and Thomas Cook, but there could still be grounds for optimism in that travellers are taking their time, doing their research and then making the purchase. They may also be hoping that TUI decides that those price increases are not going to work, and are therefore waiting for offers.
While TUI may be hiking its prices, the hoteliers on the island are under great pressure to lower theirs, i.e. what they receive from the tour operators. Naturally enough, there is some resistance to this. But one of the more interesting aspects of this is that the hoteliers are "progressively abandoning" all-inclusive offers because of the "ridiculous" daily returns they receive (quotes from "The Diario"). Maybe the price pressures being applied are going to be good news in one respect - the removal of more all-inclusive places. This all does go to emphasise that it is not necessarily the hotels who are, or who have ever been, the driving force behind all-inclusive offers; it is, and has been, the tour operators. I know, for example, of one hotel in Puerto Alcúdia that basically told TUI to sling its hook when it was presented with a demand to move to all-inclusive. I also know of hotels which are all-inclusive, but which would much rather not be. And when one learns of the sort of amounts the hotels can actually receive from the tour operators, it is little surprise that what they then provide as service as part of the all-inclusive package can be so poor. They're just not making enough money out of it. So when one reads all those comments slagging off this and that hotel, just remember that it may be the tour operator who deserves the criticism and not the hotel.
Meanwhile also at the travel market, Balearic Government head, Francesc Antich, together with the minister for tourism, Miquel Nadal, have been trying to offer their own positive take on things, talking about the "opportunity" that the current difficulties offer. Well, always try and make a positive out of a negative, I guess, but they are banging on about modernisation and renovation, which are all well and good but don't actually address the short-term need. They are also mentioning - yet again - different types of tourism, but without, seemingly, putting any flesh on its scrawny bones. There is, though, one campaign to be implemented in that short-term, and if you happen to live in Manchester you will doubtless become aware of it. This coming spring there will be a programme entitled "Manchester discovers the Balearic Islands". This is presumably not some sort of Columbus expedition but an attempt to inform the good people of Manchester that the Balearics exist. Hmm, yes well, I'll have to mention that to friends of mine from Manchester who come to Mallorca each year.
Elsewhere, Antich has been presiding over the little club that is the Eurorregión Pirineos Mediterráneo (areas around this part of the Mediterranean). This rather curious self-help grouping has had its share of spats in the past, but at least now they seem to be as one in having a common perspective on tourism innovation. To this end, there is to be a centre of research and development based in the Balearics, the aim of which is to come up with "cutting-edge strategy and attractions" (says "The Bulletin"). Well I think we've been here before with all this tourism R&D stuff, whatever it might be. They talk about it but never make it clear what it is exactly. And as for attractions. Good. Just make sure they are large-scale and meaningful.
As an additional thought - the government has spoken, time and time again, about upping the quality of hotels and their service as part of an overall improvement of the islands' tourism offer. However, how can the hotels do this if they are being squeezed and pressurised when it comes to both prices and offering all-inclusive? Against this background, much as the hotels themselves may wish to upgrade and much as the government may harp on about it, it needs to born in mind that the real power in the tourism chain resides not with the hotels, not with the government, but with the tour operators. Ultimately you antagonise the tour operators at your potential peril. Without TUI and Thomas Cook, Mallorca has nothing. The government can do some gentle persuading, but it is largely impotent. It may be a harsh fact for the government to appreciate, but fact it is. Of course, neither TUI nor Thomas Cook would abandon Mallorca; it is far too important to them as well. But the balance of power lies with them. The hotels may be kicking, and good luck to them if they want to cut the all-inclusive, but they, too, must know who holds the whip hand.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Robert Palmer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S9Or_bEGQI). Today's title - pluralised; in the singular who did this tremendous song?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Saturday, February 16, 2008
You’re So Vain
More right-on environmentalism. German tour operator giant TUI, and I recall mentioning this on occasion before, has been in discussion with the Mallorcan environmental oberleutnant, and is now able to say that its hotels operate in accordance with the European environmental management standard. They are “sustainable” hotels, which indicates that they are more than just able to remain in one piece, they are also eco-sensitive in terms of emissions, energy and water recycling. Apparently there are now more such hotels in Mallorca than in the whole of Germany, which is saying something as there the enviro-polizei operate with a zeal that would make the Mallorcan environmental enforcement agencies seem like a “Dad’s Army” of inconsequential old buffery by comparison. So now guests, leaving their Air Berlin shuttles, can choose to feel self-righteous about their carbon footprints if they have booked in to a sustainable hotel. They’ll be giving them t-shirts with “I’m an eco-friendly tourist” next.
This is not to decry what is being done or to criticise TUI. I’m all in favour of them protecting the environment, but – unless there are hordes of tourists who place hotel sustainability as their first priority in a hierarchy of accommodation needs (which I rather doubt) – the whole thing is more a corporate marketing exercise than just being kind to the planet and to Mallorcan water supplies. The environmental management and environmental audit requirements of business came into vogue in the ‘80s. The audit aspect has become institutionalised. German companies are obliged to report on their environmental responsibility. This is shareholder and corporate governance driven as much as it is anything to do with selling hotel rooms.
Warming to the hotel theme, the Viva chain (viva can mean “long live”) has re-positioned one of its Puerto Alcúdia hotels – the Hotel Golf is dead, long live the Hotel Golf. It is now the Vanity Hotel Golf. What exactly are we supposed to make of a hotel that covers itself in “the conceit and desire for admiration of one’s personal attainments or attractions” (the Concise Oxford) as a name? I have this horrible vision of a Gideon and Jacinta of an image consultancy, armed with Power Point presentations and psychographics, conjuring up the “vanity” moniker as some form of aspirational branding exercise. Connotation there may be with “Vanity Fair”, and the hotel is very nice and no doubt will continue to be very nice, but what on Earth possessed them to come up with the name? I had a look at their website, check it out yourselves if you want – http://www.vanityhotels.com/ – and there are two hotels, the Alcúdia one and another along the coast in Cala Mesquida. The site is full of photography that looks like stock photography – shiny, happy, mature people having fun and, in a couple of photos, looking as they have met at a conference and are contemplating some legover. The hotel is meant to be all pampering, facials (of a cosmetic kind), pina coladas by the spa and not a baby buggy or an England football shirt attached to a bucket of San Miguel in sight. Fair enough, but if a degree of exclusivity is the aim, then why pick a hotel opposite which is a row of “locals” of a distinctly unremarkable style and fronted by an admittedly fine beach but one generally populated by those to whom the word “vain” could not be applied unless it were spelt differently and was accompanied by a “varicose”? Somewhere that really is exclusive, like Son Brull in Pollensa, is stuck in the middle of nowhere with an imposing remoteness that warns off the hoi polloi with an aura that shouts: “don’t even think about coming in here”. Now that’s vanity.
QUIZ
Yesterday – the song was by Powerstation of which Robert Palmer was a member. Today’s title – easy, easy.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
This is not to decry what is being done or to criticise TUI. I’m all in favour of them protecting the environment, but – unless there are hordes of tourists who place hotel sustainability as their first priority in a hierarchy of accommodation needs (which I rather doubt) – the whole thing is more a corporate marketing exercise than just being kind to the planet and to Mallorcan water supplies. The environmental management and environmental audit requirements of business came into vogue in the ‘80s. The audit aspect has become institutionalised. German companies are obliged to report on their environmental responsibility. This is shareholder and corporate governance driven as much as it is anything to do with selling hotel rooms.
Warming to the hotel theme, the Viva chain (viva can mean “long live”) has re-positioned one of its Puerto Alcúdia hotels – the Hotel Golf is dead, long live the Hotel Golf. It is now the Vanity Hotel Golf. What exactly are we supposed to make of a hotel that covers itself in “the conceit and desire for admiration of one’s personal attainments or attractions” (the Concise Oxford) as a name? I have this horrible vision of a Gideon and Jacinta of an image consultancy, armed with Power Point presentations and psychographics, conjuring up the “vanity” moniker as some form of aspirational branding exercise. Connotation there may be with “Vanity Fair”, and the hotel is very nice and no doubt will continue to be very nice, but what on Earth possessed them to come up with the name? I had a look at their website, check it out yourselves if you want – http://www.vanityhotels.com/ – and there are two hotels, the Alcúdia one and another along the coast in Cala Mesquida. The site is full of photography that looks like stock photography – shiny, happy, mature people having fun and, in a couple of photos, looking as they have met at a conference and are contemplating some legover. The hotel is meant to be all pampering, facials (of a cosmetic kind), pina coladas by the spa and not a baby buggy or an England football shirt attached to a bucket of San Miguel in sight. Fair enough, but if a degree of exclusivity is the aim, then why pick a hotel opposite which is a row of “locals” of a distinctly unremarkable style and fronted by an admittedly fine beach but one generally populated by those to whom the word “vain” could not be applied unless it were spelt differently and was accompanied by a “varicose”? Somewhere that really is exclusive, like Son Brull in Pollensa, is stuck in the middle of nowhere with an imposing remoteness that warns off the hoi polloi with an aura that shouts: “don’t even think about coming in here”. Now that’s vanity.
QUIZ
Yesterday – the song was by Powerstation of which Robert Palmer was a member. Today’s title – easy, easy.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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