Carlos Herrera is a journalist. He has a large following on a radio show that goes out on COPE, one of the most listened to broadcasters in the country. By way of background, it is of interest to note that COPE started out life as an essentially religious broadcaster. It has become very much more general in its output, though it would appear that it is owned by the church in that the Spanish Episcopal Conference has 50% of the shares of the company to which COPE belongs. Dioceses and religious orders are other shareholders.
This does perhaps need bearing in mind, as it suggests that COPE might not be rabidly left-wing. Its politics and its ownership are, however, of only passing relevance to today's theme, which is one that Carlos has offered. On his show there is a slot, the title of which lends itself to alternative translations but which I shall call "fools' defibrillator". Carlos and co-host pick up on particular stories and offer to defibrillate those who have uttered foolishness or nonsense. And so it was that he held up to ridicule Laura Camargo of Podemos.
The travel magazine and website Preferente highlighted her inclusion on the show last week, noting - and this may or may not have been ironic - that Camargo is the only person in Podemos in the Balearics who has the capacity to think. She may be, but then what she thinks and says ended up being the target for Carlos.
This was specifically to do with her views on workers in the tourism industry who, after eight months' work, are knackered and shouldn't be expected to have to work through winter and therefore all year. In fact, she said this before Christmas, so the story is an old one. On 23 December I drew attention to her remarks, wondering why it should be deemed acceptable for workers to do no more than eight months.
Still, better than late never the Camargo eight-month opinion surfaced on Carlos's show last week and also became the focus of a set-to between Podemos and Ciudadanos (C's). Carlos found it hard to understand, given, for instance, that radio journalists work all year. They are not the only ones. If anyone is interested, I work twelve months a year, usually seven days a week and not untypically up to eleven or twelve hours a day. Am I knackered? All the time.
Ah but, this is just sitting down and typing, is it not? Generally, yes. But there is being physically knackered and there is being mentally knackered. Neither state is particularly ideal, but suffice it to say that I tended to agree with Carlos's observation.
Camargo came out with this eight-month business in the broader context of tourism policy. We don't want more tourists in the winter, she said, and used the knackered workers as a reason why not. What of course she was really getting at was that we (Podemos) don't want more tourists, full stop. In fact, we'd prefer that there were fewer of them. Camargo and Podemos are highly suspicious of government attempts to erode seasonality and therefore make the tourism season ever longer. The workers, it can seem (and probably are), something of a smokescreen.
Which is not to deny that there are workers in the tourism industry who put in long hours, day after day over a several-month period with few breaks (if at all) and don't get particularly well paid. Camargo has a point, especially when it comes to exploitation, but only up to a point. Politically, she is very much on the side of the workers and has made her feelings about hoteliers well enough known, and the politics were partly where Carlos Herrera was coming from, as most certainly also was the leader of the C's, Albert Rivera. He tweeted the other day that Camargo is a deputy with a party which proposes gifts of income paid for by the state.
Rivera's tweet brought differing responses. Some accused him of demagoguery. Others took issue with the Podemos view of work and supported him. In the latter camp was a tweet which read: "Some consider work to be a punishment and being on the dole a fiesta."
In addition to stirring up the political ill-feeling between Podemos and the C's (not that it needs much stirring), the Camargo remarks served not only as a statement about her party's views on tourism but also to reignite the whole issue of the unbalanced nature of work and employment.
She was essentially saying that the situation which has been created because of seasonality is as it should be. Tourism is not the only industry affected by seasonality, but there are others which are not. Would she advocate everyone working no more than eight months a year? Police, nurses, firemen just to take three examples. Defibrillate away, Carlos.
Showing posts with label Tourism industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tourism industry. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 07, 2017
Friday, December 27, 2013
Who Shouts The Loudest: Balearics tourism industry
In October there was a significant development in the way that tourist businesses are organised. Different associations representing the non-hotel sector finally agreed to create a single body. These associations include those for restaurants, nightclubs, attractions, travel agencies, car rental and others.
The reasoning behind one body was obvious. It was to create a single voice to deal with the Balearic Government that could act as a counterbalance to the very strong and dominant single voice of the hoteliers. Though it has been said that the forming of this body was prompted by concerns about the increase in IVA by the national government, there were matters of local concern that were just as important. Many of them stemmed from the tourism law of 2012 and from the way in which the tourism market functions. All-inclusives, holiday rentals, hotels' secondary activities; these are just some of the issues which unite the non-hotel, complementary sector.
There not having been one body until now is a mystery. When one part of the tourism industry dominates as it does in the Balearics and has the ear of the government as closely as it does, then surely there should have been an alternative voice for the rest of the industry for years. One can attribute the absence of such a body to different reasons but perhaps the main one is that, because there are that many associations, finding common purpose among them all has been nigh on impossible.
The penny should have dropped a long time ago, though. The hoteliers have been in the ascendant for as long as there has been mass tourism. Obviously they have. Without them, there would have been no mass tourism and so wouldn't have been all the complementary elements. The hoteliers get a bad press, but it shouldn't be forgotten who it was who created mass tourism; it wasn't attractions or even restaurants.
This, though, interprets tourism in an imbalanced way. Something had to come first to get Mallorca to where it is, and the hotels were this something, but the complementary sector was equally as important. The tourism industry comprises many parts, all feeding off each other, complementing each other. But the very term complementary offer implies a secondary function; it complements the hotel sector. Without the hotels, there would be nothing to complement.
Nevertheless, for years this complementary status functioned well enough. Hotels did what hotels did. Restaurants and bars did what they did. But then, and one can place the point in time to be in the early to mid-1990s, the relationship began to change. Some twenty years on, the complementary sector only has itself to blame for what it did precious little to challenge: the arrival of the all-inclusive.
Complacency was undoubtedly a factor. All-inclusive was still only small scale. It would probably go away. It didn't. Organisation was another, and only now has it really come home to the complementary sector that its own organisation was flawed. There was the Balearics Confederation of Business Associations (CAEB) to represent it. But it also represented the hoteliers. Twenty years since becoming president of CAEB, Josep Oliver has stepped down. Business associations are reluctant to even nominate a successor. They have serious issues with CAEB because it has seemed pro-hotelier. They consider it to be useless.
If it is, then these business associations have surely allowed it to be. It is staggering that it has taken them so long to grasp the nettle and to attempt to place their interests at the top of the tourism industry agenda and not those of the hoteliers. It is staggering just how weak the pronouncements from some of these associations now sound. They can speak about the impact of all-inclusives as though these have only just been recognised. This impact may have been less obvious in the 1990s but by the turn of the century it had become obvious. Why weren't they raising merry hell about holiday rentals when the tourism law of 1999 was passed and not waiting until this year, and the reform of the national law on lettings, to begin to object strongly? The situation is fundamentally no different to what it was at the end of the last millennium.
Better late than never, one supposes, but what will this unified body achieve? One of the myriad associations on the island is Acotur, that which represents tourist businesses. In its most recent magazine it attacks the government for being too much on the side of the hoteliers and for reneging on an electoral promise to help the non-hotel sector. But then Acotur is just one voice among many. A unified body may achieve what it, Acotur, has wanted, but it will only do so if the government is confronted with a body with an assertive agenda. One recalls how the government buckled when the large retailers took it on over the green taxes. If business shouts loud enough, then the government will listen. Until now, though, it has been the hoteliers who have been doing the shouting. And with one voice.
The reasoning behind one body was obvious. It was to create a single voice to deal with the Balearic Government that could act as a counterbalance to the very strong and dominant single voice of the hoteliers. Though it has been said that the forming of this body was prompted by concerns about the increase in IVA by the national government, there were matters of local concern that were just as important. Many of them stemmed from the tourism law of 2012 and from the way in which the tourism market functions. All-inclusives, holiday rentals, hotels' secondary activities; these are just some of the issues which unite the non-hotel, complementary sector.
There not having been one body until now is a mystery. When one part of the tourism industry dominates as it does in the Balearics and has the ear of the government as closely as it does, then surely there should have been an alternative voice for the rest of the industry for years. One can attribute the absence of such a body to different reasons but perhaps the main one is that, because there are that many associations, finding common purpose among them all has been nigh on impossible.
The penny should have dropped a long time ago, though. The hoteliers have been in the ascendant for as long as there has been mass tourism. Obviously they have. Without them, there would have been no mass tourism and so wouldn't have been all the complementary elements. The hoteliers get a bad press, but it shouldn't be forgotten who it was who created mass tourism; it wasn't attractions or even restaurants.
This, though, interprets tourism in an imbalanced way. Something had to come first to get Mallorca to where it is, and the hotels were this something, but the complementary sector was equally as important. The tourism industry comprises many parts, all feeding off each other, complementing each other. But the very term complementary offer implies a secondary function; it complements the hotel sector. Without the hotels, there would be nothing to complement.
Nevertheless, for years this complementary status functioned well enough. Hotels did what hotels did. Restaurants and bars did what they did. But then, and one can place the point in time to be in the early to mid-1990s, the relationship began to change. Some twenty years on, the complementary sector only has itself to blame for what it did precious little to challenge: the arrival of the all-inclusive.
Complacency was undoubtedly a factor. All-inclusive was still only small scale. It would probably go away. It didn't. Organisation was another, and only now has it really come home to the complementary sector that its own organisation was flawed. There was the Balearics Confederation of Business Associations (CAEB) to represent it. But it also represented the hoteliers. Twenty years since becoming president of CAEB, Josep Oliver has stepped down. Business associations are reluctant to even nominate a successor. They have serious issues with CAEB because it has seemed pro-hotelier. They consider it to be useless.
If it is, then these business associations have surely allowed it to be. It is staggering that it has taken them so long to grasp the nettle and to attempt to place their interests at the top of the tourism industry agenda and not those of the hoteliers. It is staggering just how weak the pronouncements from some of these associations now sound. They can speak about the impact of all-inclusives as though these have only just been recognised. This impact may have been less obvious in the 1990s but by the turn of the century it had become obvious. Why weren't they raising merry hell about holiday rentals when the tourism law of 1999 was passed and not waiting until this year, and the reform of the national law on lettings, to begin to object strongly? The situation is fundamentally no different to what it was at the end of the last millennium.
Better late than never, one supposes, but what will this unified body achieve? One of the myriad associations on the island is Acotur, that which represents tourist businesses. In its most recent magazine it attacks the government for being too much on the side of the hoteliers and for reneging on an electoral promise to help the non-hotel sector. But then Acotur is just one voice among many. A unified body may achieve what it, Acotur, has wanted, but it will only do so if the government is confronted with a body with an assertive agenda. One recalls how the government buckled when the large retailers took it on over the green taxes. If business shouts loud enough, then the government will listen. Until now, though, it has been the hoteliers who have been doing the shouting. And with one voice.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Walking On Broken Glass: Mallorca's tourism
It all looks so good. Everything in the tourism garden is rosy. A very good summer, a record even, and September and October bookings are strong, much stronger than usual. Some hotels are thinking of staying open into November, eating into the savage deadness of the off-season. Next year is looking fab as well. The hotels have secured revenue increases of up to 5% from tour operators keen to secure beds for next summer. Even tour operators from markets which send fewer tourists than the market colossi of the UK and Germany, such as those in Russia and Norway, are doing business with the hotels early. Everyone wants a piece of Mallorca in 2014. Everything in the tourism garden is rosy.
Go back to political events of the 1990s, and which ones dominated European thinking? Well, there were plenty of course, but among them were events in what had been Yugoslavia. These weren't just political events, these were war. There is no war as such in Egypt at present, but events have a habit of having an impact on tourism. In the '90s it was Croatia which suffered along with other coastal parts of the former Yugoslavia. Now it is north Africa, and Lord alone knows what might erupt if things go really wrong in Syria.
Mallorca is reaping the benefits and has been doing so since the Arab spring; just as it did when Yugoslavia was consumed by war. Whatever some commentators have warned about Spain and a descent into civil unrest, whatever wilder claims have been made about intervention in Catalonia, whatever the ropy image that has come with corruption, whatever bad publicity (in truth, never actually that bad) which comes courtesy of sections of the media, Mallorca (and Spain) rise above such negatives. Mallorca is reliable and it is safe. The politicians and those in the tourist industry keep reminding everyone of this, and they are right to do so.
Such reliability and such safety explain why the current season will prove to have been highly successful and also explain why tour operators have acted swiftly to ensure places for next year even if this might mean paying some more. The hotels and the local economy generally should be happy. Greater hotel profitability (and the hotels have been complaining for ages that they have been losing profitability) can only benefit the wider economy. Or so the theory might go.
The practice is a different matter. Higher prices and so greater profitability from all-inclusives do not mean wider benefits. Nor do they mean longer and more stable employment contracts. Nor do they mean that seasonality is lessened. And nor do they mean that the improvements to hotel stock and to resorts will be effected in the ways that the regional government had hoped when it passed the 2012 tourism act.
Everything in the tourism garden is rosy, but the roses are emitting fragrances that obliterate only temporarily the smells of decay. The rosy rose bushes of the tourism industry cannot disguise the thorns that attack the vulnerable and exposed parts of the industry, and one of these, ironically, is what might be perceived as an industry strength - the almost 300,000 hotel places in Mallorca.
Safe and reliable, Mallorca's reliability is founded in part on its capacity. For all that Croatia is now a competitor and no longer undermined by strife, it can compete only partially; it doesn't have the capacity. So surely Mallorca's capacity must be a strength. It is, but only if one adheres to the notion of tourism that is sharply divided between the glass slipper and slipping over broken glass. Magalluf is managing to demonstrate this divide. It is intended as a benchmark for modernised, transformed and beautified four and five-starring, but how can it truly ever be when glass is shattered along the strip within screaming distance of a five-star palacete playing host to Cinderellas and Prince Charmings bejewelled with the ostentation acquired from a Gucci store on Moscow's Tverskaya?
The rose garden conceals the compost of resorts grown old and too many hotels in need of radical facelifts. The tourism act was meant to have tackled this, but will it? There is many an observer who would aver that Mallorca simply has too many hotels and too many hotel places. They can't all be transformed. To remodel the industry in the shape of a glass slipper demands taking broken glass to the capacity and slashing it, but then what? Loss of jobs, loss of further business in a complementary sector already battered by all-inclusive and the conspicuously low consumption that comes with excess capacity?
It all looks so good. And for now, let's be thankful that it is. But then thinking about now has long been a Mallorcan failure. There's a whole tourism future that too few people have seen. But what will come as a shock to the blind is that the future is already here. It all looks so good but only because there are parts of the world which are suffering from an absence of goodness.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Go back to political events of the 1990s, and which ones dominated European thinking? Well, there were plenty of course, but among them were events in what had been Yugoslavia. These weren't just political events, these were war. There is no war as such in Egypt at present, but events have a habit of having an impact on tourism. In the '90s it was Croatia which suffered along with other coastal parts of the former Yugoslavia. Now it is north Africa, and Lord alone knows what might erupt if things go really wrong in Syria.
Mallorca is reaping the benefits and has been doing so since the Arab spring; just as it did when Yugoslavia was consumed by war. Whatever some commentators have warned about Spain and a descent into civil unrest, whatever wilder claims have been made about intervention in Catalonia, whatever the ropy image that has come with corruption, whatever bad publicity (in truth, never actually that bad) which comes courtesy of sections of the media, Mallorca (and Spain) rise above such negatives. Mallorca is reliable and it is safe. The politicians and those in the tourist industry keep reminding everyone of this, and they are right to do so.
Such reliability and such safety explain why the current season will prove to have been highly successful and also explain why tour operators have acted swiftly to ensure places for next year even if this might mean paying some more. The hotels and the local economy generally should be happy. Greater hotel profitability (and the hotels have been complaining for ages that they have been losing profitability) can only benefit the wider economy. Or so the theory might go.
The practice is a different matter. Higher prices and so greater profitability from all-inclusives do not mean wider benefits. Nor do they mean longer and more stable employment contracts. Nor do they mean that seasonality is lessened. And nor do they mean that the improvements to hotel stock and to resorts will be effected in the ways that the regional government had hoped when it passed the 2012 tourism act.
Everything in the tourism garden is rosy, but the roses are emitting fragrances that obliterate only temporarily the smells of decay. The rosy rose bushes of the tourism industry cannot disguise the thorns that attack the vulnerable and exposed parts of the industry, and one of these, ironically, is what might be perceived as an industry strength - the almost 300,000 hotel places in Mallorca.
Safe and reliable, Mallorca's reliability is founded in part on its capacity. For all that Croatia is now a competitor and no longer undermined by strife, it can compete only partially; it doesn't have the capacity. So surely Mallorca's capacity must be a strength. It is, but only if one adheres to the notion of tourism that is sharply divided between the glass slipper and slipping over broken glass. Magalluf is managing to demonstrate this divide. It is intended as a benchmark for modernised, transformed and beautified four and five-starring, but how can it truly ever be when glass is shattered along the strip within screaming distance of a five-star palacete playing host to Cinderellas and Prince Charmings bejewelled with the ostentation acquired from a Gucci store on Moscow's Tverskaya?
The rose garden conceals the compost of resorts grown old and too many hotels in need of radical facelifts. The tourism act was meant to have tackled this, but will it? There is many an observer who would aver that Mallorca simply has too many hotels and too many hotel places. They can't all be transformed. To remodel the industry in the shape of a glass slipper demands taking broken glass to the capacity and slashing it, but then what? Loss of jobs, loss of further business in a complementary sector already battered by all-inclusive and the conspicuously low consumption that comes with excess capacity?
It all looks so good. And for now, let's be thankful that it is. But then thinking about now has long been a Mallorcan failure. There's a whole tourism future that too few people have seen. But what will come as a shock to the blind is that the future is already here. It all looks so good but only because there are parts of the world which are suffering from an absence of goodness.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Treated With The Utmost Disrespect
When people ceased to be people or even personnel and were contradictorily dehumanised into becoming human resources, companies and the purveyors of management and organisational snake oil began to discover new miracle cures that they would inflict on these one-time simple people. Typically, it was the academic-turned-consultant-turned-business-blockbuster-writer who was to the fore in this medicine show, and one of the elixirs that this self-appointed guru would tout was something called 360-degree appraisal.
Because people (sorry, human resources) were now deemed to be strategic rather than mere functionary cogs in an organisational wheel, the thinking behind this all-round appraisal wasn't as crackpot a theory as many others that the gurus had invented. The theory went something like this. A company has various "stakeholders" (there's good management jargon for you) and so does the individual working in a company. Often, these two sets of stakeholders are one and the same. So, a manager or other employee might not just have superiors who could appraise performance but also subordinate employees, customers, suppliers and perhaps even God Almighty.
This 360 system wasn't solely about giving a potentially disgruntled subordinate the opportunity to try and get a boss sacked, it was also about developing the individual being appraised in order that, in line with organisationally correct thinking, relationships with all stakeholders would be similar, i.e. they would hopefully be good and positive. By creating a culture whereby everyone was treated with the same level of respect, this should lead, so the theory went, to better performance and to better relationships with the most important of all the stakeholders, namely the customer.
It wasn't a bad theory. Treat subordinates well and with respect, treat suppliers well and with respect, and an atmosphere is created which results in the customer being treated especially well and with the utmost respect. Unfortunately, and regardless of whether businesses adhere to a principle such as 360 or not, there are businesses out there which appear to have little idea that the way in which certain stakeholders are treated may or will ultimately lead to a poorer customer relationship.
The local tourism industry comprises businesses of varying levels of professionalism. A small bar does not have to have a sound working knowledge of management theory in order to operate a successful business and one that, because such a thing is often instinctive, treats all its stakeholders with respect and so achieves the goal of excellent customer relationships. However, a bit of a theory might not go amiss when it comes to bars or other establishments which simply have absolutely no idea.
Here's one example. A bar takes on someone for a provisional period. Towards the end of this period - a month - the owner decides he doesn't need this someone. Not because this someone is no good, but because the owner has no intention of entering into a contractual agreement. What happens next? He takes on someone else, and then the whole process repeats itself and keeps on repeating itself. Is this respectful, is this treating someone well? No, it is not. And in an atmosphere where staff are hired and not so much fired as tossed aside, how does this impact on the customer?
Here's another example. Let's say that a hotel engages someone for the season. Not even two months into the season, this someone is sent a text which informs him or her that services are no longer required. Again, this isn't because the employee isn't any good. Indeed, Trip Advisor reviews are overwhelmingly positive where this employee is concerned, thus improving the hotel's reputation and its overall relationship with the customer. Why would the hotel dismiss such an employee? Well, it's a very good question. Why would it? Perhaps it has come up with a different arrangement that can save it some money. And as for sending a text, well, if you can't give bad news face to face, then how good can you possibly be with dealing with customers face to face?
There are other examples. Too many. The local tourism industry cannot be tarred with one unsatisfactory management/business brush. On the contrary, there is a great deal which is very good, be it the bar, the hotel, wherever. And it is very good because the working atmosphere is right. Most businesses don't need the snake oil because it should be obvious. Treat everyone with respect, and the customers are happy. So happy, they plan on coming back. Until they learn on Trip Advisor that someone has been dismissed.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Because people (sorry, human resources) were now deemed to be strategic rather than mere functionary cogs in an organisational wheel, the thinking behind this all-round appraisal wasn't as crackpot a theory as many others that the gurus had invented. The theory went something like this. A company has various "stakeholders" (there's good management jargon for you) and so does the individual working in a company. Often, these two sets of stakeholders are one and the same. So, a manager or other employee might not just have superiors who could appraise performance but also subordinate employees, customers, suppliers and perhaps even God Almighty.
This 360 system wasn't solely about giving a potentially disgruntled subordinate the opportunity to try and get a boss sacked, it was also about developing the individual being appraised in order that, in line with organisationally correct thinking, relationships with all stakeholders would be similar, i.e. they would hopefully be good and positive. By creating a culture whereby everyone was treated with the same level of respect, this should lead, so the theory went, to better performance and to better relationships with the most important of all the stakeholders, namely the customer.
It wasn't a bad theory. Treat subordinates well and with respect, treat suppliers well and with respect, and an atmosphere is created which results in the customer being treated especially well and with the utmost respect. Unfortunately, and regardless of whether businesses adhere to a principle such as 360 or not, there are businesses out there which appear to have little idea that the way in which certain stakeholders are treated may or will ultimately lead to a poorer customer relationship.
The local tourism industry comprises businesses of varying levels of professionalism. A small bar does not have to have a sound working knowledge of management theory in order to operate a successful business and one that, because such a thing is often instinctive, treats all its stakeholders with respect and so achieves the goal of excellent customer relationships. However, a bit of a theory might not go amiss when it comes to bars or other establishments which simply have absolutely no idea.
Here's one example. A bar takes on someone for a provisional period. Towards the end of this period - a month - the owner decides he doesn't need this someone. Not because this someone is no good, but because the owner has no intention of entering into a contractual agreement. What happens next? He takes on someone else, and then the whole process repeats itself and keeps on repeating itself. Is this respectful, is this treating someone well? No, it is not. And in an atmosphere where staff are hired and not so much fired as tossed aside, how does this impact on the customer?
Here's another example. Let's say that a hotel engages someone for the season. Not even two months into the season, this someone is sent a text which informs him or her that services are no longer required. Again, this isn't because the employee isn't any good. Indeed, Trip Advisor reviews are overwhelmingly positive where this employee is concerned, thus improving the hotel's reputation and its overall relationship with the customer. Why would the hotel dismiss such an employee? Well, it's a very good question. Why would it? Perhaps it has come up with a different arrangement that can save it some money. And as for sending a text, well, if you can't give bad news face to face, then how good can you possibly be with dealing with customers face to face?
There are other examples. Too many. The local tourism industry cannot be tarred with one unsatisfactory management/business brush. On the contrary, there is a great deal which is very good, be it the bar, the hotel, wherever. And it is very good because the working atmosphere is right. Most businesses don't need the snake oil because it should be obvious. Treat everyone with respect, and the customers are happy. So happy, they plan on coming back. Until they learn on Trip Advisor that someone has been dismissed.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Not Being Paid A Complement
The title of this article contains a deliberate mistake. Complement is wrong; it should be compliment.
The so-called complementary offer, by which one normally means bars, restaurants and clubs, is a complement to the primary element of the tourism industry, the hotels. It completes the industry, but by perception, if not by definition, it comes down the industry food chain and is considered subordinate. As a consequence, it fails to be paid a proper compliment, or so it claims.
Palma town hall's efforts to up its tourism game by bringing together different bodies from the industry haven't gone down well with the restaurant associations of either CAEB, the Balearics business confederation, or PIMEM, the small to medium-sized businesses association. They feel as though have been ignored.
The fact is that they probably have been ignored. And ignored for different reasons. One is that they don't sing with anything like a unified or co-operative voice, and not just in Palma. Two, and following on from this, they don't have a collective organisation with the clout that demands to be paid attention to and which can command some lobbying space of the type that the hotel sector can. Three is that other parts of the industry, the hotels in other words, look upon the restaurants, to put it bluntly, as parasitic and incapable of or unwilling to actively involve themselves in promotion efforts. Four is that, as a group, they simply lack the financial muscle to make themselves important players in helping to drive the tourism industry.
CAEB and PIMEM are doing something about the first two, combining their respective associations for restaurants, bars and entertainment in order to try and give themselves a voice which will be listened to. But why haven't they done this before?
Firstly, because the different associations themselves have their own agendas. CAEB and PIMEM aren't the only ones. There is also, for example, Acotur, the tourism businesses association. These organisations occupy similar territory, duplicating or contradicting each other as the case may be. Secondly, restaurants in mostly any town or resort you care to mention function with their own interests to the fore. Co-operation has generally been absent, except where powerful and small groups of owners work together for their own benefit. Thirdly, and this is the unpalatable truth, the hotels have a point; the restaurants have been parasitic. They have done well simply by being there, but now, thanks to all-inclusives, heightened competition, economic crisis, the rules have changed, and the restaurants have been marginalised.
This sounds like a damning indictment of the complementary sector, but the lack of compliment paid to them stems also from a peculiar ambivalence shown to the restaurants.
The Spanish hotel confederation wants the new national government to make changes to help the tourism industry. One of these is a reduction in IVA, and the example is cited of how such a reduction in France has helped the restaurant sector. Not the hotels, the restaurants.
So, what has this to do with attitudes towards Mallorca's restaurants? Something very significant, and that is that the French tourism industry is very different to Spain's. France doesn't have anything like the concentration of resorts that Spain and Mallorca have. It has resorts, but there is little that is comparable. It does have all-inclusive hotels but not like Spain or Mallorca do.
A reduction in value added tax to boost French restaurants was not simply a case of being helpful. It was a recognition of the central role of restaurants within the tourism industry. France's restaurants are not complementary. It's the other way round; the hotels are. The French don't need to bang on about gastronomy, because everyone knows about the cuisine, and given the nature of the French tourism industry, the restaurants are absolutely essential.
A reduction in IVA might make some difference to Mallorca's restaurants, but not much. What would make a difference would be were they not treated as the tourism industry's doormats. But because they have never had that position of centrality, as they do in France, they are in a position of weakness, which is why they get ignored and why there is an ambivalence towards them.
Yet, gastronomy is meant to be one of Mallorca's strengths. Maybe it is, but without an attitudinal shift on behalf of other players in the tourism industry, it won't be. The restaurants have brought much of this ambivalence on themselves, but while the hotels continue to dominate the industry, a situation that will not change, they can't expect to ever be more than complementary or to be paid their rightful compliments.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The so-called complementary offer, by which one normally means bars, restaurants and clubs, is a complement to the primary element of the tourism industry, the hotels. It completes the industry, but by perception, if not by definition, it comes down the industry food chain and is considered subordinate. As a consequence, it fails to be paid a proper compliment, or so it claims.
Palma town hall's efforts to up its tourism game by bringing together different bodies from the industry haven't gone down well with the restaurant associations of either CAEB, the Balearics business confederation, or PIMEM, the small to medium-sized businesses association. They feel as though have been ignored.
The fact is that they probably have been ignored. And ignored for different reasons. One is that they don't sing with anything like a unified or co-operative voice, and not just in Palma. Two, and following on from this, they don't have a collective organisation with the clout that demands to be paid attention to and which can command some lobbying space of the type that the hotel sector can. Three is that other parts of the industry, the hotels in other words, look upon the restaurants, to put it bluntly, as parasitic and incapable of or unwilling to actively involve themselves in promotion efforts. Four is that, as a group, they simply lack the financial muscle to make themselves important players in helping to drive the tourism industry.
CAEB and PIMEM are doing something about the first two, combining their respective associations for restaurants, bars and entertainment in order to try and give themselves a voice which will be listened to. But why haven't they done this before?
Firstly, because the different associations themselves have their own agendas. CAEB and PIMEM aren't the only ones. There is also, for example, Acotur, the tourism businesses association. These organisations occupy similar territory, duplicating or contradicting each other as the case may be. Secondly, restaurants in mostly any town or resort you care to mention function with their own interests to the fore. Co-operation has generally been absent, except where powerful and small groups of owners work together for their own benefit. Thirdly, and this is the unpalatable truth, the hotels have a point; the restaurants have been parasitic. They have done well simply by being there, but now, thanks to all-inclusives, heightened competition, economic crisis, the rules have changed, and the restaurants have been marginalised.
This sounds like a damning indictment of the complementary sector, but the lack of compliment paid to them stems also from a peculiar ambivalence shown to the restaurants.
The Spanish hotel confederation wants the new national government to make changes to help the tourism industry. One of these is a reduction in IVA, and the example is cited of how such a reduction in France has helped the restaurant sector. Not the hotels, the restaurants.
So, what has this to do with attitudes towards Mallorca's restaurants? Something very significant, and that is that the French tourism industry is very different to Spain's. France doesn't have anything like the concentration of resorts that Spain and Mallorca have. It has resorts, but there is little that is comparable. It does have all-inclusive hotels but not like Spain or Mallorca do.
A reduction in value added tax to boost French restaurants was not simply a case of being helpful. It was a recognition of the central role of restaurants within the tourism industry. France's restaurants are not complementary. It's the other way round; the hotels are. The French don't need to bang on about gastronomy, because everyone knows about the cuisine, and given the nature of the French tourism industry, the restaurants are absolutely essential.
A reduction in IVA might make some difference to Mallorca's restaurants, but not much. What would make a difference would be were they not treated as the tourism industry's doormats. But because they have never had that position of centrality, as they do in France, they are in a position of weakness, which is why they get ignored and why there is an ambivalence towards them.
Yet, gastronomy is meant to be one of Mallorca's strengths. Maybe it is, but without an attitudinal shift on behalf of other players in the tourism industry, it won't be. The restaurants have brought much of this ambivalence on themselves, but while the hotels continue to dominate the industry, a situation that will not change, they can't expect to ever be more than complementary or to be paid their rightful compliments.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
