Exceltur is the alliance for tourism excellence. It is an organisation for elite businesses operating in the Spanish tourism market. Of its 22 members, nine are hotel chains or groups with hotels as part of wider operations. These are: Globalia (i.e. Be Live Hotels), Hotusa, Iberostar, Lopesan, Meliá, NH, Palladium, Playa Senator and Riu. Despite the notable absence of Barceló, the hotelier representation is biased towards heavyweights in Mallorca and the Balearics: five out of the nine are based on the islands.
While this representation reflects the strength of Balearic hotels in the Spanish market, it may also reflect how Exceltur views the world of Spanish tourism, and to get a flavour of this, one only has to consider its report into tourist business valuation for 2014. It is a detailed report but some of its conclusions need to be addressed and queried.
Foreign tourism to Spain increased by 7.1% in 2014, but the Exceltur report finds that this has resulted in a 3.4% reduction in average spend. The principal reason for this, implied by what Exceltur says, is the market for non-hotel accommodation. The report compares the daily spend of a tourist in regulated accommodation (114 euros) with that of a visitor in holiday-let accommodation (67 euros).
There are two points to make about this. Firstly, all holiday-let accommodation ("viviendas en alquiler") appears to be considered to be unregulated. The report refers to tourists staying in hotel and "other types of regulated accommodation" without defining what these other types are: there is, after all, plenty of holiday-let accommodation which is regulated. So, one has to question the definitions.
Secondly, and rather more importantly, the data used come from the tourist spend surveys which are notoriously unreliable in giving a true picture of spend. Apart from the fact that this spend is calculated on the basis of samples taken at airports, ports and border crossings, it is a spend - as I have noted many times in the past - which includes the price of the holiday itself (transport and accommodation). Exceltur has stripped out the cost of transport, but there remains the accommodation and the lack of clarity within the report as to its definition. But, as a general rule, it is fair to say that non-hotel accommodation (an apartment, for instance) does cost less than a hotel and especially a hotel where the upfront cost is for all-inclusive. Because of the cost of accommodation and board, therefore, there is an inherent bias towards a higher spend being attributed to hotel guests.
The spend calculation that Exceltur is using has to be further queried when one takes account of research that has been done at the university. I referred to this in July last year. It found that tourists who rented accommodation spend 30% more while on holiday than tourists in hotels. And the Exceltur report may even support this. The two tourist business sectors which enjoyed the best years in 2014 were car rental and leisure/entertainment; the first of these is certainly one which benefits from increasing numbers of non-hotel guests.
But while Exceltur may be able to take out transport costs for independent travellers, it cannot do this for tourists on package holidays. How can it? The holidaymaker hasn't a clue how much he or she is paying for the different components, and the tourist spend surveys reflect this: a value is therefore given for the total package. This sector of the holiday market rose by 6.6%, says the report, yet it appears to have been otherwise overlooked, and the reason why, or so it appears, is that a link is being made between the type of transport and the spend of the tourist in different types of accommodation. Specifically, the report points to the level of low-cost air travel (up by over 10% in 2014), noting that a much smaller rise in passengers using "traditional" airlines (1.7%) gave a daily spend that was 31 euros higher than the low-cost traveller.
The validity of this distinction is also questionable, though. Low-cost airlines (of varying types) massively dominate the Spanish market. Ryanair, Vueling, easyJet, Norwegian, Air Berlin are in the top seven airlines by passenger numbers (Iberia is another, but almost a third of its total operations are now the low-cost Iberia Express). Their combined market is vast and it is also highly diverse; there are high-spend as well as low-spend passengers.
Reports such as these are typically reproduced in the media from the summarised key points press releases, but when closer attention is paid, a rather different picture can emerge. Exceltur is calling for urgent action against the "unfair competition" of the holiday-lets variety and has backed this up with findings to support its argument. But then, just bear in mind who some of its members are.
Showing posts with label Tourism spend. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tourism spend. Show all posts
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Friday, August 29, 2014
Tourism Stats Are Not Cricket Stats
Cricket is a sport which gives the impression that it only exists in order to generate statistics. The numbers are a sport within a sport and their gatherers become names in their own right alongside pundits and players. They are numbers, though, which cannot be misinterpreted. When Jimmy Anderson and Joe Root put on 198 for the tenth wicket against India, it was a world record and there was absolutely no dispute. In a sense, they aren't statistics. They are simple maths. One plus one equals two, it always has done and it always will do. Statistics aren't so simple. If they were, there wouldn't be huge armies of statisticians engaged in their gathering and huge arguments over their validity.
Tourism statisticians can give the impression that, like cricket, tourism only exists because of its statistical evidence. It is evidence, however robust the methodologies are said to be, which often fails to convince because of the apparent discrepancies between numbers and the evidence of the eye or the ear. For all this, an avalanche of statistics over the past few days, taken at their most general level, would appear to tell a story that is beyond dispute. There is something a bit odd going on.
Firstly, we learned that in July and for Spain as a whole, there had been a record number of foreign tourists - 8.3 million, up by 6% over 2013. Yet, the number of hotel overnight stays fell; in the Balearics, the decline was in the order of 4.7%. How could this be, especially as the Balearics had, for the first time ever, exceeded two million foreign tourists during July? There are two explanations. One is that holidays are shorter. The other is that tourists choose to stay in alternative accommodation. For the whole of Spain, overnight stays in rented accommodation, in visitors' own properties or in those of families or friends were up by over 14%.
We then learned that, despite this record number of July visitors, spending by tourists in the Balearics fell by over 5%. This was largely attributable to what is being described as a "collapse" in the German market. Its spend alone was apparently down by a whopping 14%. There could of course be an explanation for this - stay-at-home Germans watching the World Cup. The overall Spanish tourism market suffered a fall in German spend, but it wasn't at the level supposedly recorded in the Balearics; 6% versus 14%. Moreover, while total Balearics spend was down, spend was up more or less everywhere else (Catalonia, Andalusia, Canaries). The one exception was Valencia.
One can reach for certain other explanations for this decline in the Balearics. All-inclusives would be one. But this would be too simplistic. All-inclusives are not confined to the Balearics by any stretch of the imagination. Nor are illegal or legal holiday rentals confined to the Balearics. These spending statistics, as I have sought to explain on many an occasion, are not an exact science. Nevertheless, they do give an indication. Are we to conclude, therefore, that despite the efforts of the Balearics to push the islands in the direction of attracting a higher-net-worth tourist, the opposite is in fact happening? The numbers will create a great debate and a scratching of heads. If only the statistics were as clear as those in cricket.
Tourism statisticians can give the impression that, like cricket, tourism only exists because of its statistical evidence. It is evidence, however robust the methodologies are said to be, which often fails to convince because of the apparent discrepancies between numbers and the evidence of the eye or the ear. For all this, an avalanche of statistics over the past few days, taken at their most general level, would appear to tell a story that is beyond dispute. There is something a bit odd going on.
Firstly, we learned that in July and for Spain as a whole, there had been a record number of foreign tourists - 8.3 million, up by 6% over 2013. Yet, the number of hotel overnight stays fell; in the Balearics, the decline was in the order of 4.7%. How could this be, especially as the Balearics had, for the first time ever, exceeded two million foreign tourists during July? There are two explanations. One is that holidays are shorter. The other is that tourists choose to stay in alternative accommodation. For the whole of Spain, overnight stays in rented accommodation, in visitors' own properties or in those of families or friends were up by over 14%.
We then learned that, despite this record number of July visitors, spending by tourists in the Balearics fell by over 5%. This was largely attributable to what is being described as a "collapse" in the German market. Its spend alone was apparently down by a whopping 14%. There could of course be an explanation for this - stay-at-home Germans watching the World Cup. The overall Spanish tourism market suffered a fall in German spend, but it wasn't at the level supposedly recorded in the Balearics; 6% versus 14%. Moreover, while total Balearics spend was down, spend was up more or less everywhere else (Catalonia, Andalusia, Canaries). The one exception was Valencia.
One can reach for certain other explanations for this decline in the Balearics. All-inclusives would be one. But this would be too simplistic. All-inclusives are not confined to the Balearics by any stretch of the imagination. Nor are illegal or legal holiday rentals confined to the Balearics. These spending statistics, as I have sought to explain on many an occasion, are not an exact science. Nevertheless, they do give an indication. Are we to conclude, therefore, that despite the efforts of the Balearics to push the islands in the direction of attracting a higher-net-worth tourist, the opposite is in fact happening? The numbers will create a great debate and a scratching of heads. If only the statistics were as clear as those in cricket.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Ghosts Of Tourism Past: Adapt to survive
You know those little tubs of butter you get, the ones that might typically be served with a full or less-than-full English and which are, if only just out of the fridge, rock hard and cause your toast to crumble as you desperately struggle to spread their solid but very mini mass. Do you know how much they cost? Not to you as a punter but to a bar owner? It would probably depend upon supplier and probably also on any "arrangements" that exist, but the regular cost is eight centimos. Only a few years ago, seven or eight years ago perhaps, the cost was less. The little tubs then cost two centimos.
Fortunately, not all costs have risen as dramatically as the little tubs of butter have. But the increase in their cost acts as a reminder of the saying that if you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves. For the bar owner, the added six centimos over the past few years, multiplied by the number of little tubs that have found themselves on the ends of knives of customers trying hard to extract their content, will amount to a pretty penny or several.
The increased cost will be factored in and either absorbed or added to the price of the breakfast, and if it is the latter, then the mumblings begin. Things aren't as cheap as they used to be. The bar owner, however, has to look after the pennies (or the centimos). Were he not to, then the pounds (or the euros) would not look after themselves.
Strangely enough, things aren't as cheap as they used to be, but things not being as cheap as they once were or as cheap as some might wish them to be is of course one of the regularly voiced reasons for why there is a malaise that afflicts Mallorca's tourism.
Despite the headlining good news, or apparent good news, that comes from the summer's high occupancy rates and high air passenger numbers, there is a refusal to believe the good news, and one reason for not believing it is that tourists don't spend as they did because everything is so expensive, a perception that does really require defining, as being expensive (or cheap) is all relative.
The only thing that needs to be known is that everything did indeed used to be cheaper. Had everything not been cheap, then there would not now be the tourism that Mallorca has. It was tourism founded on low cost, on dirt cheapness. It allowed there to be what there is today.
Looking to the past is instructive in explaining how we get to a position in the present, but the constant reflection on the past gets us only so far. The standard complaints about how Mallorca's tourism model operates today have been with us for years; these complaints being prices, low spend, shorter summer seasons, lack of winter tourism, all-inclusives. Yet somehow the past suggests that they are all relatively new phenomena, when none of them are. The past conjures up some golden age, the vision of which has to be tempered by, among other things, the fact that total tourism was significantly lower. (It should be noted, for example, that between 1993 and 2008 the total number of tourists arriving in Mallorca rose by 85%.)
There are occasions when I feel as though I am winter-tourismed-out, all-inclusived-out, lower-spent-out. Just on all-inclusives, and as an example, over seven years ago (in July 2006), I concluded an article on all-inclusives by saying: "The AI has changed the nature of the market. It is for the market to make an adjustment to it. Ultimately, if the AI and other factors (such as lower spend) cause a fall in demand, then the supply (of out-of-hotel facilities) has to alter. If this means less, then so be it. This is a harsh appraisal, but I think it is a realistic one."
The image of a tourism past keeps getting in the way. It is one in which there were no all-inclusives (and there weren't - not as we know them - until the '90s) and in which everywhere was supposedly packed, but with very many fewer tourists than today. Tourism's present is not like its past and nor will its future be like its past. Though obstacles to remedies are great, there may be remedies to alleviate the absence of current winter tourism, one which, in sheer numbers, has been greater this century than in the mythical golden age. But otherwise tourism present and tourism future has to forget the past and to adapt. The day before I was told about the cost of the little tubs of butter, I spoke with a partner in a tourist business which has had a highly successful summer. The reasons why? Many, but key are marketing, service and listening to the customer and changing accordingly.
Fortunately, not all costs have risen as dramatically as the little tubs of butter have. But the increase in their cost acts as a reminder of the saying that if you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves. For the bar owner, the added six centimos over the past few years, multiplied by the number of little tubs that have found themselves on the ends of knives of customers trying hard to extract their content, will amount to a pretty penny or several.
The increased cost will be factored in and either absorbed or added to the price of the breakfast, and if it is the latter, then the mumblings begin. Things aren't as cheap as they used to be. The bar owner, however, has to look after the pennies (or the centimos). Were he not to, then the pounds (or the euros) would not look after themselves.
Strangely enough, things aren't as cheap as they used to be, but things not being as cheap as they once were or as cheap as some might wish them to be is of course one of the regularly voiced reasons for why there is a malaise that afflicts Mallorca's tourism.
Despite the headlining good news, or apparent good news, that comes from the summer's high occupancy rates and high air passenger numbers, there is a refusal to believe the good news, and one reason for not believing it is that tourists don't spend as they did because everything is so expensive, a perception that does really require defining, as being expensive (or cheap) is all relative.
The only thing that needs to be known is that everything did indeed used to be cheaper. Had everything not been cheap, then there would not now be the tourism that Mallorca has. It was tourism founded on low cost, on dirt cheapness. It allowed there to be what there is today.
Looking to the past is instructive in explaining how we get to a position in the present, but the constant reflection on the past gets us only so far. The standard complaints about how Mallorca's tourism model operates today have been with us for years; these complaints being prices, low spend, shorter summer seasons, lack of winter tourism, all-inclusives. Yet somehow the past suggests that they are all relatively new phenomena, when none of them are. The past conjures up some golden age, the vision of which has to be tempered by, among other things, the fact that total tourism was significantly lower. (It should be noted, for example, that between 1993 and 2008 the total number of tourists arriving in Mallorca rose by 85%.)
There are occasions when I feel as though I am winter-tourismed-out, all-inclusived-out, lower-spent-out. Just on all-inclusives, and as an example, over seven years ago (in July 2006), I concluded an article on all-inclusives by saying: "The AI has changed the nature of the market. It is for the market to make an adjustment to it. Ultimately, if the AI and other factors (such as lower spend) cause a fall in demand, then the supply (of out-of-hotel facilities) has to alter. If this means less, then so be it. This is a harsh appraisal, but I think it is a realistic one."
The image of a tourism past keeps getting in the way. It is one in which there were no all-inclusives (and there weren't - not as we know them - until the '90s) and in which everywhere was supposedly packed, but with very many fewer tourists than today. Tourism's present is not like its past and nor will its future be like its past. Though obstacles to remedies are great, there may be remedies to alleviate the absence of current winter tourism, one which, in sheer numbers, has been greater this century than in the mythical golden age. But otherwise tourism present and tourism future has to forget the past and to adapt. The day before I was told about the cost of the little tubs of butter, I spoke with a partner in a tourist business which has had a highly successful summer. The reasons why? Many, but key are marketing, service and listening to the customer and changing accordingly.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Mallorca's Unbelievable Tourism
The following article comes with a disbelief warning.
Why disbelief? The reason is obvious. It is the gulf between the coldness of hard "facts" as they apply to the heat of summer's tourism and wintry perceptions of this very same heat.
The facts. After two years vying with Turkey for top spot in the Mediterranean premier league of tourism numbers, Mallorca has been proclaimed the undisputed champion for 2013. In terms of visitor numbers, of the top ten tourism centres in Spain, Mallorca (and the Balearics) have eight. In July and August hotel occupancy rates reached, respectively, 95% and 92%. Nowhere else in the Mediterranean could match these levels. Expenditure per tourist has grown this summer.
Let's consider these facts. Mallorca used to always be the undisputed champion. Turkey's climb to the top of the league has been affected this year by unrest in the country and concerns about events in its neighbour Syria. (Similar issues have also had an impact on tourism in another competitor country, Egypt.) Claiming the championship once more is a reversion to the previous norm. It is not unusual.
The eight top tourism centres have regularly found their way into Spain's top ten. They are the usual suspects, e.g. Santa Margalida (Can Picafort), Alcúdia and Calvia. The figures recorded for them are, though, percentages of occupancy. Can Picafort, for example, has fewer hotels than Alcúdia and so fewer actual tourists; Santa Margalida has headed August's hotel occupancy percentages for at least the past three years.
The total percentages of occupancy for July and August are impressive and slightly more so than last year when July's occupancy was a record since the turn of the century. They are all the more impressive when you consider the amount of whining from the hoteliers about so-called unfair competition from rented accommodation.
Increased tourist expenditure? Ah yes, it's those old spend statistics again. Please take no notice of these. The statistics are skewed heavily in favour of spend on the holiday itself and not general in-resort spend. There has been a rise in the number of tourists from Scandinavia and Russia this summer, and these tourists spend, on average, around 25% more on the cost of the actual holiday (package primarily) than visitors from the UK. Tourist expenditure stats mean little in real terms. Indeed, various business sectors - restaurants, hire car, for example - are suggesting that there has been a fall of up to 20% in receipts this summer, but there again, how trustworthy this type of data is must also be treated with some scepticism.
But of course there will be plenty of people who will believe what the likes of the restaurant owners are saying as this fits in with their perceptions of how business has been this summer. They may also be able to point to evidence from the till rolls to back it up. There may be no more to go on than perceptions, but these are why there will be disbelief at congratulatory headlines which announce that this summer has been a record summer.
The positive facts as reported above are, with the exception of the increased hotel occupancy rates, either unexceptional (Mallorca is number one, it has eight resorts in Spain's top ten) or not worth considering (spend statistics, which have never been worth considering). Even the occupancy rates can be explained, namely by events elsewhere; they aren't in themselves anything worthy of special congratulation other than that they reflect Mallorca's safety and its capacity.
What they conceal and what highly optimistic forecasts for 2014 conceal are the obsolete nature of parts of resorts and of many hotels. In other words, they conceal a problem of overall quality, one that will take years to rectify. They also conceal the nature of employment. Yes, there will have been more jobs this summer, but these are jobs that are often unstable. In addition, hotels outsource where they can in order to save on costs, and what sort of job stability do contractors offer? If certain business sectors are indeed suffering the falls in revenue they say they are, then what stability do they offer?
Mallorca will remain at the top of the league or thereabouts. This will not change, but is it the case that this long-held leadership is in fact a millstone? The island's capacity allows it to register the numbers of visitors that it does, but the mass of tourism is far from evenly distributed in terms of its actual contribution (locally and not to tour operators). The government and parts of the tourism industry have long been able to make boasts based on numbers, but numbers alone do not add up to a healthy tourism industry. Or to a believable tourism industry.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Why disbelief? The reason is obvious. It is the gulf between the coldness of hard "facts" as they apply to the heat of summer's tourism and wintry perceptions of this very same heat.
The facts. After two years vying with Turkey for top spot in the Mediterranean premier league of tourism numbers, Mallorca has been proclaimed the undisputed champion for 2013. In terms of visitor numbers, of the top ten tourism centres in Spain, Mallorca (and the Balearics) have eight. In July and August hotel occupancy rates reached, respectively, 95% and 92%. Nowhere else in the Mediterranean could match these levels. Expenditure per tourist has grown this summer.
Let's consider these facts. Mallorca used to always be the undisputed champion. Turkey's climb to the top of the league has been affected this year by unrest in the country and concerns about events in its neighbour Syria. (Similar issues have also had an impact on tourism in another competitor country, Egypt.) Claiming the championship once more is a reversion to the previous norm. It is not unusual.
The eight top tourism centres have regularly found their way into Spain's top ten. They are the usual suspects, e.g. Santa Margalida (Can Picafort), Alcúdia and Calvia. The figures recorded for them are, though, percentages of occupancy. Can Picafort, for example, has fewer hotels than Alcúdia and so fewer actual tourists; Santa Margalida has headed August's hotel occupancy percentages for at least the past three years.
The total percentages of occupancy for July and August are impressive and slightly more so than last year when July's occupancy was a record since the turn of the century. They are all the more impressive when you consider the amount of whining from the hoteliers about so-called unfair competition from rented accommodation.
Increased tourist expenditure? Ah yes, it's those old spend statistics again. Please take no notice of these. The statistics are skewed heavily in favour of spend on the holiday itself and not general in-resort spend. There has been a rise in the number of tourists from Scandinavia and Russia this summer, and these tourists spend, on average, around 25% more on the cost of the actual holiday (package primarily) than visitors from the UK. Tourist expenditure stats mean little in real terms. Indeed, various business sectors - restaurants, hire car, for example - are suggesting that there has been a fall of up to 20% in receipts this summer, but there again, how trustworthy this type of data is must also be treated with some scepticism.
But of course there will be plenty of people who will believe what the likes of the restaurant owners are saying as this fits in with their perceptions of how business has been this summer. They may also be able to point to evidence from the till rolls to back it up. There may be no more to go on than perceptions, but these are why there will be disbelief at congratulatory headlines which announce that this summer has been a record summer.
The positive facts as reported above are, with the exception of the increased hotel occupancy rates, either unexceptional (Mallorca is number one, it has eight resorts in Spain's top ten) or not worth considering (spend statistics, which have never been worth considering). Even the occupancy rates can be explained, namely by events elsewhere; they aren't in themselves anything worthy of special congratulation other than that they reflect Mallorca's safety and its capacity.
What they conceal and what highly optimistic forecasts for 2014 conceal are the obsolete nature of parts of resorts and of many hotels. In other words, they conceal a problem of overall quality, one that will take years to rectify. They also conceal the nature of employment. Yes, there will have been more jobs this summer, but these are jobs that are often unstable. In addition, hotels outsource where they can in order to save on costs, and what sort of job stability do contractors offer? If certain business sectors are indeed suffering the falls in revenue they say they are, then what stability do they offer?
Mallorca will remain at the top of the league or thereabouts. This will not change, but is it the case that this long-held leadership is in fact a millstone? The island's capacity allows it to register the numbers of visitors that it does, but the mass of tourism is far from evenly distributed in terms of its actual contribution (locally and not to tour operators). The government and parts of the tourism industry have long been able to make boasts based on numbers, but numbers alone do not add up to a healthy tourism industry. Or to a believable tourism industry.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, July 12, 2013
The Myth Of The Record Tourism Season
How very odd. One moment we are told this will be a record tourism season and the next moment we are told that it will not be. Last month, the word was that hotel occupancy for July and August was 80%, a rate with which the hoteliers were happy, as they could anticipate last-minute sales boosting the rate to over the 90% mark, which will almost certainly happen. But, or so it would appear, this last-minute business requires lowering prices.
It would indeed be odd were this not to turn out to be a record season, given events in Egypt and Turkey and the fact that certain destinations, notably Croatia, do not have the volume of hotel places to meet demand that Mallorca has. It would also be odd, as June had indicated that Mallorca was indeed heading for a record season, as demonstrated by a record number of passengers having used Palma airport - slightly under three million and an increase of 1.3% over last year.
There will of course be an explanation for the apparent discrepancy between increased passenger numbers and under-occupancy, and it will be the provision of illegal private tourist accommodation. The hoteliers will make much of this, as they always do, because it is part of their usual propaganda.
Record or not record. High occupancy rates or not so high occupancy rates. What do we believe? As for lowering prices, it is not uncommon for there to be special offers for last-minute bookings, but who drives these offers? Is it the hotels or is it the tour operators? The latter have planes they need to fill as much as they have hotels. They will do what they have to do in order to ensure decent returns on all aspects of their holiday offer.
Occupancy rates, assuming they do go over the 90% mark, which they surely will do, are in fact good occupancy rates. At no time this century has there been 100% occupancy; 100% across the whole of Mallorca, that is. It just doesn't happen. July's occupancy last year, which went well over the 90% mark, was a record for this century.
When a travel source is quoted as saying that "if Mallorca is not full in July, then we can forget a record season", this travel source is echoing the hysterical claim made by the hoteliers last year, that Mallorca not being full was evidence of a "broken economy". There is no such thing as Mallorca being full. Travel sources and hoteliers should look at the historical data.
There is with average percentages of occupancy a great difference between resorts and even within resorts. There are and will be hotels that are full. There are hotels which have been full for several weeks and there will be those which are full for most of the season. Some may have made special offers, some may have not, but the special offer is not evidence of a non-record season; it is common practice.
There has to be some caution when one is confronted with any of the "record" or non-record talk. It is never as straightforward as it is made out to be. But while such talk can disguise certain realities, there is one issue on which there is general agreement, and that is tourist spend. When hoteliers complain that their guests are not spending, they are often right to complain.
I accept that one anecdotal example is far from sufficient, but let me give the example anyway. A hotel I know is full and has been full for several weeks. The other evening its entertainment room was packed. However, bar sales (this is not an all-inclusive) were poor. Among the people in the room was one particular group. They stayed for the whole evening's entertainment without buying a single drink.
Tourism spend, or the lack of it, is becoming an increasingly serious matter. What does a hotel do? One option is to press to become all-inclusive. This does at least give it certain guarantees. But in so doing, it makes worse the general situation caused by all-inclusives and lower spend. Another option, one for three-star hotels, is to upgrade in the hope of attracting a wealthier clientele. But let's say that most or all Mallorca's hotels suddenly became four or five-star. What then? Could they sell all their places? No they couldn't.
Talk of record seasons or not record seasons is largely irrelevant. It is predicated on occupancy rates which disguise various factors that make such talk irrelevant. There is no such thing as a record season. Just as there is no such thing as 100% occupancy.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
It would indeed be odd were this not to turn out to be a record season, given events in Egypt and Turkey and the fact that certain destinations, notably Croatia, do not have the volume of hotel places to meet demand that Mallorca has. It would also be odd, as June had indicated that Mallorca was indeed heading for a record season, as demonstrated by a record number of passengers having used Palma airport - slightly under three million and an increase of 1.3% over last year.
There will of course be an explanation for the apparent discrepancy between increased passenger numbers and under-occupancy, and it will be the provision of illegal private tourist accommodation. The hoteliers will make much of this, as they always do, because it is part of their usual propaganda.
Record or not record. High occupancy rates or not so high occupancy rates. What do we believe? As for lowering prices, it is not uncommon for there to be special offers for last-minute bookings, but who drives these offers? Is it the hotels or is it the tour operators? The latter have planes they need to fill as much as they have hotels. They will do what they have to do in order to ensure decent returns on all aspects of their holiday offer.
Occupancy rates, assuming they do go over the 90% mark, which they surely will do, are in fact good occupancy rates. At no time this century has there been 100% occupancy; 100% across the whole of Mallorca, that is. It just doesn't happen. July's occupancy last year, which went well over the 90% mark, was a record for this century.
When a travel source is quoted as saying that "if Mallorca is not full in July, then we can forget a record season", this travel source is echoing the hysterical claim made by the hoteliers last year, that Mallorca not being full was evidence of a "broken economy". There is no such thing as Mallorca being full. Travel sources and hoteliers should look at the historical data.
There is with average percentages of occupancy a great difference between resorts and even within resorts. There are and will be hotels that are full. There are hotels which have been full for several weeks and there will be those which are full for most of the season. Some may have made special offers, some may have not, but the special offer is not evidence of a non-record season; it is common practice.
There has to be some caution when one is confronted with any of the "record" or non-record talk. It is never as straightforward as it is made out to be. But while such talk can disguise certain realities, there is one issue on which there is general agreement, and that is tourist spend. When hoteliers complain that their guests are not spending, they are often right to complain.
I accept that one anecdotal example is far from sufficient, but let me give the example anyway. A hotel I know is full and has been full for several weeks. The other evening its entertainment room was packed. However, bar sales (this is not an all-inclusive) were poor. Among the people in the room was one particular group. They stayed for the whole evening's entertainment without buying a single drink.
Tourism spend, or the lack of it, is becoming an increasingly serious matter. What does a hotel do? One option is to press to become all-inclusive. This does at least give it certain guarantees. But in so doing, it makes worse the general situation caused by all-inclusives and lower spend. Another option, one for three-star hotels, is to upgrade in the hope of attracting a wealthier clientele. But let's say that most or all Mallorca's hotels suddenly became four or five-star. What then? Could they sell all their places? No they couldn't.
Talk of record seasons or not record seasons is largely irrelevant. It is predicated on occupancy rates which disguise various factors that make such talk irrelevant. There is no such thing as a record season. Just as there is no such thing as 100% occupancy.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, May 04, 2013
Why Low And Cost Are Not Dirty Words
Low cost is a dirty word in Mallorca. Two dirty words. Dirty because it implies cheap. And cheap is something Mallorca would rather not have. Cheap tourists.
Does anyone recall the former president of the Majorca Tourist Board placing the blame on low-cost airlines for the low-cost tourists coming from Britain? This was one example of the dirtiness of the low-cost word or term. He might not have meant it in quite the way it came out or was reported, but come out it did. Fan met brown stuff, albeit for a short time while those who recoiling in horror at being categorised as low cost asserted their high net worth.
Low cost is misunderstood. It is certainly misunderstood where airlines are concerned. Low cost may mean low-cost air tickets, but they can mean regular users of such tickets. Place a price incentive in front of someone, even someone with a bulging wallet and some platinum credit cards, and he or she will snap it up. Over and over again in the case of business travellers. Or only now and then in the case of others. The low cost matters as a means of transporting people. It doesn't follow that, once they have been transported, they display cheap tendencies. Quite the opposite can be the case. What you save on the swings through the air, you gain on the roundabouts of the destination terraces. You save, you gain. And they gain; they being businesses, such as Mallorca's restaurants.
There is an obvious problem with anything that is marketed as or named low cost. Well, two problems. One is that it might not meet with the aspirational style of the traveller. If so, that's the traveller's problem. Go high cost, if it bolsters your self-esteem. The other is that it is automatically seen as equating to cheap, which was just the mistake the ex-president of the tourist board made.
Mallorca has a good deal which is low cost. Some of it is cheap, in the sense that it brings with it a visitor class that does not have high disposable income. Is this wrong? Some would argue that it is. But wasn't tourism after the Second World War predicated on a belief that travel, and foreign travel in particular, didn't have to be for an elite? There is a potentially moral issue with the low-net-worth traveller, one of his exploiting Mallorca's resources and giving little or nothing back in return. But the other moral issue is whether a form of apartheid should exist, one that bars tourists simply on socioeconomic grounds or through some form of means testing.
Other examples of low cost in Mallorca are businesses which trade on the concept of low cost. You can't get much more obvious than Lowcostholidays. Now in a third year of a joint venture with EasyJet, the original low-cost provider for the contemporary travel market, its low cost is such that it has a major call and customer service centre in Palma. It was moved from India. And why was it moved? Because it was lower cost? I don't think so. It was moved in order to give improved service, and it is employing people in ever-increasing numbers. Moreover, its name doesn't have to mean cheap. In fact, it doesn't, when you consider that five-star accommodation can be booked. Ideally, its name would be Goodpriceholidays.
Then there is the accommodation which isn't five star. That which is well down the accommodation food chain, such as the hostels. These may be low cost, but it doesn't mean they are low standard. There is a trend towards quality improvement in hostels, and they are attracting more than a traditional backpacker, youth market. They are attracting families. And why shouldn't they? And why should there be any resistance to there being ever more hostels or lower-cost accommodation? Again, it simply doesn't follow that, because people opt for cheaper bedrooms, they don't have value. They most certainly do. And the more they save on accommodation, the more they have to spend.
Mallorca has got itself stuck into a way of thinking which sees four and five star as the ideal and everything else as catering for the idle classes with nary a euro to their name. And it suits parts of the island's tourism industry for such a mentality to prevail - the hoteliers. They may also offer lower-star accommodation but now they are gearing up to a minimum of four star in the belief that they will reap riches. They probably will. And they will gate their guests ever more behind walls of all-inclusivity. The hoteliers care little, or appear to care little, of what goes on beyond those walls. They did once. But not now.
Low cost may have become a pejorative. It may have become a catch-all for implying cheapness, but this is certainly not how it has to be or how it is. Affordable accommodation means spend elsewhere, but there are those in Mallorca's tourism industry who would rather that spend was not made elsewhere.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Does anyone recall the former president of the Majorca Tourist Board placing the blame on low-cost airlines for the low-cost tourists coming from Britain? This was one example of the dirtiness of the low-cost word or term. He might not have meant it in quite the way it came out or was reported, but come out it did. Fan met brown stuff, albeit for a short time while those who recoiling in horror at being categorised as low cost asserted their high net worth.
Low cost is misunderstood. It is certainly misunderstood where airlines are concerned. Low cost may mean low-cost air tickets, but they can mean regular users of such tickets. Place a price incentive in front of someone, even someone with a bulging wallet and some platinum credit cards, and he or she will snap it up. Over and over again in the case of business travellers. Or only now and then in the case of others. The low cost matters as a means of transporting people. It doesn't follow that, once they have been transported, they display cheap tendencies. Quite the opposite can be the case. What you save on the swings through the air, you gain on the roundabouts of the destination terraces. You save, you gain. And they gain; they being businesses, such as Mallorca's restaurants.
There is an obvious problem with anything that is marketed as or named low cost. Well, two problems. One is that it might not meet with the aspirational style of the traveller. If so, that's the traveller's problem. Go high cost, if it bolsters your self-esteem. The other is that it is automatically seen as equating to cheap, which was just the mistake the ex-president of the tourist board made.
Mallorca has a good deal which is low cost. Some of it is cheap, in the sense that it brings with it a visitor class that does not have high disposable income. Is this wrong? Some would argue that it is. But wasn't tourism after the Second World War predicated on a belief that travel, and foreign travel in particular, didn't have to be for an elite? There is a potentially moral issue with the low-net-worth traveller, one of his exploiting Mallorca's resources and giving little or nothing back in return. But the other moral issue is whether a form of apartheid should exist, one that bars tourists simply on socioeconomic grounds or through some form of means testing.
Other examples of low cost in Mallorca are businesses which trade on the concept of low cost. You can't get much more obvious than Lowcostholidays. Now in a third year of a joint venture with EasyJet, the original low-cost provider for the contemporary travel market, its low cost is such that it has a major call and customer service centre in Palma. It was moved from India. And why was it moved? Because it was lower cost? I don't think so. It was moved in order to give improved service, and it is employing people in ever-increasing numbers. Moreover, its name doesn't have to mean cheap. In fact, it doesn't, when you consider that five-star accommodation can be booked. Ideally, its name would be Goodpriceholidays.
Then there is the accommodation which isn't five star. That which is well down the accommodation food chain, such as the hostels. These may be low cost, but it doesn't mean they are low standard. There is a trend towards quality improvement in hostels, and they are attracting more than a traditional backpacker, youth market. They are attracting families. And why shouldn't they? And why should there be any resistance to there being ever more hostels or lower-cost accommodation? Again, it simply doesn't follow that, because people opt for cheaper bedrooms, they don't have value. They most certainly do. And the more they save on accommodation, the more they have to spend.
Mallorca has got itself stuck into a way of thinking which sees four and five star as the ideal and everything else as catering for the idle classes with nary a euro to their name. And it suits parts of the island's tourism industry for such a mentality to prevail - the hoteliers. They may also offer lower-star accommodation but now they are gearing up to a minimum of four star in the belief that they will reap riches. They probably will. And they will gate their guests ever more behind walls of all-inclusivity. The hoteliers care little, or appear to care little, of what goes on beyond those walls. They did once. But not now.
Low cost may have become a pejorative. It may have become a catch-all for implying cheapness, but this is certainly not how it has to be or how it is. Affordable accommodation means spend elsewhere, but there are those in Mallorca's tourism industry who would rather that spend was not made elsewhere.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
You Pays Your Money: Tourism prospects
You pays your money, you takes your choice. Or you pays rather less of your money than previously and you takes less of a choice. Or you pays less of your money, you takes a similar choice but you takes one that involves you paying less. Whatever.
Much though no one much believes tourism spend statistics, and they have good reason not to, given the way in which the data for the statistics are gathered and to what they relate, you can't accuse the statisticians of seeking to cook the books and wishing to issue feelgood stats regardless of realities, though some people have in the past been inclined to accuse them of just this, when these tourism spend statistics have revealed a scenario that appeared to bear little relation to what was in fact happening on the street or on the terrace.
Tourism spend in the Balearics was down by 8.6% in April (compared with April 2011). Oh woe. However, demonstrating that comparing one month per year with the same month in a previous year can be like comparing chalk with cheese, in April last year the spend rocketed by comparison with 2010. Why? There was no ash cloud last April and the Arab spring had fully sprung. For the first four months of this year, or so says the Egatur survey (which is the one that deals with these tourism spend stats), spend is actually up on last year. Oh joy.
I think I have in the past promised to never quote these spend statistics ever again, given that they only partially deal with what is spent on the ground by tourists (a goodly proportion relates to costs of packages etc.). I am only breaking my promise and doing so now as a means of highlighting what is a confused picture of expectations for this summer. We have already been variously told that 2012 would be a "record" year, outstripping last year's record, then we were told that it might not be a record year because the Brits were all planning on taking a staycation, then we were told ... . Sorry, I have rather lost track of what we have been told.
A survey which came out last week, that by the Mallorcan research organisation Gadeso, suggested that this summer would be pretty much the same as last year and that there was in fact a rise in business optimism. Then the hoteliers went and spoiled things by issuing their own findings in hinting that occupancy figures weren't as strong as had been anticipated.
What does seem to be the case, insofar as one can draw anything like firm conclusions, is that the domestic Spanish market is dragging things down and so is the Brit market. Prospects for the summer suggest that the volume of domestic tourists coming to the Balearics will be down by 20%, while the Brits will show a decline of just over 5%, this coming on top of an appreciable fall in the first four months of 2012.
Neither is particularly surprising, the domestic market especially. Yet countering this gloomy outlook, there are - as ever - the good old Germans to keep things bobbing along reasonably well, but far more spectacularly there are the Russians and the Scandinavians who are both knocking in increases of 30% more tourists. The Italians are also looking good, as are the Dutch and the Swiss, while events elsewhere may yet lead to the usual last-minute rush; there is overbooking in Turkey and Tunisia, while there are continuing worries about unrest in Egypt and now also in Greece.
If you put all the other markets together, they do tend to compensate for losses elsewhere, though whether they are sufficient to fully compensate is another matter. The Spanish and British markets are two of the top three tourism markets by some fair old distance. Russian tourism up by 30% sounds good, but it is an increase from a comparatively low base, and while this 30% may well come laden with gold (most of it around their wrists or necks), it tends to end up in better quality all-inclusives. This accommodation will, because of the way in which the tourism spend stats are made up, help to probably show an increase in spend, but this is one reason why these statistics paint a false picture.
So, will 2012 be a better year than 2011, about the same or slightly down? Well, don't ask me, because I don't know. And nor does anyone else. It could be one thing, it could be another. You pays your money.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Much though no one much believes tourism spend statistics, and they have good reason not to, given the way in which the data for the statistics are gathered and to what they relate, you can't accuse the statisticians of seeking to cook the books and wishing to issue feelgood stats regardless of realities, though some people have in the past been inclined to accuse them of just this, when these tourism spend statistics have revealed a scenario that appeared to bear little relation to what was in fact happening on the street or on the terrace.
Tourism spend in the Balearics was down by 8.6% in April (compared with April 2011). Oh woe. However, demonstrating that comparing one month per year with the same month in a previous year can be like comparing chalk with cheese, in April last year the spend rocketed by comparison with 2010. Why? There was no ash cloud last April and the Arab spring had fully sprung. For the first four months of this year, or so says the Egatur survey (which is the one that deals with these tourism spend stats), spend is actually up on last year. Oh joy.
I think I have in the past promised to never quote these spend statistics ever again, given that they only partially deal with what is spent on the ground by tourists (a goodly proportion relates to costs of packages etc.). I am only breaking my promise and doing so now as a means of highlighting what is a confused picture of expectations for this summer. We have already been variously told that 2012 would be a "record" year, outstripping last year's record, then we were told that it might not be a record year because the Brits were all planning on taking a staycation, then we were told ... . Sorry, I have rather lost track of what we have been told.
A survey which came out last week, that by the Mallorcan research organisation Gadeso, suggested that this summer would be pretty much the same as last year and that there was in fact a rise in business optimism. Then the hoteliers went and spoiled things by issuing their own findings in hinting that occupancy figures weren't as strong as had been anticipated.
What does seem to be the case, insofar as one can draw anything like firm conclusions, is that the domestic Spanish market is dragging things down and so is the Brit market. Prospects for the summer suggest that the volume of domestic tourists coming to the Balearics will be down by 20%, while the Brits will show a decline of just over 5%, this coming on top of an appreciable fall in the first four months of 2012.
Neither is particularly surprising, the domestic market especially. Yet countering this gloomy outlook, there are - as ever - the good old Germans to keep things bobbing along reasonably well, but far more spectacularly there are the Russians and the Scandinavians who are both knocking in increases of 30% more tourists. The Italians are also looking good, as are the Dutch and the Swiss, while events elsewhere may yet lead to the usual last-minute rush; there is overbooking in Turkey and Tunisia, while there are continuing worries about unrest in Egypt and now also in Greece.
If you put all the other markets together, they do tend to compensate for losses elsewhere, though whether they are sufficient to fully compensate is another matter. The Spanish and British markets are two of the top three tourism markets by some fair old distance. Russian tourism up by 30% sounds good, but it is an increase from a comparatively low base, and while this 30% may well come laden with gold (most of it around their wrists or necks), it tends to end up in better quality all-inclusives. This accommodation will, because of the way in which the tourism spend stats are made up, help to probably show an increase in spend, but this is one reason why these statistics paint a false picture.
So, will 2012 be a better year than 2011, about the same or slightly down? Well, don't ask me, because I don't know. And nor does anyone else. It could be one thing, it could be another. You pays your money.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Taxing The Tourist
Might the Balearics revive the eco-tax or create some similar tourist tax? The government has hitherto discounted the notion, but it may well be looking across the sea to the mainland and to Catalonia where a tax is to be introduced in 2012.
The Catalonian tax envisages payments for a maximum of ten nights of a stay, and it will apply to hotels, apartments, cruise ships, camping areas and rural properties - pretty much everything, in other words. Five-star hotels will attract a rate of three euros a night, four-stars two euros a night and the rest one euro. Children under 12 will be exempt. It is estimated that the tax will raise in the region of 100 million euros and the money will be used primarily for tourism promotion.
The Balearics eco-tax was introduced in 2003 by the then socialist government of President Antich and was abandoned a year later by the Partido Popular administration. The tax attracted significant amounts of bad publicity and warnings of the harm it would cause to the local tourism industry. It was unpopular because it was unilateral, i.e. other regions of Spain didn't have such a tax.
For all that the tax was not well thought-out (it was essentially discriminatory in that the hotels were the channel of collection), the principle behind it had merit. In purely moral terms, it is not unreasonable, for example, to expect tourists to contribute to the provision of resources and services, while the application of a tourism tax is a well-enough established practice in different parts of the world.
A counter argument against the tax was that tourists already contributed, albeit indirectly, through their spend that supported local businesses which in turn paid taxes. This was also reasonable and, especially among tourist "veterans" who had been coming to Mallorca for years, there was some resentment at being asked to pay when they had been contributing for so long.
Since 2003 though, one thing has changed and that is the increase in all-inclusives. It might seem unfair to penalise tourists who don't stay in an all-inclusive, but the level of spend in resorts with high concentrations of all-inclusive has unquestionably been affected, with the result that the contribution to the local economy has gone down.
Another thing that has changed is that competition from other destinations has become steadily more intense. A concern that a local tax in 2003 might have put the Balearics at a disadvantage with other parts of Spain would now be one of worries about boosting tourism to other countries. However, and as events have shown, this competition can come with a caveat, one of potential disruption.
The competition argument isn't the strongest, and it isn't one that seems to bother the Catalonian government. Instead, faced with a budget cut to tourism of one-third in 2012, it is looking to the tax to enable it to strengthen its marketing clout in beating off the competition.
A problem for Catalonia, however, is that a tax, were it widely known to be earmarked for promotion, would not necessarily play well with tourists. It would be reasonable for visitors to believe that this was something that they should not have to pay for. Though the Balearics eco-tax was mishandled, if the PR were done effectively, tourists would be more likely to accept paying for the environment or for good works. Promotion, a matter very much for a regional government and its tourism industry and it alone, is different.
More than all this though, there is an issue with the drip-drip effect of added costs to the tourist. To a local tax can be added charges such as those imposed by the British and German governments on air travel. The cumulative effect of the drip-drip would not mean tourists opting for a competitor destination (especially as air duties are universal and indeed higher for longer distances), but it would most likely eat more into the spend once at the destination. On the basis of what Catalonia intends to introduce, a family of four with two teenagers at a three-star hotel would pay 40 euros more. This might not seem a lot, but cumulatively, for the tourism population as a whole, it may well result in spend decreasing even more. What is gained through a direct contribution would be lost from an indirect contribution.
On balance, however, the Balearic Government might be advised to re-visit the concept of a tourism tax, if only on moral grounds.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The Catalonian tax envisages payments for a maximum of ten nights of a stay, and it will apply to hotels, apartments, cruise ships, camping areas and rural properties - pretty much everything, in other words. Five-star hotels will attract a rate of three euros a night, four-stars two euros a night and the rest one euro. Children under 12 will be exempt. It is estimated that the tax will raise in the region of 100 million euros and the money will be used primarily for tourism promotion.
The Balearics eco-tax was introduced in 2003 by the then socialist government of President Antich and was abandoned a year later by the Partido Popular administration. The tax attracted significant amounts of bad publicity and warnings of the harm it would cause to the local tourism industry. It was unpopular because it was unilateral, i.e. other regions of Spain didn't have such a tax.
For all that the tax was not well thought-out (it was essentially discriminatory in that the hotels were the channel of collection), the principle behind it had merit. In purely moral terms, it is not unreasonable, for example, to expect tourists to contribute to the provision of resources and services, while the application of a tourism tax is a well-enough established practice in different parts of the world.
A counter argument against the tax was that tourists already contributed, albeit indirectly, through their spend that supported local businesses which in turn paid taxes. This was also reasonable and, especially among tourist "veterans" who had been coming to Mallorca for years, there was some resentment at being asked to pay when they had been contributing for so long.
Since 2003 though, one thing has changed and that is the increase in all-inclusives. It might seem unfair to penalise tourists who don't stay in an all-inclusive, but the level of spend in resorts with high concentrations of all-inclusive has unquestionably been affected, with the result that the contribution to the local economy has gone down.
Another thing that has changed is that competition from other destinations has become steadily more intense. A concern that a local tax in 2003 might have put the Balearics at a disadvantage with other parts of Spain would now be one of worries about boosting tourism to other countries. However, and as events have shown, this competition can come with a caveat, one of potential disruption.
The competition argument isn't the strongest, and it isn't one that seems to bother the Catalonian government. Instead, faced with a budget cut to tourism of one-third in 2012, it is looking to the tax to enable it to strengthen its marketing clout in beating off the competition.
A problem for Catalonia, however, is that a tax, were it widely known to be earmarked for promotion, would not necessarily play well with tourists. It would be reasonable for visitors to believe that this was something that they should not have to pay for. Though the Balearics eco-tax was mishandled, if the PR were done effectively, tourists would be more likely to accept paying for the environment or for good works. Promotion, a matter very much for a regional government and its tourism industry and it alone, is different.
More than all this though, there is an issue with the drip-drip effect of added costs to the tourist. To a local tax can be added charges such as those imposed by the British and German governments on air travel. The cumulative effect of the drip-drip would not mean tourists opting for a competitor destination (especially as air duties are universal and indeed higher for longer distances), but it would most likely eat more into the spend once at the destination. On the basis of what Catalonia intends to introduce, a family of four with two teenagers at a three-star hotel would pay 40 euros more. This might not seem a lot, but cumulatively, for the tourism population as a whole, it may well result in spend decreasing even more. What is gained through a direct contribution would be lost from an indirect contribution.
On balance, however, the Balearic Government might be advised to re-visit the concept of a tourism tax, if only on moral grounds.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Of No Value: Tourism that doesn't count
If you were a business chief executive and you sanctioned the payment of a "lagola" to an MBA-toting consultant, you might find yourself on gardening leave and to later be in receipt of your own lagola as compensation for your profligacy. A lagola, incidentally, is a pejorative term for eight hundred thousand euros or so (La Gola, the cost of converting a stagnant wetland and vandalised scrubland into a stagnant wetland and vandalised scrubland with a car park, OED).
You might remain in your post were it not for the fact that the consultant had cut and paste research from the internet dating back twenty years to comply with his commission - namely a cost-benefit analysis of your least valuable customers. The saving grace might be what he had discovered, assuming you had taken any notice.
I've made this up. There is no chief executive and there is no consultant. But there is a tourism minister (in fact there have been any number just recently) and any number of advisors and organisations. The tourism minister is probably only on a tenth-lagola, if that, but if she is worth the money then she might do her own bit of cutting and pasting.
In 1990 a researcher at Palma university published a paper on income from tourism. In it he showed, via cost-benefit analysis, that ten per cent of tourists spent very little, so little that they caused a "negative addition to the net social benefit of tourist activity". In other words, it cost the Balearics more to have them on the islands than was taken as a benefit.
This was twenty years ago, in the days before all-inclusives. Ten years later, the same researcher published another document in which he and a colleague pointed out that "the average expenditure per tourist ... diminished in the '80s and the beginning of the '90s". The worries about tourism spend are nothing new; they've been around for a generation or more.
In 2006 other researchers at the university presented a paper which examined the impact of all-inclusives. They revealed that over a three-year period from 2002 to 2004, the percentage of tourists opting for all-inclusive had risen from 9.58% to 16.32%. They also showed the average spend of tourists in different types of accommodation in 2004, figures taken from the same research organisation which recently released numbers showing an increase in tourism spend in July this year. This, in terms of euros per day, was 23.20, over a third less than that of the next lowest-spending group (those on half board) and under a half of the highest-spending sectors - those purchasing transport only to the islands and those opting for bed and breakfast.
We've moved on since then. Given the increase in all-inclusives, especially those at the economy end of the market, and also given a highly conservative estimation of a 0.5 percentage point increase year on year, 20% of tourists are now of no value. It's almost certainly higher. The increase in all-inclusive since 2004 has been marked. No one is exactly sure because of the numbers who upgrade to all-inclusive on arrival, but it is at least double.
You come back to that chief executive, for which read the tourism minister. It is her responsibility, as with a CEO, to form strategy. To be fair, there has been a lot of talk about tourism strategy over the years, which is part of the problem. Much of it has been talk only. We are no nearer a strategy than we have ever been. If that 10% is indeed now 20% or higher, then why bother with them? Design a strategy that excludes them.
There are reasons why not. One is a form of altruism. Just as higher education has been deemed a "right", then so also is a holiday, a foreign holiday, a right, in the sense that a right equates to being a necessity, which is how the foreign holiday is now defined. Low income should not debar people from taking a holiday; of course it shouldn't. But how far can any destination or country be expected to take this notion of social responsibility when the generosity is not being reciprocated? Come to our island, use our resources, and spend nothing. Ingrates.
The other reasons revolve around the same numbers game as that which gives rise to the tourism spend statistics - the volume of tourists and, in particular, the volume of tourists passing through the airport in Palma. Cut that 20% out and the total numbers would slip under the nine million mark (those coming to Mallorca on an annual basis). Psychologically and politically, it would be hard to accept. The airport needs as many passengers as possible: a) to justify the costs of its development and expansion and b) in order to meet traffic numbers that will guarantee that local politicians can get their hands on managing the airport. Then there are the strategies of others - airlines and tour operators, neither of which are unduly concerned so long as they stay profitable.
You can't arrive at a sensible strategy when you have competing needs. But that research needs to be revisited and revised. If it means a slimmed-down tourism market, then so be it, so long as the rump market does make a positive rather than a negative contribution. The problem, as ever, is what the all-inclusives will bring. You can spend all the lagolas you like, but if no one bothers to even go take a look, then what's the point.
Eugeni Aguiló Perez, "An Estimation Of the Social Income of Tourism", Papers of the Spanish Economy, 1990.
Catalina Juaneda Sampol and Eugeni Aguiló Perez, "Tourist Expenditure Determinants in a Cross-Section Data Model", Annals of Tourism Research, Vol 27, No 3, 2000.
Joaquín Alegre and Llorenç Pou, "The All-Inclusive Tourism Package: An analysis of its economic implications in the case of the Balearic Islands", University of the Balearic Islands, March 2006.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
You might remain in your post were it not for the fact that the consultant had cut and paste research from the internet dating back twenty years to comply with his commission - namely a cost-benefit analysis of your least valuable customers. The saving grace might be what he had discovered, assuming you had taken any notice.
I've made this up. There is no chief executive and there is no consultant. But there is a tourism minister (in fact there have been any number just recently) and any number of advisors and organisations. The tourism minister is probably only on a tenth-lagola, if that, but if she is worth the money then she might do her own bit of cutting and pasting.
In 1990 a researcher at Palma university published a paper on income from tourism. In it he showed, via cost-benefit analysis, that ten per cent of tourists spent very little, so little that they caused a "negative addition to the net social benefit of tourist activity". In other words, it cost the Balearics more to have them on the islands than was taken as a benefit.
This was twenty years ago, in the days before all-inclusives. Ten years later, the same researcher published another document in which he and a colleague pointed out that "the average expenditure per tourist ... diminished in the '80s and the beginning of the '90s". The worries about tourism spend are nothing new; they've been around for a generation or more.
In 2006 other researchers at the university presented a paper which examined the impact of all-inclusives. They revealed that over a three-year period from 2002 to 2004, the percentage of tourists opting for all-inclusive had risen from 9.58% to 16.32%. They also showed the average spend of tourists in different types of accommodation in 2004, figures taken from the same research organisation which recently released numbers showing an increase in tourism spend in July this year. This, in terms of euros per day, was 23.20, over a third less than that of the next lowest-spending group (those on half board) and under a half of the highest-spending sectors - those purchasing transport only to the islands and those opting for bed and breakfast.
We've moved on since then. Given the increase in all-inclusives, especially those at the economy end of the market, and also given a highly conservative estimation of a 0.5 percentage point increase year on year, 20% of tourists are now of no value. It's almost certainly higher. The increase in all-inclusive since 2004 has been marked. No one is exactly sure because of the numbers who upgrade to all-inclusive on arrival, but it is at least double.
You come back to that chief executive, for which read the tourism minister. It is her responsibility, as with a CEO, to form strategy. To be fair, there has been a lot of talk about tourism strategy over the years, which is part of the problem. Much of it has been talk only. We are no nearer a strategy than we have ever been. If that 10% is indeed now 20% or higher, then why bother with them? Design a strategy that excludes them.
There are reasons why not. One is a form of altruism. Just as higher education has been deemed a "right", then so also is a holiday, a foreign holiday, a right, in the sense that a right equates to being a necessity, which is how the foreign holiday is now defined. Low income should not debar people from taking a holiday; of course it shouldn't. But how far can any destination or country be expected to take this notion of social responsibility when the generosity is not being reciprocated? Come to our island, use our resources, and spend nothing. Ingrates.
The other reasons revolve around the same numbers game as that which gives rise to the tourism spend statistics - the volume of tourists and, in particular, the volume of tourists passing through the airport in Palma. Cut that 20% out and the total numbers would slip under the nine million mark (those coming to Mallorca on an annual basis). Psychologically and politically, it would be hard to accept. The airport needs as many passengers as possible: a) to justify the costs of its development and expansion and b) in order to meet traffic numbers that will guarantee that local politicians can get their hands on managing the airport. Then there are the strategies of others - airlines and tour operators, neither of which are unduly concerned so long as they stay profitable.
You can't arrive at a sensible strategy when you have competing needs. But that research needs to be revisited and revised. If it means a slimmed-down tourism market, then so be it, so long as the rump market does make a positive rather than a negative contribution. The problem, as ever, is what the all-inclusives will bring. You can spend all the lagolas you like, but if no one bothers to even go take a look, then what's the point.
Eugeni Aguiló Perez, "An Estimation Of the Social Income of Tourism", Papers of the Spanish Economy, 1990.
Catalina Juaneda Sampol and Eugeni Aguiló Perez, "Tourist Expenditure Determinants in a Cross-Section Data Model", Annals of Tourism Research, Vol 27, No 3, 2000.
Joaquín Alegre and Llorenç Pou, "The All-Inclusive Tourism Package: An analysis of its economic implications in the case of the Balearic Islands", University of the Balearic Islands, March 2006.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, March 05, 2010
We Can't Go On This Way: Sustainable tourism in Mallorca
Any idea who Ivan Murray is? Probably not. So I shall tell you. His grandmother was Canadian of Scottish origin, he lives in Port Soller and is an academic at the university in Palma, whose specialism is the sustainability of tourism in the Balearics. What he has to say is important.
In yesterday's "Diario" there was a report into findings of a study led by Dr. Murray into different facets of tourism in Mallorca (and the Balearics). Perhaps the most revealing was that in order to realise a million euros worth of tourist expenditure, the number of tourists necessary to meet this target increased by almost 500 over the period from 2003 to 2008. The 2008 figure is 1906 tourists to make the million mark, a percentage rise of 35%. Over a third more. In six years, six years before the crisis took hold.
Ok, so what, you might ask. Just another set of statistics. True. But unlike the figures which get bandied about by the regional government, and which many tend not to believe, Murray's findings are, one would hope, independent. In an interview with the Diario's Matías Vallés a couple of years ago, Vallés suggested that Murray might just be a bit of a moaning leftie. By implication, this suggests he may have an agenda. Possibly, but academic rigour, and the demands placed on academics to support their research, might negate any hint of political bias. One should take Murray's findings for what they are, because they are significant.
While government figures always seem to indicate an increase in tourist spend, Murray refutes these. There has been a year-on-year decline if you take the annual growth in the numbers necessary to meet the target of a million euros (the figure did actually drop, however, from 2007 to 2008). Moreover, the findings beg some questions, most obviously why are that many more tourists needed to reach the spending level and what does this mean for pressure on resources. No answer is given in the paper's article to the first of these, but one might begin to hazard a guess or two. Let me make one such - the rise of all-inclusives, possibly?
Murray points out that despite the reliance on tourism to sustain the Balearic economy, there is a loss in efficiency, by which he means that increasing numbers of tourists are needed just to stand still, while these increasing numbers place ever more stress on the ability to cope with them. Consider this. In 2008 the highest recorded total population of the islands (that's everyone, tourists included) occurred between 10 and 12 August. The number was 1,930,000, or 1.8 times the actual normal population. And this is a figure spread out across the whole of the Balearics. Consider Alcúdia. If one takes its resident population to be 16,000 (and one does tend to get different figures), its population at the height of summer is - a guesstimate - about 45-50,000 (there are some 26,000 hotel places in Alcúdia to which one can add other types of accommodation and the temporary workforce). Around three times the normal population in other words.
In the earlier interview, Murray was asked what would be the ideal tourism population of the islands. He didn't really answer this, but did say that twelve million tourists (roughly accurate in terms of total annual tourists) is "an aberration without comparison in the whole world".
It is often in the nature of academia to raise questions and pose problems rather than necessarily answer the questions. While Murray clearly considers the tourism population to be excessive, he has also said that, strictly speaking, only six per cent of Mallorca is "constructed". While he would not advocate more construction, his findings imply that this is what is needed in order to increase tourism numbers just so that economic growth can be - at best - in neutral. It is a deeply worrying conclusion. Where would these tourists come from anyway?
Murray has also referred to a highly polarised society. He is not wrong to do so, and by doing so he paints a picture of potential increased social division allied to an economic model - of tourism - that is not sustainable, unless there is more and more construction in order to grow the tourism population. And even then, were the trend towards all-inclusive and to a more cautiously-spending tourist to persist, the numbers would continue to rise ever more in order to keep parity with that one million benchmark. Ever more construction, ever more tourists, and for what? But one does perhaps have to ask again the question as to what this population could or should be. The problem is that no-one, not even Dr. Murray I would suggest, can give an accurate answer, because I suspect that no-one actually knows. He has said that the Balearics have been a "field of experimentation", and in this he is correct. The experiment was in introducing mass tourism and in its growing like topsy, without any real regard to its ultimate sustainability or to the changing nature of markets and competition or to economic diversification.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
In yesterday's "Diario" there was a report into findings of a study led by Dr. Murray into different facets of tourism in Mallorca (and the Balearics). Perhaps the most revealing was that in order to realise a million euros worth of tourist expenditure, the number of tourists necessary to meet this target increased by almost 500 over the period from 2003 to 2008. The 2008 figure is 1906 tourists to make the million mark, a percentage rise of 35%. Over a third more. In six years, six years before the crisis took hold.
Ok, so what, you might ask. Just another set of statistics. True. But unlike the figures which get bandied about by the regional government, and which many tend not to believe, Murray's findings are, one would hope, independent. In an interview with the Diario's Matías Vallés a couple of years ago, Vallés suggested that Murray might just be a bit of a moaning leftie. By implication, this suggests he may have an agenda. Possibly, but academic rigour, and the demands placed on academics to support their research, might negate any hint of political bias. One should take Murray's findings for what they are, because they are significant.
While government figures always seem to indicate an increase in tourist spend, Murray refutes these. There has been a year-on-year decline if you take the annual growth in the numbers necessary to meet the target of a million euros (the figure did actually drop, however, from 2007 to 2008). Moreover, the findings beg some questions, most obviously why are that many more tourists needed to reach the spending level and what does this mean for pressure on resources. No answer is given in the paper's article to the first of these, but one might begin to hazard a guess or two. Let me make one such - the rise of all-inclusives, possibly?
Murray points out that despite the reliance on tourism to sustain the Balearic economy, there is a loss in efficiency, by which he means that increasing numbers of tourists are needed just to stand still, while these increasing numbers place ever more stress on the ability to cope with them. Consider this. In 2008 the highest recorded total population of the islands (that's everyone, tourists included) occurred between 10 and 12 August. The number was 1,930,000, or 1.8 times the actual normal population. And this is a figure spread out across the whole of the Balearics. Consider Alcúdia. If one takes its resident population to be 16,000 (and one does tend to get different figures), its population at the height of summer is - a guesstimate - about 45-50,000 (there are some 26,000 hotel places in Alcúdia to which one can add other types of accommodation and the temporary workforce). Around three times the normal population in other words.
In the earlier interview, Murray was asked what would be the ideal tourism population of the islands. He didn't really answer this, but did say that twelve million tourists (roughly accurate in terms of total annual tourists) is "an aberration without comparison in the whole world".
It is often in the nature of academia to raise questions and pose problems rather than necessarily answer the questions. While Murray clearly considers the tourism population to be excessive, he has also said that, strictly speaking, only six per cent of Mallorca is "constructed". While he would not advocate more construction, his findings imply that this is what is needed in order to increase tourism numbers just so that economic growth can be - at best - in neutral. It is a deeply worrying conclusion. Where would these tourists come from anyway?
Murray has also referred to a highly polarised society. He is not wrong to do so, and by doing so he paints a picture of potential increased social division allied to an economic model - of tourism - that is not sustainable, unless there is more and more construction in order to grow the tourism population. And even then, were the trend towards all-inclusive and to a more cautiously-spending tourist to persist, the numbers would continue to rise ever more in order to keep parity with that one million benchmark. Ever more construction, ever more tourists, and for what? But one does perhaps have to ask again the question as to what this population could or should be. The problem is that no-one, not even Dr. Murray I would suggest, can give an accurate answer, because I suspect that no-one actually knows. He has said that the Balearics have been a "field of experimentation", and in this he is correct. The experiment was in introducing mass tourism and in its growing like topsy, without any real regard to its ultimate sustainability or to the changing nature of markets and competition or to economic diversification.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Day By Day
One of those what-are-we-supposed-to-make-of-these statistical moments, courtesy of the Balearics part of the "El Mundo" website. Tourism spend in the Balearics during June was down four per cent on last June; it equated to 993 euros per person. In the whole of Spain, the two most prominent tourism groups - the British and the Germans - spent on average 773 euros and 974 euros respectively; quite a difference. But as ever with these figures, the reaction is something of a so what. At least these figures do not inspire an incredulous reaction, as they were doing last summer when they seemed to be increasing. If those were genuine, then a 4% slump in the context of the current economic situation doesn't sound too bad. The trouble with any of them, however, is making sense of what they mean, how they are compiled, what differences there may be between different resorts and so on. Recently, some friends staying in Puerto Alcúdia told me that a daily spend of 100 euros per person was about par for the course. Setting aside costs of accommodation and travel, which one assumes are never included in these spend calculations, 100 per day is probably about right if one spends fairly liberally. At a more basic level of subsistence for food and drink on a daily basis, assuming one meal out at an inexpensive restaurant and a fair amount of alcohol, I would offer you the following:
From a main supermarket: bread (freshly-baked) 50 cents, fruit and vegetables 1.50 euros, ham and cheese 1 euro, drinks (2 litres of water, 1 litre of cola, juice, 1 litre of beer, 1 bottle of wine) 10 euros, milk, cereals, margarine and eggs 1.50 euros.
Meal out with a glass of wine and water - main course and sweet 15 euros, two coffees out 3 euros, four large beers out 12 euros. Total: 44.50 euros.
There are many ways to skin the food and drink cat, but the above might not be unrepresentative.
Elsewhere, i.e. "The Diario", there is a feature that points to the "alarm" among some hoteliers as to the lack of spend within the hotels themselves. It does support much of what is being said, and makes one rather question the official spend figures. These hoteliers talk of guests buying from supermarkets and making up their lunch snacks in their rooms (and why, pray, shouldn't they?) or of helping themselves to excessive amounts from the morning buffets for later consumption (hardly a new phenomenon, one would have said). Perhaps more scandalous are those tourists staying all-inclusive who get drinks and then go and sell them on the beach. Nothing like a bit of entrepreneurship, but it is decidedly naughty. Then there is what the tourists have actually spent on their accommodation, very low in some instances with rooms packed with four or five people. And it hacks some hoteliers off that some guests forget that they have paid very little and yet demand a level of quality way beyond that for which they have forked out.
All this and August yet to come, a month of high season but one traditionally that results in a lower relative spend because of the generally higher costs of the original holiday. Overall, it doesn't sound very clever, does it. And finally, from the Holiday Truths site, one contributor - all-inclusive - says that he spent, get this, 20 euros during his week's stay. Twenty of your whole euros, everybody. Or 2.01% of that tourism spend figure. Go figure.
Without contracts?
And here we go again ... The Alternative in Pollensa is to press for the creation of a commission to study what he believes to be a state of chaos at the town hall. This stems, says "The Diario", from the fact that some half a million euros worth of services provided to the town hall is not actually contracted, or so says Pepe Garcia, who is having this all checked out by his lawyer apparently. He argues that those firms without contracts have not submitted the correct documentation or bona fides; they include, for example, the company that maintains lighting in the port. The mayor naturally begs to differ, saying that there may be some instances of not all work being covered by contracts, but that all is overseen and supervised by council technical staff.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Phil Collins. Today's title - where did this come from?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
From a main supermarket: bread (freshly-baked) 50 cents, fruit and vegetables 1.50 euros, ham and cheese 1 euro, drinks (2 litres of water, 1 litre of cola, juice, 1 litre of beer, 1 bottle of wine) 10 euros, milk, cereals, margarine and eggs 1.50 euros.
Meal out with a glass of wine and water - main course and sweet 15 euros, two coffees out 3 euros, four large beers out 12 euros. Total: 44.50 euros.
There are many ways to skin the food and drink cat, but the above might not be unrepresentative.
Elsewhere, i.e. "The Diario", there is a feature that points to the "alarm" among some hoteliers as to the lack of spend within the hotels themselves. It does support much of what is being said, and makes one rather question the official spend figures. These hoteliers talk of guests buying from supermarkets and making up their lunch snacks in their rooms (and why, pray, shouldn't they?) or of helping themselves to excessive amounts from the morning buffets for later consumption (hardly a new phenomenon, one would have said). Perhaps more scandalous are those tourists staying all-inclusive who get drinks and then go and sell them on the beach. Nothing like a bit of entrepreneurship, but it is decidedly naughty. Then there is what the tourists have actually spent on their accommodation, very low in some instances with rooms packed with four or five people. And it hacks some hoteliers off that some guests forget that they have paid very little and yet demand a level of quality way beyond that for which they have forked out.
All this and August yet to come, a month of high season but one traditionally that results in a lower relative spend because of the generally higher costs of the original holiday. Overall, it doesn't sound very clever, does it. And finally, from the Holiday Truths site, one contributor - all-inclusive - says that he spent, get this, 20 euros during his week's stay. Twenty of your whole euros, everybody. Or 2.01% of that tourism spend figure. Go figure.
Without contracts?
And here we go again ... The Alternative in Pollensa is to press for the creation of a commission to study what he believes to be a state of chaos at the town hall. This stems, says "The Diario", from the fact that some half a million euros worth of services provided to the town hall is not actually contracted, or so says Pepe Garcia, who is having this all checked out by his lawyer apparently. He argues that those firms without contracts have not submitted the correct documentation or bona fides; they include, for example, the company that maintains lighting in the port. The mayor naturally begs to differ, saying that there may be some instances of not all work being covered by contracts, but that all is overseen and supervised by council technical staff.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Phil Collins. Today's title - where did this come from?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Monday, July 27, 2009
Souvenir
Never accuse "The Bulletin" of a lack of hyperbole. It headlines a letter "the demise of the tourist industry". And this is? Oh no, spare me. Someone change the record. Or rather, don't, as to do so would deprive me of some blog inches. Yep, you've probably guessed it; everything's so expensive, tourists being ripped off, locals having a laugh, blah, blah.
Let's put the euro-pound thing to one side, shall we. The crisis has created a mindset that has made tourists - and not just tourists - pay far greater attention to prices than was the case. Therefore, things seem more expensive because people are more conscious of what they're spending. In real terms, prices for many items are generally no higher than they were say five years ago, but costs have contributed to increases, inevitably so. Certain things are undeniably more expensive. Car hire for one. And the letter refers to this being "extortionate". Unfortunately, the writer is probably unaware of the supply and demand in the car hire business this season; the agencies could not get hold of the bank finance so had to reduce their fleets. It's not having a laugh, it's very basic economics and very basic doing business.
And doing business is what some tourists seem to resent. There is an enduring belief that Mallorca and Spain should still be some tin-pot economy on the edges of the civilised economic world. It once was, and it was once also very cheap. Not now though. Not cheap to buy products or services, and not cheap to run businesses either. But when the letter-writer refers to eating out for a "reasonable sum", what is reasonable? Are the two large pieces of cod with chips and a salad at the Pins i Mates tourist restaurant in Alcúdia Pins unreasonably priced at 5.75 euros? I don't think so. It all depends where you go and what you have.
Elsewhere we learn that souvenir shops are having a particularly thin time. Well, nothing new there. Last year it was being reported that sales were down by around 60% in some cases. That didn't stop the souvenir shops opening up again. If there was going to be one sector that suffered particularly spectacularly this year, it was going to be the souvenir shops and other stores, such as perfumeries. All that buying gifts for friends and family has been kicked into touch. I never quite understood it anyway. But it's all part of the same greater awareness of what is being spent and therefore what it all costs. A hideous piece of kitchen ceramic may have seemed a reasonable thing to have bought before, but now the price tag, and the fact that it is hideous, has made the tourist think twice before pulling out some folding euros.
But to come back to that letter, the writer was saying all this based on a holiday in Puerto Pollensa. Poor old PP. If it's not the wicked uncles of Dakota or the leg-overing, sweet-dispensing José, it's the fact that the resort is too expensive. As a conclusion, the letter says that officials "need to act now and cap prices". Cap which prices, which products or services? And at what level? The suggestion is nuts, but it probably won't prevent an editorial in the paper reiterating a previous call for price controls.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Dubliners, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVJK1Sl6My8. Today's title - from the '80s, who did this and a completely pointless video that went with it?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Let's put the euro-pound thing to one side, shall we. The crisis has created a mindset that has made tourists - and not just tourists - pay far greater attention to prices than was the case. Therefore, things seem more expensive because people are more conscious of what they're spending. In real terms, prices for many items are generally no higher than they were say five years ago, but costs have contributed to increases, inevitably so. Certain things are undeniably more expensive. Car hire for one. And the letter refers to this being "extortionate". Unfortunately, the writer is probably unaware of the supply and demand in the car hire business this season; the agencies could not get hold of the bank finance so had to reduce their fleets. It's not having a laugh, it's very basic economics and very basic doing business.
And doing business is what some tourists seem to resent. There is an enduring belief that Mallorca and Spain should still be some tin-pot economy on the edges of the civilised economic world. It once was, and it was once also very cheap. Not now though. Not cheap to buy products or services, and not cheap to run businesses either. But when the letter-writer refers to eating out for a "reasonable sum", what is reasonable? Are the two large pieces of cod with chips and a salad at the Pins i Mates tourist restaurant in Alcúdia Pins unreasonably priced at 5.75 euros? I don't think so. It all depends where you go and what you have.
Elsewhere we learn that souvenir shops are having a particularly thin time. Well, nothing new there. Last year it was being reported that sales were down by around 60% in some cases. That didn't stop the souvenir shops opening up again. If there was going to be one sector that suffered particularly spectacularly this year, it was going to be the souvenir shops and other stores, such as perfumeries. All that buying gifts for friends and family has been kicked into touch. I never quite understood it anyway. But it's all part of the same greater awareness of what is being spent and therefore what it all costs. A hideous piece of kitchen ceramic may have seemed a reasonable thing to have bought before, but now the price tag, and the fact that it is hideous, has made the tourist think twice before pulling out some folding euros.
But to come back to that letter, the writer was saying all this based on a holiday in Puerto Pollensa. Poor old PP. If it's not the wicked uncles of Dakota or the leg-overing, sweet-dispensing José, it's the fact that the resort is too expensive. As a conclusion, the letter says that officials "need to act now and cap prices". Cap which prices, which products or services? And at what level? The suggestion is nuts, but it probably won't prevent an editorial in the paper reiterating a previous call for price controls.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Dubliners, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVJK1Sl6My8. Today's title - from the '80s, who did this and a completely pointless video that went with it?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Sunday, March 01, 2009
It's Fun To Stay At
Put your hard hats on, chaps. And not just those of you who will be working on building sites into June and throughout October. Oh no, protect yourselves from the falling masonry of indignation in Puerto Pollensa; from the bricks and mortar of outrage; from the scaffolding of it's not what it used to be. Ah, the sweet sound of a Kango drill drifting across the prom-prom-prom-tiddley-om-pom-pom; the hammering of summer lawns; the summer breeze of brick dust and cement. Well, there you go, and just think yourself lucky that building work will stop in the middle of June and not resume until the first of October.
These are exciting times if you happen to be in Puerto Pollensa. Celebration of abnormal seasonal construction coincides with the re-opening of the great construction success that is/was the public swimming-pool. There was duly a "fiesta" to mark the occasion yesterday and which continues today. I wonder if there will be another one when it gets closed down - again. Rather curiously, given that we are at the start of March, there has been a poster doing the rounds which shows children happily engaged in water activities in what, unless I am very much mistaken, appears to be summertime - and in the open. Maybe they've decided to do away with the roof altogether.
And next weekend there will be something else to celebrate, though this will involve going to the old town. The hunters' fair descends on Pollensa for its ninth annual occurrence. Huntin', shootin' and fishin'. I can well imagine that there are, among the ranks of the Pollensa be-expated, those with an inclination to donning Barbours and flat caps, to looking like Prince Edward and to blowing small animals to smithereens. One trusts that they might not do so on the streets of Pollensa; indeed one might hope that they would give the whole gig a wide berth as the hunting class of Mallorca is not a class thing - it is very much more egalitarian.
The hunters' fair takes place in different towns each year. Last year's event was in Campos and it was in Alcúdia in, I think, 2005. According to reports, some 60,000 people turned up in Campos last year, so it is a little odd that they are forecasting only a third of that number to put in an appearance in Pollensa. Still, 20,000 is a fair number, and there will be restaurants offering hunting-based cuisine in the feeding of the 20,000 which will presumably do very well thank you. Not sure what this hunting-based food is as pretty much anything involving dead animals could, I suppose, be described as having been hunted. Perhaps you get to pick the shot out or something, so that you know it has been authentically blasted. Restaurants and other businesses that might gain from the weekend's festivities can thank the Council of Mallorca. A hundred and twenty grand is what it pays for this shindig.
Following on from the news that tourism in January was up by nearly 6% comes the perhaps even more surprising revelation that tourism spend for that month was up by almost 25 per cent. Unclear though it is as to how these figures are derived, a leap of this magnitude goes against all other current economic indicators. Polish and Hungarian pensioners can't be responsible, one would have to assume. It is largely all down to German tourists, despite Germany having to contend with similar economic woes to everyone else. Maybe there is something in that cash boom after all, even if it is island-wide as opposed to just Pollensa. Or maybe it is just one of those rather inexplicable blips. But if it were to be a blip that were to continue, I don't know that there would be many complaining. That said, this February, according to one restaurant owner in Puerto Alcúdia, was the worst he had known. However, one owner does not represent a whole resort.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Musical Youth (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtLONl4cNc). Today's title - well various I imagine if there is still building work going on, and what other relevance does this have today (in the first line for example)?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
These are exciting times if you happen to be in Puerto Pollensa. Celebration of abnormal seasonal construction coincides with the re-opening of the great construction success that is/was the public swimming-pool. There was duly a "fiesta" to mark the occasion yesterday and which continues today. I wonder if there will be another one when it gets closed down - again. Rather curiously, given that we are at the start of March, there has been a poster doing the rounds which shows children happily engaged in water activities in what, unless I am very much mistaken, appears to be summertime - and in the open. Maybe they've decided to do away with the roof altogether.
And next weekend there will be something else to celebrate, though this will involve going to the old town. The hunters' fair descends on Pollensa for its ninth annual occurrence. Huntin', shootin' and fishin'. I can well imagine that there are, among the ranks of the Pollensa be-expated, those with an inclination to donning Barbours and flat caps, to looking like Prince Edward and to blowing small animals to smithereens. One trusts that they might not do so on the streets of Pollensa; indeed one might hope that they would give the whole gig a wide berth as the hunting class of Mallorca is not a class thing - it is very much more egalitarian.
The hunters' fair takes place in different towns each year. Last year's event was in Campos and it was in Alcúdia in, I think, 2005. According to reports, some 60,000 people turned up in Campos last year, so it is a little odd that they are forecasting only a third of that number to put in an appearance in Pollensa. Still, 20,000 is a fair number, and there will be restaurants offering hunting-based cuisine in the feeding of the 20,000 which will presumably do very well thank you. Not sure what this hunting-based food is as pretty much anything involving dead animals could, I suppose, be described as having been hunted. Perhaps you get to pick the shot out or something, so that you know it has been authentically blasted. Restaurants and other businesses that might gain from the weekend's festivities can thank the Council of Mallorca. A hundred and twenty grand is what it pays for this shindig.
Following on from the news that tourism in January was up by nearly 6% comes the perhaps even more surprising revelation that tourism spend for that month was up by almost 25 per cent. Unclear though it is as to how these figures are derived, a leap of this magnitude goes against all other current economic indicators. Polish and Hungarian pensioners can't be responsible, one would have to assume. It is largely all down to German tourists, despite Germany having to contend with similar economic woes to everyone else. Maybe there is something in that cash boom after all, even if it is island-wide as opposed to just Pollensa. Or maybe it is just one of those rather inexplicable blips. But if it were to be a blip that were to continue, I don't know that there would be many complaining. That said, this February, according to one restaurant owner in Puerto Alcúdia, was the worst he had known. However, one owner does not represent a whole resort.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Musical Youth (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtLONl4cNc). Today's title - well various I imagine if there is still building work going on, and what other relevance does this have today (in the first line for example)?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Friday, June 27, 2008
A Streetcar Named ...
Picking up from yesterday's piece, a comment came in about the tram and the possibility of it going to Puerto Pollensa. I had actually heard some tell of precisely that, though the latest reports suggest otherwise. The enviro-fashionistas would rather like to close the road that runs by the coastline, and let nature reclaim the land, so I don't know if a tram would accord with such a desire; not that I can ever see it happening, but were there ever to be thought of a tram link to Puerto Pollensa, that would surely affect the thinking as to the siting of the train terminal. Or maybe it wouldn't; joined-up transport thought patterns are not necessarily the order of the day here. But were joined-up transport links to be held to be a "good thing", then what of the new terminal in the port for all those cruise ships that are due to be arriving some day, whenever? Maybe they should put the tram along the Calle Teodoro Canet, round the back of the Paseo Marítimo. This would be hugely entertaining. Space may be limited for a tram along the carretera, but along that particular road it would bring everything to a grinding halt. Bring it on.
Meanwhile, the hoteliers of Mallorca are starting to feel the heat of recession, predicting that profits will be down some 15% this season. Though numbers are likely to be in line with last year, it's that tourist spend that is exercising the minds of the hotel trade. I have said it before, in a different context, so one does get a sense of déjà vu, but when they made their optimistic forecasts and announcements coming into the season, there was a feeling of wishful thinking or even delusion. The hard-hit Spanish consumer and his British counterpart was bound to cause a slide in spend. The noises as the season got under way were the sound of whistling to keep up the spirits, when common sense suggested that, despite the numbers of tourists, the actual spend was inevitably going to go down. Anyway, the hoteliers have had a chat with Balearic boss, Francesc Antich. Not that they have asked him to bail them out, unlike the builders, but they are pressing the government to up its promotional spend for next year. And perhaps next year is what should be really worrying everyone, especially if the euro-pound situation continues.
Euro 2008 watch: So Spain duly made it past the suddenly hyped-up and then equally suddenly useless Russians, and they didn't need the benefit of a cut in transmission to alter the result. A conspiracy theory raised on 6-0-6 was that UEFA couldn't bear the idea of Turkey, like Greece in 2004, progressing and actually winning the damn thing, so that so-called lightning strike was in fact a cover to disguise the real result - Turkey in fact won 5-2. Anyway, Spain it is, and with remarkably good or bad timing the final clashes with the climax of the San Pere fiesta in Alcúdia. One fancies that the old image of Peter may take a bit of a back-seat, quite literally perhaps, propped up in a wheelbarrow outside a bar while the locals turn their attention to the TVs. And if Spain win on Sunday? Mayhem. Last night's victory was met with much sounding of car horns hurtling past the house. And for your average Brit expat, a real dilemma. I am, I think, unique in actually wanting Spain to win. But as the opposition will be ... the Germans ... which side can your expat want to win less? Tricky.
QUIZ
Chain - Forgot yesterday. The Players Association featured one of jazz's finest saxophonists who formed part of what "brothers" outfit? Yesterday's title - "The Runaway Train", Michael Holliday, and here is a link to someone who goes by the moniker "Dimple Diamond" introducing and then doing that song. It's fair to say, I think, that Matt Lucas could well have dreamt him up. Anyway his youtube has had barely 300 visits, most of them mine, so I implore you all to look at this and elevate him to greatness (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84DmeutIAr4). Today's title - ok, so fill in the missing word by reference to which mega group?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Meanwhile, the hoteliers of Mallorca are starting to feel the heat of recession, predicting that profits will be down some 15% this season. Though numbers are likely to be in line with last year, it's that tourist spend that is exercising the minds of the hotel trade. I have said it before, in a different context, so one does get a sense of déjà vu, but when they made their optimistic forecasts and announcements coming into the season, there was a feeling of wishful thinking or even delusion. The hard-hit Spanish consumer and his British counterpart was bound to cause a slide in spend. The noises as the season got under way were the sound of whistling to keep up the spirits, when common sense suggested that, despite the numbers of tourists, the actual spend was inevitably going to go down. Anyway, the hoteliers have had a chat with Balearic boss, Francesc Antich. Not that they have asked him to bail them out, unlike the builders, but they are pressing the government to up its promotional spend for next year. And perhaps next year is what should be really worrying everyone, especially if the euro-pound situation continues.
Euro 2008 watch: So Spain duly made it past the suddenly hyped-up and then equally suddenly useless Russians, and they didn't need the benefit of a cut in transmission to alter the result. A conspiracy theory raised on 6-0-6 was that UEFA couldn't bear the idea of Turkey, like Greece in 2004, progressing and actually winning the damn thing, so that so-called lightning strike was in fact a cover to disguise the real result - Turkey in fact won 5-2. Anyway, Spain it is, and with remarkably good or bad timing the final clashes with the climax of the San Pere fiesta in Alcúdia. One fancies that the old image of Peter may take a bit of a back-seat, quite literally perhaps, propped up in a wheelbarrow outside a bar while the locals turn their attention to the TVs. And if Spain win on Sunday? Mayhem. Last night's victory was met with much sounding of car horns hurtling past the house. And for your average Brit expat, a real dilemma. I am, I think, unique in actually wanting Spain to win. But as the opposition will be ... the Germans ... which side can your expat want to win less? Tricky.
QUIZ
Chain - Forgot yesterday. The Players Association featured one of jazz's finest saxophonists who formed part of what "brothers" outfit? Yesterday's title - "The Runaway Train", Michael Holliday, and here is a link to someone who goes by the moniker "Dimple Diamond" introducing and then doing that song. It's fair to say, I think, that Matt Lucas could well have dreamt him up. Anyway his youtube has had barely 300 visits, most of them mine, so I implore you all to look at this and elevate him to greatness (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84DmeutIAr4). Today's title - ok, so fill in the missing word by reference to which mega group?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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