A Tale Of Two Tourist Information Offices

Once upon a time the tourist information office in Puerto Pollensa was in a side street. I can't quite remember which one (Monges? Elcano?). It doesn't matter which one. The point was that it wasn't the greatest location. Recognising this less than optimal site, the solution was to be a new office by the yacht club roundabout. An interim measure had to be adopted while the old office was vacated and the new one was created. So off to the old municipal offices went tourist information. Finally the new one became available.

The thing was that it was small. Always has been small. Location-wise, though, it was excellent, and right by the bus stop as well. Perfect. Then of course the bus stop had to be moved because of the pedestrianisation. The location was still good, though. However, it has now been accepted that the office is too small, which everyone knew was the case.

The movable tourist office is to therefore get a new location - in a shop along Juan XXIII: number nineteen to be precise. It's not a bad location either, but it isn't optimal.

Pollensa has had an issue with its tourist information offices; they have regularly been on the move. As with the port, so it has been with Cala San Vicente and the town. In the case of the latter, it may well be that the office will get a prime location in the restored old fish market on the Plaça Major. This will be a great improvement on being either in or next to Sant Domingo: there has been some chopping and changing.

Plaça Major will ensure a healthy level of traffic, which is what a tourist office demands and which is why it needs to be in as good a location as possible. Contrast the movements in Pollensa, therefore, with Alcudia and Can Picafort. Alcudia town has its office where the market is and right by the bus stops. The port's office is slap bang on the Paseo Marítimo. The one in Ciudad Blanca has a new home. By the beach. It has been moved from a pokey office which, although only a few yards off Pedro Mas y Reus, meant that it didn't receive anything like the traffic it should have done. Hundreds, thousands of people will pass the new office on a daily basis.

In Can Picafort, the old tourist office was in the municipal offices next to the Guardia Civil and local police. It was basically in the middle of nowhere. No one went there because no one could be bothered or could find it. So a new one emerged on the prom, close to the marina. If there is such a thing as an ideal site in Can Picafort, given its great sprawl, then this was it. Moreover, its movability is such that a crane can lift to a slightly different spot, which a crane once did.

A new facility has been required in Puerto Pollensa; this much is clear. But at the same time as it is being moved away from a more optimal site to a shop on Juan XXIII, the office in Ciudad Blanca, a brand spanking new one and of good size, has been created in an ideal spot. The photo shows it in its white and grey lack of splendour (everything has to be white and grey nowadays; architects have decreed thus). Good location, even better if it were actually open.

Private Information: Tourist offices

A few years ago a friend (Jake from the Giant Maze) and I came up with an idea for a separate and private tourist information office (in Puerto Alcúdia). Part of the concept would have been to heavily feature technology, for example video display screens, which would have formed a key means of generating revenue from major advertisers.

I am reminded of this idea, which came to nothing as it would have been too expensive and was potentially too risky, when seeing that Palma town hall is considering the privatisation of its tourist information offices.

Palma has set up its own tourism "foundation", in other words a group that comprises various businesses and organisations that will undertake the "365" promotion of the city. An annual budget of 3.6 million euros has been set aside (ten grand a day then). Despite this new source of finance, the town hall is addressing the cost of running its information offices, which would amount to half this budget.

Is privatisation of tourist offices a good idea? It happens elsewhere. For example, Berlin has a privatised tourist information company, in Cornwall they are looking at privatisation and in Adelaide, Australia, there is a privatisation process underway, but it is one that is requiring an independent inquiry to ensure there is no conflict of interest in the sale and that the sale has the correct controls.

Without knowing fully what the state attorney-general in South Australia is concerned about, the fact that he has raised a concern should be enough to induce wariness as to how privatisation might operate in Mallorca.

Palma has in mind that the offices should be able to generate revenue to meet part of their running cost (without being exact) and that to do so, they would cease to be as tourist offices currently are (in theory at any rate) - neutral in matters of promotion.

The tourist offices would, in effect, become like shops, able to sell tickets for various attractions and events which currently they do only occasionally. For example, the offices in Pollensa sell tickets for the music festival, but this is a specifically Pollensa cultural event, one to which the town hall contributes funds. Otherwise, and although tourist offices are full of publicity for this or that, they are supposed to steer clear of indulging in what might seem like direct promotion or favouritism.

From my experience, tourist office staff are pretty professional in this regard. And as an example of how the offices seek to retain neutrality, last summer Pollensa town hall was forced to issue a warning to businesses which have publicity material in the outdoor display units in Puerto Pollensa to stop indulging in a publicity war and interfering with each other's material.

But once the tourist offices are obliged to make money, the rules change. In Palma, one line of revenue would be from restaurant promotion. Whether restaurants would be willing to pay is one issue, but were they to, then a can of worms could potentially be opened.

A problem with making the offices revenue generators is whether, in the pursuit of "sales", their core role of simple information provision would be compromised. If you have ever, like I have, spent time observing what happens at tourist-office desks, you will have come to appreciate that much of the tourist encounter involves questions of the how-do-I-get-to, where-do-I-go-to variety. One office told me that one of its most frequently asked questions was where were the nearest toilets.

The tourist encounter can be repetitious, basic and extremely time-consuming. If tourist office staff have to also sell tickets for this excursion or that attraction, then delays in handling enquiries will increase.

Technology, you would think, could be made to eliminate many of the repetitious and basic enquiries. Possibly so, as also it could be made to handle other information. One town that has been embracing technology is Artà, not a town with a massive tourism industry but one that has adopted the use of audio guides and now also QR (quick response) codes which are photographed with mobiles in order to provide information in five different languages.

Whether the privatised tourist offices in Palma would make use of technology or not, there is an altogether more fundamental question. Where are they? In October, when mayor Mateo Isern was first talking up the Palma 365 promotion campaign, it was being pointed out that Palma's tourist office provision was abysmal by comparison with, for example, Barcelona and even with neighbouring Calvià. They can privatise the offices all they like, but they won't make money if tourists can't find them.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Too Much Information: Customer service at tourist offices

My original business mentor was my first boss, as in the owner of the first company I worked for after university. He was a hard task master, but he was one of a handful of exceptional people who I worked for or with. He wrote the definitive, early tome on the application of work study to office tasks.

One of the problems of applying an essentially scientific approach to office work (in its widest sense, to mean customer encounters as well) is how you factor in that service element. I'm not sure that anyone has ever really come up with a good solution.

Why do I mention this? Yesterday I was at the tourist information office in Alcúdia. I have long been impressed with the time, attention and care that are given by staff at information offices, but it is the first of these - time - that I wonder about. I was in the queue, sort of. Was I in a hurry? I was asked. No, no. I had only come to ask whether they wanted a further delivery of HOT! I could wait. And so I did.

The couple in front of me - Catalan speakers - asked for a guide to Alcúdia. This they were given. They didn't ask for anything else. But what they got was a lengthy explanation as to all manner of aspects of Alcúdia. You could see that they were wanting to edge away, but the information kept on coming. The queue was getting longer.

When they finally left, I was left wearing a perplexed expression. Why had this encounter taken so long? I'm sure they were grateful, or were they? Those behind in the queue might not have been so grateful.

This is far from a criticism. On the contrary, the attention was exemplary. When one hears criticisms of attitudes to tourists in Mallorca, you couldn't fault it, as rarely can you fault the attention of the tourist offices. But I couldn't help thinking of days going through the work study textbooks.

An answer, you might think, would be to automate some of the information giving. Or to simply have sheets of information, in different languages, that can be picked up. But both have drawbacks. Not everyone wants to use a terminal. Not everyone realises that there are sheets to pick up. Not everyone doesn't want direct personal service. Which is, I guess, the crux of the issue. Then there is also the tourist offices' own "scientific" need - that of registering the number of enquirers and from which country they come. What they ever do with this statistics gathering, I don't know. If not very much, then you wonder why. That old boss of mine once told me, in no uncertain terms, to stop wasting time on gathering information that was of no practical use. But maybe it is put to practical use.

There was, I felt, a sense of being too helpful. Again not a bad thing. Of course not. But being too helpful, in spending a significant amount of time in one encounter does, and you could see it, place the officer under certain stress. From being very or too helpful, it is not such a big step to becoming less helpful because you are under too much strain, caused by the degree of attention given.

The other factor though is the level of resourcing. Alcúdia is under-staffed. And they know it. There just isn't the budget. It's a similar story elsewhere. Playa de Muro for example. One officer, super helpful and super giving of information. Lots of it. But she needs the occasional day off. Result? Office closed. Only Pollensa seems to have sufficient numbers of staff, though you wonder for how much longer given the need to cut costs*.

Service is vital, and the tourist offices are in the front line. What they do is generally excellent, but maybe a rather more pragmatic approach is needed. The staff are placed under a good deal of pressure, and sometimes perhaps heap it upon themselves. Time and motion have long been dirty words in a service environment, but some sensitive application might not go amiss - for everyone's benefit.

* And talking of cutting costs in Pollensa, this year's admittedly always minor Sant Pere fiesta in Puerto Pollensa has been combined with the Fira de la Mar that had previously occurred in September and which was, in terms of timing, a pretty daft event as one could, with some degree of certainty, predict that there would be the mid-September deluge to rain on its parade - which is exactly what happened last year. Information on the WHAT'S ON BLOG - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com - but it's not in anything like the same league as the Puerto Alcúdia Sant Pere.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.