Slippery road ahead!

Spain’s tourism companies seem to have jackknifed on a very slippery road as their profits skidded into an overall plunge in the course of 2002.

That’s the assertion of the Tourism Table, a forum of meetings and debates made up of representatives from leading firms in the private sector of Spanish tourism, put together in an effort to study and coordinate the role played by tourism in a market economy.

This negative outcome is one of the conclusions exposed in the Report on the Situation of Spanish Tourism that assessed the months spanning from January to October. The report was disclosed to the press during the December session of the Tourism Table.

Some of the most relevant figures highlighted in the report point to profit losses undergone both by receptive tourism (foreign travelers coming to Spain) and sending tourism (Spanish trippers buying travel packages). Receptive tourism took the lead for the first time in the past ten years.

Even though the number of foreign tourists soared 2.1 percent compared to those who visited Spain last year –a grand total of 70.2 million visitors in the last ten months- earnings have been down in the neighborhood of 8 percent against the year before, plus a 4.1 percent drop in purchases until September. The outcome stems, among other factors, from plummeting average spending on the part of tourists and less average stays that hovered 3.7 days compared to 3.9 days back in 2001.

Tourism’s different activities have fared somewhat unevenly. Some sectors have done much better than in 2001 (rural houses with a 15 percent growth, camping, road transport, cruises, spas and theme parks, the latter with a walloping 40 percent increase compared to the year before). However, other sectors have staged a slowdown (hotels, air travel, car rental, apartments), while others remained the same levels of past years (agencies, tour operators, hostels, restoration, professional tradeshows, conventions and congress).

The sector’s meltdown is the resulting combination of several factors ranging from the world’s economic crisis that heated up after the 9/11 terrorist attacks; the so-called “euro factor” that prompted such non-member countries as Yugoslavia, Turkey and Tunisia to join the global tourist market. A flurry of discounts and special offers –a process that brought on more sales and less profits for travel agencies triggered by last-minute special packages- is another wimp factor.

Word is that tourism is not going through a crisis, but rather undergoing a barrage of hardships that will stretch into 2003. Efforts to stave off this situation include actions aimed at achieving safer and better vacations. The traditional Spanish hospitality is a fading concept whose recovery brooks no further delay. Better communication between the private and public sectors is equally needed when it comes to launching out promotional campaigns.