A lot of lip service has been paid to “extending the season” - and many empty promises have been made! Earlier this year there were rumours that Space had agreed to delay their Closing Party for a week to this end which, theoretically, would have obliged the other clubs to follow suit. It didn”t happen, but maybe next year?

Similarly Winter tourism has been on the agenda for some time, but nothing seems to be being done at this end to cater for this imminent influx of happy, expectant winter visitors. Traditionally, the obstacles to progress have been: 1) No direct flights, 2) as a result, no hotels open, 3) nothing for people to do when they get here, 4) Business owners don”t really care anyway, because they all earn so much during the summer that they can afford a six month holiday…

This summer’s emphatically bad season appears to have put the final nail into this complacency. Ibiza is now widely recognized as overpriced and poor value for money in terms of service. This has been compounded by a general belief earlier in the season that the night clubs had all been shut down, if not the bars as well, according to the internet banter, which put many of our younger visitors off “in case it turned out to be true”.

The island clearly lacks an effective international PR presence at a time when it is facing emerging new competition equipped with new hotels, TV advertising and far cheaper prices. This could well be the moment when the authorities congratulate themselves upon turning Ibiza into the next San Tropez, as it quietly disappears off the global radar of holiday destinations. It already ranks third in the places that the British don’t want to admit to having visited in a recent Guardian survey published online here.

So what has changed?
We now have direct flights, courtesy of Ryanair and numerous hotels will be open for periods during the winter. However, Air Berlin have been running direct flights from Germany for many years now. Their boss, Alvaro Middlemann, recently told the Diario de Ibiza that he was “frankly bored with hearing about things that the authorities are going do, but which never get done” he went on “the island needs to re-think what it is trying to sell e.g. to attract winter tourists the island needs to build more golf courses, as the only one here is a closed shop. It also needs to improve nautical facilities to attract high value winter visitors - however, neither of these options are politically correct here”. Regarding the future, the airline boss was pessimistic pointing out that, after so many years, he doubted “that the island really had a desire to cater for winter tourism.”

He basically meant “why would anyone want to come to Ibiza in the winter?” inferring that it was up to us, the island, to give him a good reason for maintaining his direct flights. Good point, especially if you have a holiday home here and like to visit without too much traveling hassle.
The hotels are open - well at least a few…

So, as of now, things aren”t looking too promising, while the new direct flights to the island are already arriving. Allegedly they”ll be bringing in a projected 120,000 tourists over the course of the winter from their three routes. Under the circumstances we thought we”d do a bit of investigative journalism to find out who’s doing what to get this project off the ground and ensure that it works.

First we spoke to Ryanair, the airline company gambling on the success of this venture, to justify their belief in Ibiza. What sort of promotion were they doing in the UK to fill their planes? Why does their website feature a long list of hotels that are shut in the winter?

To their credit, as a last resort they offered up three or four alternatives when attempts to book any of the featured hotels failed, but small consolation when the featured hotels are all shut in the winter? It begs the question “What are those hotels doing up there on the website in the first place when Ryanair have never flown here before, even in the summer?”

Ryanair pointed out that their normal national advertising encompassed Ibiza amongst many other destinations, but that nothing at their end was specifically targetting Ibiza over any of their other destinations.

On the subject of the hotels on their website; the information was provided by a third party supplier. However, if we could let them have a list of hotels that are actually open, they would pass it on to their third party supplier for correction of their site. To remedy this we spoke to the head of the Hotelier’s Association, Juan Jose Riera. Off the top of his head, he listed some 16 hotels that were open at some point during the winter. A quick check around the internet revealed 30? How on earth can a local website know more about which hotels are open than the head of the local Hotelier”s Association?

We await an update from his office to pass on to Ryanair…
Not inspirational stuff so far…

The next step is to try and contact the government to find out how their promotional initiative is progressing; to ensure that Ryanair”s ambitious gamble proves to be a resounding success.

Slightly concerned by a recent answer given by Xico Tarres, the island President, to a question about his plans for Winter tourism at the recent inauguration of the British Consulate, we spoke to the island’s indefatigable British Consul, Helen Watson.

Xico had said that the Winter Tourism strategy basically revolved around attracting pensioners from elsewhere in northern Europe to the island out of season - starting next year. His list of anticipated beneficiaries included France, Germany, Italy & Scandinavia. The UK wasn’t mentioned, even though we were at the British Consulate at the time!

The government’s position, target audience and timescale all appeared to overlook the immediacy of the problem we face in entertaining our imminent visitors from the UK and ensuring Ryanair’s continued commitment, so we looked further afield. Fortunately the island is blessed with an abundance of people with good PR experience who love the island enough to want to try and help to get this project off the ground. After all, we all want direct flights to and from the island for our own convenience, and we want them all year round.

It didn’t take long to muster enough expertise with sufficient contacts to offer their expertise for nothing, if the package we can offer will live up to our visitor’s expectations.

To this end the Ibiza NOW, in conjunction with Sonica Radio, are appealing to all businesses on the island to let us know if they are open during the winter, so that we can add them to the promotion that will be taking place in the UK this winter.

On a salutary note, it has to be pointed out that the Ryanair fleet consists of Boeing 707 300’s, which hold 189 people when they’re full. So the maximum number of potential UK visitors over the next six months is a little under 15,000…

However, it is unlikely that Ryanair will turn away customers if their planes are all full - they’re more likely to add extra flights in order to fly in the face of the global negativity about even maintaining existing routes, for reasons ranging from the price of aviation fuel to saving the planet.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Ibiza could be held up as a shining example of developing new markets and particularly those within Europe, that offer a brief escape from the gloom and despondency of modern winter life in the UK. And that’s without even taking into account all of those other countries north of the Alps that already have direct links to our little slice of winter paradise. If you’ve had a bad summer and need a bit of extra business, get in touch…

If you need a bit of winter sunshine, get on a plane and come and see why we all chose to live here all year round… and especially in the winter!

Related posts:

1. Winter in Ibiza - “Restaurant Road” Some five years ago we reported on the rather unusual...
2. Winter Activities in Ibiza One of the big adjustments to Ibiza for those of...
3. Ibiza Winter Restaurants Clicking on in your smartphone will automatically call that...
4. Agrotourismo Hotels open in Winter on Ibiza The swelling ranks of these charming, yet small and therefore...
5. Ibiza in Winter The first direct Ryanair winter flight from the UK to...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tags: ibiza winter tourism, Ryanair

 Email This Post

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 at 4:37 pm and is filed under Ibiza, Ryanair, Winter Tourism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.