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Majorca: Sun, Sandy and sadly disappointing shopping
The holiday season is upon us and so we sent our VM expert Karl McKeever, brand director of Visual Thinking, packing off to sunny Majorca - the original foreign holiday destination and preferred holiday retreat for the celebs, to see if the retail offer is more Hermes Bag than Straw Donkey nowadays.
As the largest of the Balearic Islands, Majorca is a bustling Spanish island and tourist haunt. Every summer it's invaded by throngs of British and German holiday tourists that come to bake on the island's fine, golden beaches. Surprisingly, the Americans have recently 'discovered' it too, with many venturing across the Atlantic to say 'Ola'.
As a tourist destination, Majorca clearly has a lot going for it. Over the years, there has been extensive development around the island and coastal areas. These promise a mix of high and lowbrow resorts including the infamous Magaluf. The island's capital 'Palma [de Mallorca]' is still a huge pull for day visitors and a 'must-visit' destination for people on holiday. Local hotels offer a good range in terms of price, choice and standards; add to this beautiful historic buildings such as the cathedral and castle with dramatic beauty and wow factor and you have the makings for a great trip. And, a rash of recent modern apartment blocks (although many still vacant) confirm Palma's popular appeal.
Sadly though, there is one area on the island that's in decline and requires redevelopment - the retail offer. I think the shopping here is truly awful and it came as a real disappointment, considering what I had been led to believe.
The problems as I saw them were a lack of variety, low standards and the overall quality of the shopping was poor. To begin with, whilst quaint, the architecture of the old town comprises winding uneven streets, which are no friend to the crowds of mingling shoppers with baby buggies and wheelchairs. The place seems to have been frozen in time with little new development in recent years. It is also a place where the credit crunch has really taken its toll. I estimate that one in four shops are lying vacant and of those that remain, it seems that a further one in four is a bank! There's a clear irony to this given the role of the banks in the economic carnage of the last couple of years.
With the exception of Desigual, I struggled to find one new store or retail format that looked less than five years old in the centre of Palma. There was little thought given to street planning, with shopping areas resembling a mixed up and disorganised jumble of tired, tatty-looking stores. Visitors should be prepared to walk off their English breakfast and sangria in pursuit of the best straw donkeys or get a bus out of town to one of the busy 'designer' outlets.
It's not that Palma doesn't have many stores; it's just that too many of them offer the same. With countless jewellers, shoe shops (Majorca is the home of Camper shoes and is a famous shoemaking region) and children's clothes shops the central area is overly repetitive and dull. Of course many of these are small, family businesses that have passed through the generations and seem starved of crucial investment cash and redevelopment and just as importantly, starved of new ideas. These shops have complacently relied on an all too easily satisfied tourist consumer for too long. Now in the heat of the day and with considerably less consumers, many small retailers look tired and vulnerable.
The jewellers offered a better retail experience with products stocked ranging from 'cheap tat' to luxury brands.
The Spanish-owned Inditex Group had a very strong presence in the town with several outlets of its Massimo Dutti, Friday's Project, Stradivarius, Zara and Pull & Bear brands. As such, you could be forgiven for thinking that it operated another one in four of the shops that were open! Its brands were similarly housed in older formats and required attention to raise standards. I also came across a large outlet of C&A, depressingly in the full throws of blue cross at this peak selling season for Majorca.
There were few designer brands to speak of, which came as a surprise to me given all the fuss about the celebs who at some time have had properties here - the Beckham's, the Douglas-Zeta Jones's, even the summer residence of the Spanish Royal family! I can only assume that they shop online and have it all sailed in by luxury yacht to private moorings, as I really can't see Posh and Catherine popping into to their local branch of El Corte Ingles, which made Beatties look like Ralph Lauren on Bond Street. And on the subject of El Corte Ingles, I have rarely seen such a cramped, over-merchandised and poorly presented store. Admittedly it's not a premium retail proposition but from my previous experiences of the chain, this outpost is a shabby and disappointing let down.
I dislike being so negative about an otherwise beautiful place, but Palma surely has to do something about its poor retail offer to continue to thrive. It has to be fundamentally renewed, and in my opinion, not with an anonymous shopping mall! Places like Palma have, for the most part, a captive and willing audience.
Holidaymakers are keen to part with their cash and after a few days of sizzling and gorging they seek another kind of experience where 'leisure' tourism - i.e. visiting the monuments, dining with the locals and bagging a bargain can come into their own - blending quality heritage, quality shopping and quality dining together as part of as a 'total holiday experience'. There are countless examples of cities that have pulled off this trick both here at home and abroad, in places as diverse as Munich and York.
For me, it's no wonder the Spanish resorts are struggling at the moment. Yes the value of the Euro is affecting the numbers of visitors from Britain, but what about the Germans, Italians, and French etc. who use the same currency but seek a quality holiday experience. I believe Palma can and must do better.
This matters, as without new investment to raise its retail game and match standards that visitors can easily find at home, the city is doomed to terminal decline. When quality goes down, prices must go down and 'quality' in the broadest sense suffers. With diminishing returns, tax revenues fall away and businesses won't invest. As such, a downward spiral can herald the onset of dilapidation, urban ghettos and an increase in petty crime. This catastrophic chain of events becomes impossible to reverse without vast investment, often at a structural scale.
Palma has had some bad luck and, by the looks of it, just at the point when it committed to major improvements in city infrastructure and residential accommodation. However, the recession has made it difficult for people to afford to live there. Tourism has seen a decline and for cost-conscious travellers, maintaining their first home or paying debts is now a bigger priority than buying a second place in the sun. On Palma's streets, it appears the banks are one of the few businesses that have been able to keep paying their rents and keep their 'shops' looking good. And we think we have problems here in the UK?
Like most sectors, it's no surprise that tourism has suffered in the last two years, but places that have retained and attracted higher visitor numbers despite all this include Dubai, Florida and Barcelona. These 'resorts' have made significant year on year improvements in the quality of their hotels, leisure and retail and have maintained this investment during recent tough times. For most people, having a good holiday really matters and, even when money is tight, this 'discretionary' spending actually grows in importance, and becomes essential expenditure to protect. As such, people plan their holiday to try and guarantee an all-round good experience will be had by all. And as in retail, just because something is cheap (in this case, the package holidays and budget airline tickets) it doesn't necessarily follow that the rest of it is any good. I am deliberately trying not to be elitist, but you get my drift.
It's no surprise that places such as Amsterdam, Prague and mainland Spanish resorts have suffered. People have been there, done that, and with little that's changed or improved, why should they risk their precious two weeks without the excitement of experiencing something better or new?
There is a real message here for leaders of cities, landlords and retailers to work together better. If they want better returns they have to invest, as quick and easy money is hard to find in difficult economic cycles. It takes a long-term approach, collaboration, commitment and a vision. The 18th century blueprint for Paris still serves it well today.
In retail, adopting a poor-quality culture only leads to a damaged and devalued brand. I think the leaders in the neglected place that Palma has now become should be worried with similar concerns. However, if the city takes the right actions now and focuses on a plan to renew its retail appeal, it will I believe determine its own future success - and maybe give the paps some increased celebrity cannon fodder on those tricky streets.