“Tourism is the business of happiness”, says Domènec Biosca Vidal, tourism consultant and president of Educatur
who this afternoon is taking part in a speech on post-covid tourism excellence at the PP political conference, which will be attended tomorrow by the president of the Balearic PP, Marga Prohens, and the party’s secretary general, Teo García Egea. Biosca has been involved in tourism since he was a business student and worked as an entertainer. “I discovered my vocation,” says the expert, whose affection for Ibiza and Formentera dates back to that time. “Before, experience was important, now experience is antiquity, what matters is innovation, adapting“, he says, referring to the complicated situation of tourism in times of Covid.
Will we go back to tourism as it was before the virus?
Yes, if we understand that we are going through a mental change. We came from the supply market, tourists were brought to us and there were queues, and now we are building demand and it is nothing alike. It’s like when you are a company or you have to create one. Building demand can mean many things.
Like what?
There are ten. I like to make lists. The first thing is to know that the customer no longer comes on holiday, they come to be happy. We don’t have to welcome them as just another customer. Each customer, each customer segment, has in their head and in their heart what happiness is. Hotels don’t have to have professionals, cooks or gardeners, they have to have customer conquerors. You have to turn customers into ambassadors. In Galicia I am creating the club of the ambassadors of… They are all technological and they give their opinion in real time with their tweets, photos…. A thousand opinions from direct customers have more power than an advertising campaign.
The influencer thing, right?
Exactly. I come with my 17 year old twin girls. They are choosing the places. Yesterday we were in Formentera because they wanted a hotel with special music. Now they have gone running with their mother to take pictures. Now it’s all photos. And on the mobile in real time.
What other changes need to be made?
There should not be departments in a hotel, they were created to blame each other. There should be one team of customer happiness leaders. A coordinated, efficient team, with harmony and enthusiasm, in which everyone is clear that the customer does not pay for a room, they pay for emotions.
This, in a place like Ibiza with a serious problem of qualified professionals?
Let’s go to the tenth point! Tourism is everything and everyone. 360 degrees. Any circumstance and timetable. Just like this crisis. Also 360 degrees. People don’t know if they will have customers next month. And here the staff is fundamental. Because the facility is a surprise, but winning over the client is done by the people. We have to create a welcoming organisation that includes training, stability, family, health, salaries. With money we can have five-star hotels, but if the actors fail us? The aggravating factor now is uncertainty, which makes it very difficult to manage a hotel. And they are now driving to a destination with no visibility and in a fog.
The pandemic was a good time to rethink the future, to reset. What has become of it?
The pandemic has devastated emotionally, economically, the illusions of the future. I have received calls from business owners crying, ruined. It’s very hard. It’s like people who overcome cancer or covid, you can’t ask them to walk fast. Public-private collaboration is very important at this time. That’s where the solutions lie. There has to be trust, communication, listening and getting it right in order to create a relationship of travelling companions, not of confrontation. We must also understand that excellence is the sum of qualities, knowing how to segment. And that is complicated. We also need to prioritise the brand. Without a brand, we don’t exist. And then there is an umbrella brand, which is the destination. We have to work together, in consensus. I can create a fabulous, trendy, modern, spectacular hotel, but in contrary to what I will find in the destination. There are no taxis, for example, or at midnight they close the nightlife, there are no nightclubs and there are illegal parties.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.