This 37-year-old lawyer, president of the Provincial Council of Malaga (he is also president of the Malaga PP) and of the Provincial Tourism Board, has a very broad vision of golf, which gives him the experience of practicing it and having been several years in the City Council of Malaga councilman responsible for Sports and Tourism, areas that fit perfectly with golf on the Costa del Sol.
1 -The golf segment has a remarkable importance in the tourism sector of the Costa del Sol, especially in the winter months thanks to the golfers coming from different European countries. Do you think that politicians, in general, are aware of the relevance of golf as a tourist resource?
-Absolutely. I don’t know any politician, of the different options, or at least the majority ones, who doubts the importance of golf as a tourist segment. Not in vain, the Costa del Sol is also known as Costa del Golf, and the importance of this segment is clear no matter what data we handle: number of courses, quality of its facilities, economic benefits it brings. In addition, in favor of our tourist destination, it should be noted that golf is a great element in the fight against seasonality, as its high season coincides with the low season of the traditional sun and beach holiday tourism.
2 – The Tourist Board you preside has been characterized in recent years by an intense promotional activity, both in Spain and abroad, to attract more golfers to Costa del Sol golf courses. Are you going to continue along these lines or are there going to be new strategies?
Of course, we are not only going to continue -in fact, we are already doing it- with the promotional activity of golf at national and international level. The objective, as always, is to attract more and more quality tourists, that is to say, those who have a higher tourist expenditure per stay and, in this sense, tourists from the golf segment have a very interesting expenditure profile for the Costa del Golf. Thus, in next year’s Action Plan we will resume part of the line followed previously on which businessmen tell us that they are satisfied and we will also incorporate new strategies in which we are already working, both in new markets and in strengthening the traditional ones.
3 -The volume of tourists visiting the Costa del Sol could reach a record number this year. Do you think we are beginning to glimpse the end of the tunnel of the crisis in the tourism sector or is it just a parenthesis due to the instability in the Arab countries where there have been popular uprisings?
-We will undoubtedly reach very significant figures at the end of the year, on the path of the years prior to the current crisis, at least as far as the number of visitors is concerned. Profits are another matter because production costs have risen sharply and income (average expenditure per tourist stay) has fallen or stagnated. What worries me most is that this situation will end up affecting the quality of services. The Costa del Sol does not compete on prices, it competes in the league of Quality In relation to the instability of the Arab countries to which you allude because of those circumstances that, according to international tour operators, will last for several years, I believe that it has not benefited us as much as was predicted at the beginning of the year. At a national level, the increase is clear, but it has been focused on the Canary Islands and areas with a concentration of “all-inclusive” models. There are other factors that play in our favor and that should constitute the basis of our competitiveness strategy: improvement of communications, quality of the hotel plant, quality and professionalism of the tourist and transport services and a wide etcetera that I do not think it is necessary to enumerate. And above all, two fundamental factors that distinguish us, such as climate and hospitality.
4 – Two decades ago, an Arab businessman presented an initiative to install a large Disneyland-style amusement park near Marbella, although the project did not go ahead. Have you ever considered what could be done, something really big, to attract a large volume of new tourists to the Costa del Sol?
At that time I was very young, but from what I have been able to learn later on, what happened was a short-sightedness apart from any other kind of intentions, especially from the Andalusian Government, which did not value enough the importance of a project that would have been highly beneficial for the Costa del Sol. Something similar happened before when the installation of the casinos was approved. Finally Disneyland was installed in the vicinity of Paris, which undoubtedly does not enjoy our climate or the number of visitors that would have made the project a profitable business (currently it is not) for the investor and for the entire community and the tourism sector. In relation to these great projects that you mention, there is no lack of ideas, but it is clear that the current economic situation is not the most suitable to undertake them. We will have to start by giving much more value to the events that already take place throughout the Costa del Sol and that constitute a great cultural wealth and promotion of our traditions.
5 – It is clear that we must take care of the traditional tourist issuing markets that nourish the Costa del Sol (British, German, Nordic…), but are we doing what is necessary to try to attract visitors from other countries?
-We are working hard not only in the traditional markets, but also in the emerging ones and, what is also important, in those that for one reason or another, had “abandoned” the Costa del Sol. Think, for example, of the important recovery we are achieving in the Nordic, Russian, French, Belgian and Italian markets, and especially the effort we are making to strengthen the North American market.
6 – In your opinion, does the private initiative do enough to promote golf in Costa del Sol?
-I think so; just as I think that in the tourism sector we have to go hand in hand with private and public initiatives. It is necessary to avoid the dispersion of efforts and I believe that there have been excellent examples of public-private synergy in the recent history of Malaga and the Costa del Sol.
7 -The Patronage has sponsored the Women’s Spanish Open that has just taken place in La Quinta. Do you plan to continue sponsoring renowned professional tournaments?
The Costa del Sol Tourist Board has sponsored this tournament for the last two years. The stakes have been high, but I believe that the results in terms of promotion and image for the Costa del Golf have also been more than satisfactory. Obviously we will continue in this line, combining the promotional activity of the golf segment at the level of marketing channels and end customers, which are working so well, with professional events or tournaments that achieve a significant media impact in our target markets.
8 -Do the golf courses in Costa del Sol, in general, have the quality that this destination requires?
– In general it is undoubtedly yes, as it is demonstrated by the number of people who year after year come to play golf on the Costa del Sol. That does not mean that, as in other aspects, we are all susceptible to improve and I know that this is so and in this sense I recognize and applaud the efforts of most clubs and accommodation on the coast linked to this segment that are making significant investments in their facilities to adapt them to the increasingly demanding demand.
9 – Assuming you have time left to practice, how is your golf going?
– The truth is that I wish I had the time to practice it more, but you will understand that my new responsibilities force me to have an order of priorities.
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