The manager of the Costa del Sol Tourist Board, Arturo Bernal Bergua, assures that golf is a fundamental segment in the Costa del Sol’s tourist offer and that the entity he directs is aware that it must support it decisively for that reason and for its high growth potential.
He acknowledges that domestic tourism has suffered a sharp decline this year in the province of Malaga, but fortunately foreign visitors are “almost completely” offsetting this effect.
With a degree in Economics and Business Administration, a double master’s degree in Business Management and experience in the private sector and in public administration, Bernal is optimistic about the present and future of this vacation destination. September is showing good occupancy figures and that is very positive, he points out, “because it has always been in the spirit of this team to sell a high season as far as holiday tourism is concerned from May to September, and the fact that we are naturally incorporating September into the summer season is a step forward as far as the distribution of tourist demand is concerned”.
-Is this year’s Action Plan of the Board of Trustees static or does it adapt to different situations?
-We conceive a totally flexible, living plan, which is maintained annually based on the contributions of the working groups of each of the segments. We have four large departments, each with its own tourism segments, and the directors responsible for them, “Business Development Directors”, as they are called, periodically convene the roundtables to evaluate the actions and their execution and to see the possibility of introducing new ones by modifying the initial plan established. The 2012 Action Plan comprises 30 percent more actions than last year and was built on the basis of profitability and efficiency in the execution of the programmed promotion and marketing actions, working especially with the cross-selling philosophy and uniting in the same department those segments from which synergies were derived in their application. These operational innovations, which have worked very well, have been introduced this year in the action plan despite the fact that we had a significantly lower budget than last year. We have carried out more actions, the level of satisfaction, performance and results is much higher, and the response we have received from the members of the Board of Trustees and, in particular, from the members of the working groups is very positive.
-What importance does the Patronato attach to the golf segment in its promotional activities?
-For us it is a critical segment. We deal with it within a department that, in addition to golf, includes the actions of elite tourism and congresses, meetings and incentives because we understand that they are tourist segments that work very well together. I am not going to discover now the importance of golf for the Costa del Sol and its deseasonalizing effect with respect to the demand for holiday tourism, which is the most important in our destination. Golf provides us with a client with an average stay of between 6 and 7 days and an expenditure of around 170 euros per person per day, higher, for example, than that of the holiday and leisure tourist, which is around 60-70 euros per person per day.
Golf is strategically conceived as a model of quality tourism, a tourism that not only uses the exclusive equipment of the golf segment but also the hotel, catering, transportation and tourist services and, most importantly, it does so mainly in the low season characteristic of the vacation segment, from October to May. And that is why we say that it has an important seasonal effect.
However, the market share of the golf segment can still grow. We are currently occupying approximately 65 to 70 percent of the average capacity of the courses, so we have the potential for growth, and we have sufficient accommodation and service facilities on the Costa del Sol to take on this growth, so it is clear that our objective is to intensify and qualify the promotion of the segment and, in short, to continue working to position it.
-The Junta de Andalucía has rejected the sponsorship of the Andalucía Masters of the European Tour, citing the current economic situation and the high cost of this promotional action. Does the Patronato intend to follow the same steps and disassociate itself from the sponsorship of major golf tournaments?
– The new management team of Turismo Andaluz has effectively informed us that they do not see a sufficient return in this type of events and that they have to prioritize in other matters taking into account the financial situation they have inherited from the previous managers in that organization.
The Patronage has participated and wants to continue to do so in the sponsorship of the Open Andalucía Costa del Sol which is held thanks to the initiative and drive of Miguel Ángel Jiménez. In this sense, our President, Elías Bendodo, is making, despite the financial limitations, the necessary arrangements for its maintenance in coordination with the organization of the tournament for the incorporation of other sponsors in the event that the Board, as seems to be confirmed, also abandon its part of sponsorship in this Open. I believe that the Costa del Sol must have a great international tournament within the European Tour, not in vain is the best golf destination in Europe and one of the best and most recognized in the world.
However, there are other lines of work that we must also address in the field of direct actions to the player and accompanying client through projects that we are already implementing. We are especially targeting certain intermediaries and immediate prescribers in the markets of origin, who are the ones who are really moving groups of players to this destination. These actions have a much more measurable return, with a tighter cost and in a shorter term. The abc of this whole approach is to achieve a higher return with less investment; it is difficult to achieve this, but we are working on it.
This crisis situation must serve all of us, public entities and private companies, to “change the swing”. The fact that things may improve in the short or medium term should not make us lose our heads again: the market and its rules are constantly changing, we have more and better competitors with lower operating costs and, under these conditions, the leadership position must be maintained and nurtured day by day. We tend to forget the past too easily, and there are many lessons to be learned from this period of crisis. I believe that all the agents in this segment agree that the way in which the promotion and marketing of golf on the Costa del Sol is approached has to change, and this type of crisis also serves to reorient strategies.
-How do you assess the work being done by Marcelo Molinari as the new head of the golf segment at the Tourist Board?
– I value him very positively. He is very hard-working, rigorous and obsessed with knowing and solving the problems of the sector from the inside, which has led him in a very short time to become a true specialist in this business. In that sense, businessmen and golf professionals tell me that they are delighted with him and his work, as well as with the new approach we have introduced in the golf department. New approaches to promotion and marketing are being implemented that are much more efficient and accurate. In short, I am very satisfied with Marcelo’s appointment.
-Has the Board of Directors already decided on the budget that will be allocated to the promotion of the golf segment next year?
-In the execution of the action plans, a scenario was envisaged from the outset that would encourage a certain degree of competition between the departments and their managers, the business development managers, so that whoever was able to develop an effective action plan with good results in one year would have a better chance of maintaining and even increasing their budget allocations.
This is leading to healthy competition among the directors for efficient budget execution. In this regard, Marcelo and the executive promotion team, led by Renee Katchler, are doing a fantastic job, ensuring that this segment will have at least the same budgetary support it is counting on in 2012, which in these times is no small feat.
-How is the Tourist Board using the Internet to promote the Costa del Sol?
-Our web portal aims to be a marketing platform, not just a showcase of information, of all the offer we have in our destination. In the last few months we have worked on perfecting a destination management system that has allowed us to have more than two and a half million visits, with more than one million unique visitors. I believe that this is a great success for the website of a tourist destination, and that is what allows us to be in an advantageous position with respect to other products or competing destinations. Now we are working on creating specific portals for each of the business lines, so that each one under its own sub-brand, all under the umbrella of the Costa del Sol, can occupy those specific and different market niches. Golf is at a very advanced stage and our objective is to present the new integrated platform together with its new brands in the first months of next year.
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