Spain turns to top chef to boost tourism
Spain has called in its world-renowned chef Ferran Adria to help spice up its image as a tourist destination in what analysts say is a shrewd move to revive a key recession-hit industry.
Adria, the Spanish guru of avant-garde cuisine, is the face of a new campaign to promote Spain’s cultural and gastronomic strengths and prove it has more to offer than cheap “holiday in the sun” packages.
“It’s a clever move in the sense that we need to innovate in the design of our tourism product, and Ferran Adria is seen as an innovator,” Daniela Freund, a professor of tourism studies at Barcelona’s Sant Ignasi college, told AFP.
Adria recently announced that his restaurant in Northeastern Spain, El Bulli, currently named as the world’s best, would close for two years from 2012 and then become a non-profit foundation.
Spain suffered an 8.7-percent-drop in foreign tourists last year due, in part, to the effect of the economic crisis in its main markets and is the second straight year that the number of visitors has fallen.
According to the Minister of Industry, the tourism sector employed 2.25 million people last year or 12 percent of all workers in the country.
It also accounts for 11 percent of gross domestic product and is the second largest sector after the construction industry which collapsed as the country slipped into recession in late 2008.
“Spain will end 2010 as the only major economy still in recession and with its two main engines — construction and tourism — sick,” said the newspaper El Pais. The new tourist industry campaign will be a way to “exit the tunnel”, it added.
Freund said there had been “a feeling in the industry that the country was not being marketed properly and there was not enough commitment to try to foster other types of tourism.”
“Probably the economic crisis was the spark that woke us up and the feeling was it was now or never.”
Apart from the recession, Spain is feeling the pinch from the drop in sterling to near parity with the euro which has made it more expensive for British holidaymakers to come to Spain.
The country has also suffered from increased competition in recent years from cheaper Mediterranean destinations such as Croatia, Turkey and Tunisia.
In 2008, Spain lost its ranking as the world’s second most visited country to the United States who came in behind first placed France.
But analysts said tourism authorities are not concerned about attracting more tourists, just ones that spend more money.
“We are not just looking for millions and millions of tourists,” said Josep Francesc Valls, professor of marketing at the ESADE Business School in Barcelona.
“We want millions and millions of tourists, but we want tourists who are looking for quality.”
Freund added that Spain “will never be able to compete on prices.”
“If we just focus on this sun and beach model then the tourist doesn’t really care where he is and there’s not much you can do about that.”
The tourism ministry said that the new “I Need Spain” campaign aims to promote Spain as cultural tourist destination of the first order and diversify its tourism product.
Among the attractions it wants to highlight are the historic Moorish cities of Cordoba, Granada and Sevilla in the south, the wine-growing region of La Rioja in the northeast and the northern Basque Country, home to some of Spain’s best cuisine.
The Ministry said the 7.5 million-euro campaign was particularly aimed at markets that have traditionally been weak, such as China, India and the Middle East.
Freund finished by saying that building brand awareness is vital in these new markets before it’s too late.
Sorry, comments are closed.
There are still lots of other news articles that you can comment on.