Campaign to re-viva Espana

THE Spanish Tourist Office will launch a 4.5 million euro campaign next year to revive its flagging beach package market.

Director Ignacio Vasallo said Spain has suffered from the decline in 14-night family packages and from competition in cheaper Eastern European destinations. He said the country planned to refocus marketing efforts on Spain’s sun and beach offering.

Vasallo denied previous campaigns focusing on Spain’s cultural aspects had missed the mark with holidaymakers, but admitted demand for package breaks had evolved.

“Holidays have become a commodity and people are looking for cheaper packages. We are not going to offer a cheaper price but will fight to maintain our market share,” he said.

Spain has been damaged by a series of operators slashing capacity. Both Thomson and Thomas Cook plan to transfer capacity to other destinations including Egypt and Turkey due to poor sales. First Choice dropped the Costa Brava for next summer, blaming poor-quality hotels and competition from no-frills airlines.

This year Spain has seen a drop in packages of 600,000-700,000. However, the figure had been countered by continued growth elsewhere, particularly in independent holidays and holidaymakers with properties overseas, raising the total number of UK visitors by 2% to 15.5 million.

The number of packages is expected to decline further by 500,000 next year, but Vasallo said Spain has always had a disproportionately high share of the holiday market at 40% which he expects will stabilise at 30%-32% by 2006.

The tourist office worked with operators to develop the campaign and was advised to wait until February for its launch rather than competing with abundant advertising during January’s peak booking period.