subject: Hotels Killed The B&b Star! [print this page] Nearly 3 quarters of the accommodation available in the Canary Islands comes in the form of B&B's, but now they are drastically under threat from the over powering big hotel chains.
The ever popular group of Spanish Canary Islands are in a sort of crisis which has seen the owners of B&B's have spit their dummies out due to the higher level of competition in the region. On the island of Gran Canaria particularly the hoteliers' associations' president, Fernando Fraile, fears that as many as 70% of classic B&B's will have financially dissolved because of the lack of business. Personally that is something I find hard to believe considering the 9 million plus tourists that head to the Canary Islands every summer, also with Gran Canaria having the second highest populous of the islands.
The main concern is that the big hotels that have popped up over the years seem to have swept away the business of the little guy, this is an age old argument of many industries the world over. If there was no alternative to staying in small cardboard box lodgings available with the print of what it was packaging still on the side then people would stay there. Just because there is more than one option doesn't mean you should pack up shop or worse yet have a big moan about the state of things. The B&B owners probably offer a better service and are a bit more intimate with the handling and caring of their customers than the big hotels will because they have fewer guests at a given time.
If people enjoy their stay in certain establishments then they are most likely to stay again if they holiday in the same destination. Perhaps one thing the B&B's should take a look at is themselves and perhaps if there service could be made better then as the character Jean Luc Picard, played by Patrick Stewart, said on the popular Star Trek: Next Generation series, "Make it so".
A lot of the blame has being directed at the very competitive prices that hotels offer in comparison to B&B's, and although I would know little about the running costs of a hotel in comparison to a B&B, surely hotels would be all the more expensive. Perhaps B&B's could review their price structures.
The success of hotels in the area is because people prefer to stay there whether or not it is because of a better service or price. The B&B owners must understand that fact, unless they believe hotel managers kidnap tourists from airports and smuggle them into a room whilst making their victims pay for a two week stay at the same time. Which of course happens all the time.
The island is massively dependent on tourism and that is why many hotels are present around Gran Canaria. Many people prefer to stay in B&B's because they offer better attention to customers and they tend to be a lot cheaper, despite what some of the owners are claiming. The fact that many couples visit the island I don't see why B&B owners don't re-evaluate their marketing strategy towards them and other certain groups of holidaymakers. Flexible companies are most destined to have a future so mixing traditional methods of business with the way things are run today can be a success and more quaint accommodations have a massive appeal to many people.
The isolation from the tourist market that the smaller businesses are feeling is understandable because of the big hotels that have come in, but it doesn't mean the end of their existence as they have been suggesting. A threat to any business means that the techniques currently used are no longer effective and in order to counter the effects of a threat you must appeal to what people, the market, wants because there will always be a demand for accommodation in the likes of Gran Canaria. If that doesn't work well then perhaps you should shut up shop.
