HOLIDAYS
Oh to be in England !
NIGEL BUXTON
" There are lies, damn lies and. " But instead of the more famous 'statistics ' to complete the quotation one is tempted to substitute "the advertising copy put out by the travel trade." Benidorm has been much with us recently, but hardly a week goes by without yet another horrific account of would-be holiday makers arriving at their chosen watering place only to discover that they are accommodated in the hotel which isn't. Not — so far — actually not there at all; but not finished, and certainly not habitable in the ' luxury' style that the tour operator's brochure suggested or described.
Which always makes a good story; usually front page. What, unfortunately, never makes so much as a run-of-the-paper paragraph, yet is, I firmly believe, a cause of the submerged part of the iceberg of public discontent with the travel trade, is the situation in which the hotel happens to be just about the only item on the brochure's bill of goods which is there; all the rest — weather, wine, food, ' atmosphere '—being nowhere at all except in the tour operator's commercially fertile imagination and deathless prose.
Incomparably the finest example of the printed, persuasive word yet to come my way from the great illusion makers is the Castle Holidays winter brochure Sunshine 71/72. " Leave behind the cold, the frost, the snow, the slush. Bask in the warm glow of Mediterranean sunshine . . . [page 2]. Christmas in Majorca is the experience of a lifetime. Golden sands, blue skies, and warm sea breezes . . . [page 6]. Marvellous Climate, delectable food . . . golden sands under blues skies . . . [page 7]. Majorca in winter is like England in glowing, warm Springtime . . . expanses of superb golden sands that slope gently to the blue sea, offers the winter visitor a special holiday experience" [page 9].
There , can be no doubt whatever about the message, and a very inviting one it is. But is it true? " Well," says Mr Hoyle, Castle Holidays' marketing director, "Well, What we've tried to do in that brochure is to give a balanced picture of general conditions along with entertainment. You see . . "Yes, yes, Mr Hoyle; but is it true, all that stuff about the warm glow of the Mediterranean sunshine in winter? Never Mind "local festivities" or the "fun of an English Christmas" (in Palma?!) or the ' entertainments galore" or the fact that there is " so much laid on for the little ones,' Can you put your hand on your good-as-gold heart and endorse those blue skies that are clearly implied to be more the rule than the exception? And the golden beaches upon which — the brochure obviously intends to suggest We shall be able to bask and from which We shall be able to bathe?
"Well," says Mr Hoyle, "we've taken our information from the statistics put out by the Spanish authorities. I mean . Yes, yes. And all very admirable, no doubt. But here I have a most detailed table, compiled I understand from those same sources and supplied by the Meteorological Office in London, which gives the average maximum day temperature for Palma in December as 59 degrees F and in January as 57, the upper 60s not being reached until April. And since the figures are only monthly averages they would seem to suggest that although some winter days in Palma may be agreeably warm, others are bound to be distinctly cool.
Then again, my tables give what I may (and I hope inoffensively) call illuminating intelligence in the matter of hours of sunshine, which, after all, is one of your big selling points. The daily average for December in Palma is a modest 4.4 (about three times as much as London in the same season) rising to 4.8 in January; not much to spread over — say—twelve hours of daylight.
From all of which we might reasonably deduce that although the winter climate of Palma and its environs offers a distinct advantage over the climate of Kew Gardens (45 degrees and 1.3 daily hours of sunshine in December) they are not exactly the place for a nice deep tan or for gambolling in the briny at that season. All this being so, what — statistically of course — are we to make of the brochure's promise of " a burst of Mediterranean warmth; four or five days of Majorcan sunshine"? As the Cooks/BEA ' Wintersun ' brochure, comparing the Balearics with the Canaries, says with rare and highly commendable honesty, "Majorca is curiously enough a little cooler and sea bathing may not be comfortable until April." The italics are mine. And as one who has been driven to drink by low cloud and persistent rain in the Canaries in February and who has lived a year in Majorca I appeaud that.
But it is not only Majorca which is seen by the Castle Holidays copywriters through conveniently rose-coloured spectacles. Crete, they say, "has the wonderful winter climate that the Mediterranean offers." Which is news to a man who for years now has held the view that to be sure of sunshine and warmth for any length of time when it is winter in Europe one must go to the other hemisphere. Are we to take Mr Hoyle's scrupulously considered and well informed opinion (and we must suppose that in dealing with the money and happiness of all sorts and conditions of people a senior executive of a Union Castle Line subsidiary company would be both scrupulous and well informed) the Mediterranean as a whole, and as a general rule, in winter offers long periods of warm, predictable sunshine, warm seas and blue skies? In a word from the brochure, a ' wonderful ' climate? " Well," says Mr Hoyle, It's a matter of opinion what you mean by wonderful; and compared with . . . " No, no Mr Hoyle. Not compared with anything. What I mean by wonderful is what I am sure you mean by wonderful and what the vast majority of the people to whom your brochure is directed (and they not being dwellers in the Arctic) mean by wonderful. And we all know what that is. Now has the Mediterranean as a whole, and as a general rule, or has it not got a wonderful climate? If so, how come that Naples and Athens can only manage an average daily maximum of 54°F in January, not rising to the high 60s until April? How come that this writer can have found himself huddled over a fire at noon for three days running in Capri and in what a loyal islander said were normal conditions for the time of year? What about the memories of those veterans who endured the Italian peninsula during the winter campaign of 1943-4?
On the showing of a telephone conversation with him, such questions, put so brutally, are apt to have Mr Hoyle of Castle Holidays somewhat hestitant in his replies. More disconcerting still, it seemed, were inquiries about when the photographs which decorate the Castle brochure, and which show all those halfnaked girls on or beside the sea and the swimming pools, were actually taken: at what season of the year, I mean. Well, mostly, Mr Hoyle admits, in spring.
Oh well then, that apart, why all the play in the brochure upon full central heating and heated swimming pools? Well, says Mr Hoyle, the temperatures in Majorca do drop sharply at night in winter, and heated swimming pools are quite the usual thing nowadays. Very true, Mr Hoyle. Very true. But not, in my experience, quite the thing with profitconscious hotel managements who see little point in using expensive fuel oil for what the Mediterranean sun is — in due season — perfectly able to do as well.
But let us turn from these embarrassing and tedious questions of climate to the twin considerations of food and drink. If the brochure is to be believed, Castle Holidays have been remarkably fortunate in the arrangements they have made for their customers' delight. In Majorca the "hand-picked hotels" offer "delicious meals." Indeed, "delectable food " appears to be common to all Castle ' mini-holidays ' in the island. Now to a man who only last winter as ever was went to Majorca for a weekend of soft living, and had poor breakfasts in what is officially rated as one of the best hotels and (having perused all the guidebooks, including Michelin, and taken much local counsel) dined in the reputedly best restaurant in Palma and had a somewhat indifferent meal, this Castle intelligence is disturbing stuff. As for Castle's gastronomic discoveries on the Costa Blanca (" exceptionally good," "superb ") and in Morocco (" some of the most delectable dishes in the world ") and in the Canary Islands (" delectable international cuisine ") and in Crete (" excellent ") — where, oh where, had all the chefs hidden themselves when I passed their several ways?
Nigel Buxton is Travel Editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
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