One-way tourism will bring the returns.

For the first time in over 30 years Spain’s population is actually going down as more people are emigrating from than immigrating to Spain and many young couples are leaving parenthood till “after the crisis” or at least until the government stops cutting child benefit and increasing education costs. More and more qualified professionals, university graduates and even entrepreneurs are setting up residence in any country in a position to offer them the opportunity that has been denied then in Spain. Countries of choice include: Germany, Brazil, Canada, Australia or Chile. Just this week there was an announcement that Austria was offering no less than 5,000 opportunities in the hotel industry to Spanish tourism professionals.

A couple of weeks ago I was discussing this with the Director for Europe for Turismo Chile, a client of mine, who was at first skeptical, quite rightly so of course, of the positive growth statistics of Spanish arrivals to Santiago de Chile. Talking to the incoming tour operators (and indeed to the outbound operators here in Spain) it is clear that many are entering on a tourist visa, finding a job while they’re “on holiday” and staying for good. They are not, strictly speaking, tourists at all.

This was obviously a bit of a dampener on my argument that our marketing is so damn good it can persuade more and more people to spend upwards of 3000€ on a jolly to Chile despite the worst recession in history (well it was worth a try!) but on reflection it is not that bad news at all. Firstly because the situation would be a good deal worse if we weren’t doing the marketing. Secondly because our country branding, which we do in collaboration with ProChile, the commercial attaché to the embassy, is no doubt contributing to the positive image that Spanish professionals have of Chile a pleasant place to live and work. Lastly but most importantly because there will be mid-term and long-term benefits to tourism from this emigration.

Remember these are definitely not the Spaniards we saw emigrating in those sad black and white movies from the 1950’s. Back then it was the unqualified manual worker that was forced to leave the wife and kids behind and seek fortune or evade misfortune abroad. Today it is the opposite as there is a veritable brain-drain as the most qualified young doctors, engineers, programmers, etc. leave behind the mums and dads that paid for their masters degree. These talented, highly qualified but frustrated yuppies are sought after by countries capable of tempting them with high salaries and a high quality of living.  They will soon therefore have more money to spend and one of the first things they will want to do is explore the country that they now call home. Good news therefore for a tourist segment I call the “new-domestic” . When they return to Spain they will be powerful advocates of their adopted country and therefore the best possible marketing campaign for the destination. In the meantime, and even if they never return to Spain at all, friends and family will want to visit them and this will boast the V.F.R. segment and also multiply the destination advocates.

Last but not least, in the case of Chile, many of these Spanish immigrants end up working for Spanish multinationals in Chile thus strengthening the commercial links between the countries and with it the MICE and business tourism segments.

Whilst our objective is obviously to send tourists and not immigrants to the countries we represent I am convinced that the latter will lead to the former so we must be patient and wait for those one ways to bring the returns.

Today’s emigrants from Spain are good for business