Your views

Palma Boat Show
Dear Sir,
As you know, I have had quite a lot of involvement with the Palma Boat Show over many years, as Editor of The Islander, the Majorca based yachting magazine.
I am now living in Holland and still working as a freelance media professional in the international yachting industry, this gives me something of an outside/ inside view on yachting activities in Palma and The Balearics.
What really surprises me, is that with only 8 weeks to go until the start of this years 31st Boatshow Palma, its promotional presence in the international press, and on the internet is hardly noticeable. And what is there is confusing, poorly representative, and quite frankly shameful, for what should be showcasing one of the world’s premier yachting locations.
The Boatshow Palma website itself can only be accessed via this convoluted url: www.idi.es/boatshowpalma/. Other websites (not owned by Fires de Congresses) masquerading as the Palma Boat Show, actually achieve much more prominence in the search rankings than the show’s official site does. And when you get to the real one (if you do?) it only shows a handful of exhibitors, and the section marked ‘NEWS’ ...opens to a blank page. Hardly the stuff to make anyone want to jump on a plane to Majorca in a few weeks time.
As I have pointed out many times in the past, all of the really well respected boat shows around the world are members of the IFBSO (International Federation of Boat Show Organisers) and this gives them real credibility and substance, due to the fact that their visitor numbers and levels of professional support are independently audited. So, I have to ask, why is Boatshow Palma still avoiding this reasonable and well accepted industry standard scrutiny after 31 years?
And why do the organisers not look at the success factors that drive these other shows and emulate them? For instance, they all, without exception, start promoting the next show as soon as the current edition finishes, meaning that they have a whole 12 months for the publicity to build and to create positive expectations. By contrast, the international yachting media are ‘in the dark’ about what is happening with the Palma Show until its too late to preview it, or even to plan a visit by a journalist...
After cancellation due to ‘lack of support’ in 2012, it looked like a great comeback for the event last year, and this was due to a large extent, to the Palma based luxury yacht brokers organising a superyacht show within a show. Indeed this year the same brokers supported by their trade association MYBA (Mediterranean Yacht Brokers Association) are building on this success, and expecting around 65 of the finest large luxury yachts in the world to appear at the show. Many of them will be occupying a brand new superyacht facility (Moll Vell Marina) situated just a stone’s throw from Palma Cathedral. This means that the story opportunities are endless! It’s a public relations gift! But what do we see of it internationally...I can tell you, very little! Its a crying shame!
As a person who worked tirelessly for yachting in Majorca for many years, and of course knowing that many others do the same, I have to say that this is a massive let down, maybe even a ‘kick in the teeth’ for hard working exhibitors, and local yachting fraternity who simply deserve better. This is not to mention the local economy, that can really benefit in terms of tourist revenue, if only, oh if only, this was given the publicity and international profile that it genuinely deserves.