Family holiday and travel news

Now like me, you are probably thinking that the beaches in Spain are one of its best features and would do a more than adequate job of selling the country to tourists across the World.  Strangely, though it would appear that Spanish tourist board were not quite so confident in their own beaches.  In a recent marketing campaign used pictures of a beach in the Bahamas… they even went to the effort of changing the sandy colour to a lighter shade to mirror the great Spanish look.

The advert was to promote the north eastern region and was launched by the Costa Brava, Pyrenees Girona Tourism with the slogan ‘you still have many things left to discover’.  One of these things obviously being that the beach featured was not actually to be found in Spain!

So why was the picture used?  Simply because the Tourist Board did not have a good enough quality picture of their own beaches… apparently though it is not the picture that matters but what it symbolises.  Interesting, I can just hear travel agents using a similar line to explain why the hotel you saw in the brochure wasn’t finished when you got there.

As you can imagine this whole episode has caused a certain amount of resentment in Spain.  And we would echo there displeasure – Spain has great beaches and is an ideal holiday destination… you don’t need a picture of the Bahamas to sell it and, with millions of tourists a year, I am sure someone has managed to capture the beauty of Spain on film.

If you are looking for holiday accommodation in Spain don’t foget to check out our Spanish villas and apartments as well as our holiday parcs in Spain.