Dear Angeles Munoz, Mayoress of Marbella.

It was with great interest I read your article in the Panorama Magazine outlining what has been done for the town of Marbella and your goals for the future.

Your goals will undoubtedly lay the foundations for growth in the real estate sector for years to come.

I personally think it is important to differentiate between the real estate sector and tourism for Marbella. In your article you used the phrase “quality tourism”. This because Marbella will never be able to compete with charter tourism. This can also easily be defined as tourists with spending power.

If you take a walk around Marbella and Puerto Banus today you will see that every third local is for rent or sale. The small business community of Marbella has said that in the first quarter of 2008 as many as 100 of their members will have to close their shops.

As manager of one of Marbella´s largest villa rental companies I see that the only tourists left for Marbella with spending power are the Russians and the Arabs.

When working with clients for luxury villa rentals we see that we do not loose clients to competitors in the market of Marbella, but we loose to other destinations. The rich choose other destinations than Marbella. They choose Mallorca, Ibiza, the French Rivera, Italy, the Algarve and Dubai.

Italy and the French Riviera have always been top destinations for the rich and wealthy. 10 years ago Mallorca and Ibiza we world renown as party destinations for the young. Today, Bruce Willis has his own villa there and the King of Spain spends some of his holidays there. Why do these kind of people go to Mallorca and Ibiza and not Marbella ?

The effect of tourism for Mallorca that Bruce Willis is featured in 50 magazines on holidays in Mallorca is enormous. What has Mallorca and Ibiza done the last years to turn their image around and attract the tourists with spending power ?

Our own city of Malaga is another example of brilliant planning and marketing. A few years ago it did not have a five star hotel. Today they are being built as fast as possible and Malaga is a port of destination for all cruise liners in the Mediterranean. Malaga’s future as a tourist destination is sealed and will even compete with Barcelona.

I have raised many questions in this letter and given examples of destinations which have succeeded in obtaining quality tourism with spending power.

The ultimate question for Marbella is then how do we get the King of Spain or the Bruce Willis of this world to come to Marbella ?
For where the rich and famous go the crowd will follow.

My belief is that this lies in events. We have already tried to compete with the other destinations based on beaches and hotels and lost. I wrote a letter to CIT Marbella the end of last year asking them for a list of major events happening in Marbella in 2008 so that I could include this in one of our newsletters. This to show clients that a lot of things were happening in Marbella. Unfortunately there are no events planned in 2008 where any VIP are invited to put Marbella back on the tourist map.

Dear Angeles Munoz. As you can see this will be a long process. But very necessary and not impossible. In the good old days the rich and famous put Marbella on the world tourist map. Even Sean Connery did his best.