Figures released by the airports authority AENA on Monday indicate that passenger numbers at Palma Son Sant Joan Airport in July were up 5.9% compared with July 2022. The total - arriving and departing passengers - was 4,378,210. As is normally the case in summer, this was the third highest number for all Spain's airports behind Madrid-Barajas and Barcelona-El Prat.
Of this total, 3,490,792 were passengers on international flights - an increase of 6.9%. While it is obviously the case that not all passengers are tourists, the figures do nevertheless provide an indication of tourism performance (up or down).
July passenger numbers at Ibiza and Mahon airports were up 6.8% and 2.0% respectively.
They aren't conclusive, but the passenger figures do suggest that the islands maintained the increase in tourist numbers that were registered up to June this year. In June, there were 2.49 million tourists in the Balearics, an increase of 2.43% compared with last year; foreign tourism was up 5.1% but Spanish tourism was down 8.7%. Over the first six months of 2023, the total number of tourists was 7.13 million, a rise of 10.4%, for which there is the caveat that travel in early 2022 was still subject to some Covid restrictions.
In pre-pandemic 2019, there were 6.70 million tourists between January and June. In 2018, there were 6.59 million; 2018 was the year when the Balearics recorded the most tourists ever - 16.55 million. The first six months of 2023 were an all-time record.
The figures for tourist numbers in July, which won't be known until the start of September, will be of particular interest in seeing whether the Balearic Islands are on course for a record year. The airport figures suggest that the upward trend was maintained.
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