Record season

A record year for tourism: everyone keeps on saying it but I am not convinced. According to the local authorities a record number of tourists passed through Palma airport and spent a small fortune but I know of plenty of business people who are complaining. If you look at the overall tourism figure for August, yes more tourists did come to the island on holiday. But the figures also say that the number of Germans coming to our shores slumped by 10 per cent. Yes, 10 per cent, a sizeable fall, especially when we are talking hundreds of thousands of people. It will be interesting to see whether this fall continues into September. If so, we are in real trouble. The number of British tourists to the island this summer rose and so did their spending power with the strength of sterling having a major impact. But you can safely say that Majorca’s tourism success story of recent years is built on the Germans. They have powered ahead and have become the top tourism market for the Balearics. The Germans now make up the lion’s share of tourism to Majorca, so such a dramatic fall should mean that the alarm bells should be ringing. The fall in Germans was counterbalanced by the growth in other markets, but I do not think that you can talk of a record season when one of your principal tourism markets has fallen so dramatically. The fall in Germans comes before the introduction of the tourist tax next season. You have been warned!