Viewpoint: See you next year, hopefully

In the meantime the tour operators are tightening the screws on Balearic hoteliers to freeze their rates for next season to fight off mounting competition from the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa and Portugal - will the hoteliers give in or will they risk pricing themselves out of the market? Time will tell.

As it is, despite encouraging occupancy figures released yesterday with an apparent average of 65 percent in general across Mallorca and 91 percent in the Playa de Palma - I doubt it will prove enough. I have to say those figures are way higher than what a leading hotelier told me this week and also contradicts the fact that an increasing number of hotels are planning on closing earlier than planned and not hang on for late winter tourism.

Considering there are a number of hotels in the large resorts which have not opened for the second consecutive year, those hotels which are open should be doing well.

But, now the Germans have gone back to school and the clock is ticking for British families with the new term just a few weeks away, Mallorca’s potential market is going to shrink very quickly. Now it’s time to start planning for next year.