Empty beaches, winter weather.

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The Balearic Minister for Tourism, Celesti Alomar, admittedly concerned about this winter's poor tourist season, has warned that unless the Balearic tourist industry does not move with the times and adapt to the latest market trends “we are going to have even worse low seasons.” Alomar has called on the leading UK and German tour operators to help to bolster the Balearics low season, but he fails to understand that if people do not want to come to the Balearics in the winter and would rather head for some winter sun, a city-culture break or skiing, for example, there is little the tour operator can do. What is more, the tour operator is happy wherever clients go, as long as they are selling holidays. Despite an expected increase in passenger traffic through Palma airport - off season hotel bookings have been dropping over the past two years, suggesting that people are either staying in residential accommodation, or using Palma airport as a “hub,” as is the case with the German market, and merely arriving in Majorca, to catch a connecting plane elsewhere. What is clear is that the present and previous government's drive to decentralise the tourist industry and develop an all-year market in the Balearics has failed to work and Alomar is calling on leading European tour operators to help give the campaign new impetus. But while Alomar says that this summer broke all records again, the rise in popularity of residential and independent holidays at the cost of package tours is having a negative affect.