British tourists saving Balearics tourist industry

Balearic holiday bookings in Germany have gone in to free fall, but the British market is saving Minorca. A spokesperson for the Minorcan Hotel Association said yesterday that hotel bookings in May and June are down by ten per cent “but luckily the British tourist industry accounts for 73 per cent of our market, which is going to save our summer. “The British market is only down between one and two per cent, while the island average in the Balearics is six per cent. “Obviously we are worried about the implications of the tourist tax and the effects it is already having on the German market,” the Ashome spokesperson said. Across the board, with the season starting today, hotel bookings are down ten per cent in comparison to last year. The Majorcan Hotel Federation, trying not to panic in accordance with advice from the local tourism authority, said yesterday that over the next two months “it is going to be very hard for hotels to reach the 70 per cent occupancy level.” The biggest impact on the Balearic market is coming from Germany, where the industry accounts for 40 per cent of tourism in the region. At the moment, German bookings for the Balearics are down by between 15 and 20 per cent. In contrast, however, the British market is down just five per cent overall, and is picking up fast - very similar to last year. “We are all worried and eager to see what happens over the next few weeks”, the Majorcan Hotel federation said. But the Majorcan Hotel Federation said yesterday that Germany's top selling daily newspaper Bild is largely responsible for the sharp drop in German bookings with its negative publicity of Majorca over the past year and more recently its coverage of the tourist tax.