Balearics could pay a high price for the Euro

The introduction of the single currency on January 1 next year will mark the end of the Balearics as a “cheap” holiday destination. According to a team of professors at the Balearic University, results of a study carried out conclude that the Balearics has got to change its tourism model. The results were presented yesterday and Javier Rey-Maquieira, who won the Sa Nostra prize for investigation in 1998 and was involved in carrying out the study, explained that the Balearic economy's principal sector “is used to competing at low prices, which is something that will have to change with the euro.” According to Rey-Maquieira, the single currency will make tourism much less dependent on price. The aim of the university's study was to analyse the consequences of the change in currency, which many economic bodies still know little about.