Star role for quality Majorcan cooking

Duque believes that bars, cafés and restaurants which do business alongside the major tourist areas of the Islands, could benefit from specialised marketing companies arranging tastings on each Island.

In his opinion, in the national market alone, this would be a “key factor” to attract the arrival of Spanish tourists to the Balearics in the coming years.

The drive for quality, asserted Duque has to be the lynch pin for growth in the industry, a campaign founded in the improvement of hygiene of café and restaurant establishments and the professional training of staff. The objective must be that tourists “should always go away happy”.

Duque asked the Balearic government that restaurant business owners might be allowed to participate directly in the promotion of typical tasting sessions on each Island, so that they (the restaurateurs) might be involved in marketing in the Balearics.

In order to improve the sales over the next holiday season, the Federation considers it necessary to apply the Law of Commerce and eliminate unfair competition. The regional goverment is to partake in a meeting of pivotal importance on 5 July, where the whole sector will put forward possible solutions for improving the quality of “complementary offer” tourism and its promotion. To trigger the economic recovery of the sector, it is believed necessary to eliminate setting up of vending machines, the operating of 24-hour supermarkets and the sale of alcohol in petrol stations.

Duque explained that the arrival of tourists with a low to medium acquisitive power, the increase of the “all-inclusive” offer where clients pay for all their food and drink at the hotel in advance, and the lack of quality in specific establishments have meant that in the last 3 years, the profits of the sector of restaurateurs in the Balearics have fallen by 3 or 4 percent each year.