MAGALLUF HOLIDAY GIVE AWAY

PALMA
HOTELIERS in Magalluf and Palmanova have decided that drastic times call for drastic measures and are going to be giving scores of free holidays away to British travel agents next month in a last ditch attempt to inject some life into the summer holiday market.

The Palmanova and Magalluf Hotel Association yesterday pledged its full support to the four-day promotional event the Balearics is going to be throwing in the heart of Manchester at the start of next month and announced that it will be offering travel agents free trips to the resort.

Apparently, all British travel agents attending a workshop the association will be hosting during the four-day promotional exhibitions, will leave with a free holiday and hoteliers hope that by getting as many travel agents as possible down to Magalluf and Palmanova will encourage them to push holidays to the resorts both during this summer and the coming winter.

This winter, Magalluf and Palmanova hotels suffered a 20 percent decline in British guests and, according to the association, summer bookings are between 23 and 24 percent lower than last year. However, hoteliers are confident that there will be a surge in late bookings for the summer while some hotels are already offering early winter bookers savings of 15 percent.

Juan Espina, spokesperson for the hotel association, said yesterday that the resorts have been hard hit this winter and many hotels are holding out until the very last minute to open.

After the poor winter and Easter periods, Espina said that 65 percent of the hotels are still closed. He explained that only 35 percent of the association's hotels in the two resorts were open over Easter and were between 75 and 80 percent full.

But, he stressed, that average half-board rates were 30 euros per day, two to three euros less than this time last year.
The rest of the local hotel sector is expected to be open by the middle of May and, according to Espina, the association's members - 90 percent of hotels in the two resorts - are confident that the British will return between June and September to save the season.

The latest figures from the Spanish Tourist Office in London point to an overall decline of seven percent in summer holiday bookings to the Balearics - much better than the 20 percent drop in British demand for summer holidays in Spain.

The current situation of the holiday market is going to be top of the agenda when captains of the Balearic tourist industry sit down for talks with the Spanish Vice-president, Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega in Palma this weekend.

The local industry is going to use this opportunity to give the vice-president a full debriefing of the problems faced by the tourist sector here in the Balearics and that many of them are very different from those the national industry is having to confront.

Fernandez De la Vega will also come under pressure over the banks continuing refusal to provide credit and cash aid to business and she will also be challenged over just what action central government intends to take to help the tourist industry through the recession - such as reducing airport taxes.

She will hold a meeting with Balearic President Francesc Antich this evening and then face the tourist sector tomorrow.