Plasma screens keep tourists informed at airport

VISITORS arriving at Palma's Son Sant Joan airport can now while away the time waiting for their luggage to be unloaded by seeing what the island has to offer thanks to eight computers and plasma screens installed courtesy of the Council of Majorca. The computers are connected to three web pages of tourist information on the island. Some are installed at the luggage collection area and others in the arrival area. In presenting the screens, Council president Maria Antonia Munar said that the initiative is designed to fill the need of “offering the visitor, and also residents, quality information on the cultural aspects of Majorca, its gastronomy and sports events.” She added that the scheme came about because the Council was “aware that the island's welfare depends on tourism, much more than on other sectors such as commerce or industry.” She went on to say that “we are in a world of new technologies and tourists want to arrive at their destinations under their own ssteam and choose for themselves where they want to go.” This will now be easier for them, she said, thanks to the “installation of this technology at the airport.” Munar said that the figure of the tour operator is no longer sufficient, and “we should get closer to the tourist, to boost the best brand that we have: Majorca.” The Council, she said, is making every effort to ensure that people associate Majorca with quality.
Munar also said that the Council would attend all the fairs and events connected with gastronomy, golf, sailing and rural tourism, as well as “the places were the Balearic government does not go.” The work of town councils, the Council of Majorca, the Balearic government and AENA, the airport authority, should be “complementary” to make Majorca “the most attractive place for all the Euroupeans who visit the island,” she said, adding that it is the Council's desire that they should do so “in a peaceful manner, one after the other, without the need for more construction, because it is quality which is important, not quantity.” The computer information will be updated to provide information on cultural events and will also offer information on transport, cultural routes and road maps. The computers will complement tourist information offices.