BALEARIC SECOND SPOT...

A TOTAL of 1.59 million foreign tourists came to the Balearics in August, 0.5 percent less than the same month last year. The decrease has been due to the 29.4 percent drop in visitors from France and a 2.2 percent fall in the Italian market. However, details released yesterday of a study of tourist movement carried out by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Business said that the Balearics was the second most important tourist destination in Spain after Catalonia, thanks to the stable British and German client markets. They represent 69.7 percent of the total number of visitors to the Islands and have registered increases of 4.6 and 10.7 percent respectively. In the first eight months of the year, the number of foreign visitors coming to the Islands increased by 1.3 percent over and above the same period the previous year. Such an increase, a total of seven million visitors, has not been witnessed in the region since 1999. It secures the Islands' number two ranking in terms of tourist importance throughout Spain. This upturn in fortune is due to the recovery of the Islands' single most important market - Germany. This single outlet is responsible for 37.8 percent of all tourism in the Balearics and up until the month of August this year, was showing an accumulated increase of 7.6 percent. The higher numbers from Germany have compensated for a downturn of 4.6 percent in the British market. According to the ministry report, Spain played host to 38.7 million tourists in the first eight months of the year, a new record which represents an increase of 6 percent in respect of the same period in 2004.