Iago Negueruela, minister for the economic model, tourism and employment, welcomed Thursday's Labour Force Survey report, saying that the figures confirmed a "strong reactivation" in the Balearics, backing up a government anticipation of a full recovery in 2022.
The current figures, he noted at a press conference, are similar to those for 2018 and point to a continuing "solid recovery" in 2022. Although the fourth quarter is a period with the least activity on the islands, the figures highlighted the improvement from 2020.
On average in 2021, 552,900 people were employed in the Balearics, nearly 5% more than in 2020. Given that the first half of 2021 was "tough", pretty much all the improvement came in the second half.
The government expects an earlier start to the tourism season in 2022 than in 2021. "We will not lose a half year like last year," said the minister. He pointed to hotelier forecasts for the remainder of the winter. The number of hotels that will open in February will be low, but this will mark the start of the season. In March, more than 20% of hotels are due to be open. "Things are very different from a year ago, when practically everything was closed and the tourism supplier markets were as well."
Negueruela added that reservations are accelerating thanks to "greater normalisation", and he highlighted increased national tourism spending and the growth of the French market. If these trends are maintained, the Balearics will be able to "recover GDP and the employed working population".
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One other thing... Since TripAdvisor has just named Mallorca the #1 destination for 2022, it seems that not only are the hotels likely to be already setting up shop, but also, it seems the "failure" of the "tourist fair" may end up just another bit of wishful thinking. But don't lose faith. Maybe we'll have a hurricane or a volcano. Or an asteroid.
By the way, if hotels have no opening date, then they can't accept bookings, and therefore wouldn't know if "people are coming". However, the statistical trends show that since last year, bookings have been exceptionally strong for 2022, and so it's a pretty good bet that "they're coming", despite what you might hope for.
Don't you just hate it when things improve? No wonder things are so bad here.
Hotels will Open when they know people are coming not before !
All this only positive talk allowed is Great but after seeing the reaction from all the people in the industry after the Tourist Fair in Madrid as well as the Big Announcement of the New Tourism Law which no one in the business has seen and im not sure any one in the Government has seen only thing was something about New Bed's that will be easy to change the sheets as they will rise up whose going to pay for that , all good , this is do it as you go Governing !