A familiar story. The Mallorca Hoteliers Federation has forecast that for the whole island no more than 25% of hotels will stay open over the winter. In Palma, however, it will be a different story, as it is every winter.
The president of the Palma and Cala Major hotels association, Javier Vich, says that 80% of the city's 72 hotels will be open; these exclude Playa de Palma. The remaining 20% will close, mainly in order to carry out work needed to comply with new regulations, e.g. changing the boilers and installing elevatable beds.
The occupancy forecast for November is around 55%, which will be up on the 49% in 2019. For the rest of the winter, the average will be 40%, albeit that this is likely to increase because of last-minute bookings. The boutique hotels in the city's old centre, 26 in total, can anticipate higher occupancy averages than the urban hotels.
Vich adds that international demand has increased over recent years because of the quality of hotels and the services they offer. "A large part of this is due to the positive trend in luxury tourism, especially the boutique hotels." These are operational all year round and assist with addressing seasonality, an aspect of which is all-year employment. The client base, he says, "has high purchasing power"; visitors come in order to get to know the island "outside the summer months".
Reflecting on the summer season, Vich notes that "it has been very good in terms of income and productivity, but it has also been the case that hotels have had to contend with much higher-than-expected operating costs as a consequence of the increased prices of electricity and raw materials".