The number of winter tourists coming to the Balearics this year is the same as it was 20 years ago.
Back then, the islands received practically the same number of international visitors in the low season as they do today, and even tens of thousands more.
So, it is still the summer season which is driving the industry while winter has yet to take off.
According to the statistics for tourist movements at the border (FRONTUR), the number of foreign tourists arriving from November to March 20 years ago is practically the same as in the last pre-pandemic years, 2018 and 2019, which recorded overall figures very similar to this year.
International visitors in the 2002 low season were 1.050 million, almost 5% more (51,340) than in 2019 (999,646).
In 2018, the difference was smaller but with an equally negative balance compared to 2002: almost 2,600 fewer arrivals in the low season.
At the same time, the growth in the mid and high season months - from 1 April to 31 October - reached 54%.
In 2002, 8.2 million foreign tourists arrived, compared to 12.7 million in 2019 - 4.5 million more.
As for 2022, the 14.3 million tourists recorded from January to September (11.5 million foreigners) are very close to the 14.5 million (12.1 million foreigners) of the same period in 2019, a year that ended with 16.4 million visits in total.
The problems of seasonalisation are still there and for the moment there is no sign that this is going to change despite efforts made by the local authorities to promote and boost winter tourism by focusing on sport, as they did at the World Travel Market in London.
Calls were made for a ten month season but the hoteliers rejected that.