By Jason Moore
THE local ministry for tourism is still talking about extending the summer season (in some of the resorts at the moment they would be happy if it just lasted for four months!). Over the last few years the season has been getting shorter and shorter but still the tourism ministry is talking about winter tourism. Now, a leading local businessman told me that the only way to make the season longer was to introduce legislation which demanded that hotels stayed open for eight months of the year. Now, this sounds like a good idea because at the moment hoteliers are quite happy to close their businesses after six months, safe in the knowledge that their staff will receive unemployment benefit for the rest of the year. I am sure that tourists would come to Majorca in the low season if they knew that the resorts would not be like ghost towns. If the hotels stay open, the bars and restaurants will follow suit. An eight-month season would go a long way to solving many of the problems which are being experienced by the industry at the moment. It is time that the local authorities started to take action. This year is going to be long and hard but it is time that the tourist industry and the local authorities worked together to make the season longer.