The souvenir shops in front of Palma’s Cathedral have started to open, the tour bus is operating and carrying passengers plus there are a mixture of different accents and languages to be heard and, despite yesterday’s rather gloomy weather, shorts. T-shirts and flip-flops were evident.
Palma is coming back to life after over a year of pain.
The top end of the market, the luxury and boutique hotels, have been enjoying good business for the past few months and some city centre hotels reported that they were full last week with much of central Europe on holiday.
All that we need now is for Spain to lift its ban and allow the British back to Majorca and that could be any day now.
Palma is very much the beacon of the island’s tourist industry and seeing visitors back on the streets, in the shops, on restaurant terraces is encouraging and clearly demonstrates that the city and Mallorca are always going to be at the top of people’s favourite holiday destinations.
That said, Spain may lift its ban on non-resident UK visitors but what we also need is for London to switch Spain, or at least the Balearics, from amber to green on its travel traffic light.
Mixed messages from politicians regarding travel are continuing to confuse Britons. The industry and consumers need clarity and quickly.