The Balearic government´s new tourism plan has many headline- grabbing rulings from elevating hotel beds to a freeze on new hotel places. The Mallorcan Hoteliers Federation were on the warpath yesterday claiming that the freeze was alot of hot air. Infact, they have called on the government to scrap it.
The plan is all about a shift in focus within the tourist industry. The number of tourists is not key any longer just their spending power.
Before a summer season was judged on how many tourists visited the island now it will be on what they spent and if they behaved themselves. In other words the industry had reached a ceiling on visitor numbers. This rather taps into public opinion with many saying that the island was becoming too overcrowded with too many tourists eating into valuable resources.
This was one of the reasons why the freeze on hotel places was introduced. I don´t think this is a very sensible idea, really. The industry is only now coming out of two-year-pandemic and no-one is too sure whether the industry will return to “normal.”
Perhaps, more hotels may be needed. Perhaps, tourism will take a change in direction. These are uncertain times and it might have been better if the blueprint for the future of tourism was delayed until the industry made a full recovery. The world has changed since 2019 especially tourism. Back in 2019 everyone wanted fewer tourists but we might be getting fewer tourists anyhow.