I have been out and about in Mallorca over the past week, mainly in an area once extremely popular with Germans, however the hotel manager told me that, this season, their clientele has been mainly British and that they had witnessed a marked surge in French tourists.
Despite having enjoyed a very busy season I got the impression the Germans were on the decline. Perhaps the reports that are coming out of the German travel industry are true, long haul has proved more exciting and cheaper this summer and many Germans, desperate to dodge the high cost of energy draft, are planning on spending long periods in the likes of Turkey or Asia and Down Under this winter to save money.
As a result of various chats with the hotel manager, and wandering around the resort, one of the best on the island in my books, was that she, and her multinational hotel chain, had struggled all season to not only employ enough staff but recruit staff who knew what they were doing.
And other hoteliers and people in the hostelry industry have been saying the same all summer, in fact at the peak of the season, some serious horse trading was going on with professional staff getting headhunted and offered serious incentives to jump ship.
The other was that, some of the shops and restaurants which were closed when I first went at the end of May- were still closed, did they ever open?
And, at the end of this month, despite the idillic location of the few sea front hotels just a hop, skip and dive from the crystal clear Mediterranean, which is still warm, they are all closing for the winter.