Why this has suddenly blown up again, I don’t know. A comment made by a member of the Balearic delegation to the World Travel Market in London back in November about Mallorca not wanting cheap tourism appears to be the pillar of a fresh round of stories in the red-top tabloids in the UK and they are sending out the wrong message. The matter has not been helped by parts of the Canary Islands wanting to “cap” the number of British visitors to ease saturation and, needless to say, bad behaviour. But the Balearics made it clear a couple of weeks ago that there are no plans to limit visitor numbers, whatever their nationality.
While the restrictions on the number of alcoholic drinks which can be consumed in all-inclusive hotels in certain “black spot” resorts like Magalluf have not gone down well along with bans on pub crawls and anything else which could incite alcohol-fuelled anti-social behaviour, it does not exactly mean that the British are not welcome.
What is also interesting is that the British press have delved deeper into the issue and claim that the drive to move towards more quality, big spending tourism is having a negative impact on local residents in Mallorca and Ibiza.
Reports claim that the drive for quality as opposed to quantity is only pushing property prices up along with the cost of living, which is making life for local residents extremely challenging and increasingly more expensive. On the one hand, this is very much part of the Balearics tourism plan, but I think steps need to be taken to calm the UK’s nerves.