Something strange has happened this season and all of the people in the tourist industry I have spoken to over the past few weeks can’t put their finger on it. Everyone has told me that April and May were very good months, obviously an early Easter helped, but then things appear to have gone a bit flat. In Palma, for example, there’s no buzz, it just doesn’t feel like the season has taken off and we are into July next week.
Perhaps a heatwave in the UK, Glastonbury and the football has hit late holiday bookings to a certain extent, but I’m not hearing the mixture of languages I used to when I’m out and about. Plus, the leading hotel chains whose clubs I am a member of are already sending me major offers for this summer.
So, restaurants and bars are complaining of a lack of trade. Well, according to an online Bulletin poll, at the time of writing this, 96 percent of people claim that Mallorca has become too expensive.
All of the western world has been hit by financial and political woes, many people are doing their best to make their money go as far as possible and they don’t like being taken for a ride.
Mallorca is a paradise destination but it has mounting competition and apart from being in danger of pricing itself out of the market, the anti-mass tourism movement is sending out the wrong message.