Plans to upgrade tourist information offices

The new director of Tourist Information at the Council of Majorca, Montserrat Ferrer, wants to upgrade the quality of service provided by tourist information offices. Her aim is to “offer a first class service to as wide a public audience as possible”. Ferrer suggested that it is the residents of Majorca who have the least knowledge about the services provided by such centres. It is therefore on her team's agenda to raise awareness amongst the Islanders themselves. The idea, Ferrer explained, is to extend the service to “all cultural levels”.
To achieve this end, the launching of an information campaign is being planned which will encourage people “to find out exactly what a tourist information office has to offer”. She said she believed that curbing the influx of visitors to the island is not a policy to follow, but instead, to offer alternatives in the quality of tourism. Majorca's Touristic Information directorate is a newly created department which is run by the Majorcan Union party. During the previous government, the Information offices came under the heading of Promotional and Occupational Services controlled by the Majorcan Socialist Party. Ferrer emphasized that the “most pressing” task currently facing her team is to alter the location of the airport branch of the Tourist Information service. “It needs to face the passenger arrival section”, she said, “because at the moment it has its back to visitors seeking advice”. The director aims to “give a fresh look” to the tourist information offices under her charge, “upgrading and improving” their operation during the coming months. Ferrer said that if it proved necessary, opening hours of the offices would be extended to give a better service. Ferrer believed that up until now, “not sufficient importance had been given to these establishments”. Due to this neglect, she will work on providing more resources for the information centres so that they “have everything they need”; her department at the Council of Majorca consists of a team of 12 people. Ferrer would like to see better co-ordination between Palma City Council's tourist information offices and those of other municipalities on Majorca who have, or would like to have, such services.