Roughly every two days there is some form of filming activity in Palma, be it in the port area, the old centre, parks or other parts of the city. In terms of direct investment in Palma, this activity equates to 2.24 million euros. This was the figure for 2016, which was a notable increase over the amounts for 2014 and 2015 - both around the 1.6 million mark.
Last year there were more film shoots - 171 - than in the previous four years (in 2012 the number was 117). Over the first six months of 2017 there were 96, and the efforts of the Palma Film Office have helped to make the city an attractive place for locations and for producers. The office, which is within the Palma Activa employment and business agency, prides itself on the rapidity with which it can give responses to requests for filming: normally within three days.
The typical length of time needed for filming is two to three days. Shooting for adverts, for example, doesn't require the time needed for large film productions. The cumulative effect of these smaller projects is a profit equivalent to that from a large production. These projects also tend to be less disruptive for residents.
Germán Travers of Palma Pictures recognises that it would be wonderful to have something like Game of Thrones filmed in Palma, but he is aware of the difficulties that can surround a project on that scale. He acknowledges, though, that not everything has always gone smoothly in an administrative sense. The conflict that arose between the Council of Majorca and the producers of Cloud Atlas didn't do a lot for the reputation of Palma or Majorca. The Council had promised a payment of 150,000 euros, which wasn't forthcoming until the Council finally made the payment four years after the filming of scenes in Majorca in 2011.
But Palma and Majorca have since recovered from that setback, as exemplified by the success of The Night Manager, just one of the productions that has made the city and the island especially appealing for filming.