The elimination of all health restrictions in the United Kingdom as of February 11, has led to a reactivation of bookings by British tour operators and airlines to Mallorca, according to ABTA, the association of tourism groups. ABTA chief executive Mark Tenzer says: "The announcement by Premier Boris Johnson is a great step forward in getting travel back to normal. Many families looking to go abroad will see their vacations become cheaper. It will be a great boost to the industry's recovery."
EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren points out that the Foreign Office's decision "gives confidence to our customers, who will be delighted to see the return of unrestricted travel in the UK." He adds that at the moment "we are looking forward to a good summer".
Austria will join the decision taken by London in a fortnight's time, which will also encourage the booking of trips by Central European tourists to Mallorca. The big British and German tour operators are confident that between now and March "everything will change for the better, although the conflict in Ukraine has the whole European tourist industry on tenterhooks". As a consequence of these changes, the groups TUI UK, Jet2, EasyJet and Ryanair ratify the advance of their flight schedules from the United Kingdom to Mallorca from February 11.
Hotel openings
The small, medium and large hotel chains operating on the island, for their part, indicate that these changes "mean bringing forward our schedule of openings in Playa de Palma, Calvià, Cala Millor, Alcúdia-Can Picafort, Capdepera and Platja de Muro". Playa de Palma will be the first destination to reopen hotels, whose opening will begin on February 4. The president of the Hotel Association of Playa de Palma, Isabel Vidal, says: "Depending on the evolution of the reservations, the opening of hotels will increase over the next few weeks, although it will be in March when the largest number of them will take place".
Vidal adds that this positive change of trend "will also benefit job creation, but what in our opinion has a double value is that, little by little, we are bringing forward the weeks of opening and influencing the seasonalisation". The employers' association of German tour operators, the DRV, assures that in the main issuing market to Mallorca, the sales of reservations will begin to increase in mid-March, in the run-up to Easter. It will be then when the airlines TUI Fly, Eurowings, Lufthansa and Condor will announce their flight schedule for the summer season, but it will be much higher than last year's because the increase in demand will be constant.