One of the three parties of the Balearic coalition government, Més in Mallorca, will be presenting an amendment to the 2023 budget for the 1.8 million euros currently allocated to tourism and travel fairs to be spent on health service primary care instead.
Parliamentary spokesperson Joan Mas argues that the government shouldn't have a single euro for promotion, "not even for logistics" - the 1.8 million is for renting space, transport and assembly of stands.
Mas is reiterating that there should be no type of tourism promotion. "We've been saying it for a long time, and the saturation of this summer brings us back to the 2019 debate. Tourists will come all the same. This was the case before the pandemic and it is again now. This is because the islands are fantastic and the services are extraordinary, so the promotion is not necessary."
He adds that "what PSOE (who run the tourism ministry) call positioning is no longer necessary, while it is more valuable to invest in the needs of the people who live here all year round". There has to be a rethink of the notion of "going to tourist macro-fairs to do business".
Més are advocating additional spending on primary care because of a lack of doctors and increasing public dissatisfaction. As it is, the budget for the health service, which is always the highest single item, is set to increase by 10% to 2,241 million euros in 2023, 31.4% of the entire budget.