Alarm bells are beginning to ring in the restaurant sector: they have noticed a drop in the number of customers in Mallorca in the middle of June. This is what the president of Mallorca CAEB restaurant association, Alfonso Robledo, says. They argue that the drop in clients is more noticeable in the resorts.
“Before there was no difference between Mondays and Saturdays. We were always full because people who are on holiday don’t take into account whether it is a working day or a public holiday. This year, however, customers are leaving their dinners or lunches for the weekends,” said Robledo. The restaurateurs are looking for an explanation, because it started to happen last year and this year it is more pronounced. “We don’t understand what is happening because there are more and more tourists,” he says.
The president of the travel agency association Aviba, Pedro Fiol, said that tourists are spending less time in Mallorca, while another new problem this summer is that customers in bars and restaurants have reduced their spending.
“They don’t order as happily as they used to, especially in the years after the COVID-19 pandemic. Now they are much more restrained and more careful about what they consume”, points out the representative of the restaurant businessmen.
“Until now, June had always been a good month, giving a taste of what the tourist season could bring. However, this year we are having, in particular, study trips, which has always been the case, and stag and hen parties. These people that do not spend and we are missing the tourists with a medium-high purchasing power who used to visit the island before the massive arrival of travellers in July and August”, he explains.
The president of the travel agency association Aviba confirms that there has been a decrease in tourist spending in resorts (the total cost of the holiday has risen), as more and more tourists are opting to “shield their holidays”, opting for packages with half board, full board or all inclusive. “There is less and less porosity between visitors and the island’s restaurants because they already bring the vast majority of their lunches and dinners with them,” he reports.
The president of Mallorca CAEB Restauración said he is concerned about the development of the tourist season, as he fears that this trend will continue. Robledo insists that they have made very important investments in recent years, which they were counting on making profitable this summer. Faced with this situation, one of the measures adopted by the island’s restaurateurs is not to raise prices, aware that their customers have less and less purchasing power due to inflation. Many of the businesses are replacing the more expensive products with seasonal ones, as they are always cheaper.