The Balearic Government has signed a collaboration agreement with Jet2.com for the improvement of connectivity with the islands' main tourism supplier markets.
The Official Bulletin of the Balearic Islands indicates that this agreement for "strategic co-marketing actions" between the airline and the AETIB tourism strategy agency relates to a process initiated in May 2023 and so therefore by the previous government.
This contemplated connectivity campaigns both by air and by sea and referred to the promotion of existing direct routes and to the possibility of creating new ones. Various countries were highlighted - Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland as well as the UK.
The campaigns are for the low-season months. In the case of Jet2, the announcement simply states 2024, though the assumption is that this means the 2024/2025 low season. There is no indication that the agreement goes beyond the upcoming low season.
This was clearly well in place before the announcement in the Official Bulletin on September 10, as the text refers to collaboration agreements signed by AETIB in the second quarter of 2024.
The government has said that this was part of the previous government's tourism strategy. That was led by PSOE, who held the tourism ministry for the second four-year period of office. Més, who had the tourism portfolio from 2015 to 2019, have responded to the announcement by registering a parliamentary request for a copy of the agreement.
Spokesperson Lluís Apesteguia said in parliament on Tuesday: "While they (the government) offer dialogue to society as a whole, the measures they are taking are the continuation of tourism promotion. And today a co-marketing agreement with an airline company appears in the BOIB. They offer dialogue but are taking measures that increase tourist pressure in the Balearic Islands."