It appears that British tourists have left it late to head to the Balearics this year. Aftar reports of a fall in UK and domestic bookings this season, tourist bookings to the Balearic Islands have increased by 27% over the last week compared to the same period in 2023, but have decreased by 5.9% compared to the previous week, according to data from the booking platform TravelgateX today, Monday.
The islands are the sixth most popular destination in Spain for the week of 7-13 October, with 8.3% of total bookings, behind Catalonia (20%), Andalusia (16%), the Canary Islands (15%), Madrid (13%) and Valencia (10%). The majority of bookings are made 90 days in advance, with 20 % of bookings, and 16 % of bookings are made between 15 and 30 days in advance. So-called last second bookings (booked the day before or on the day of travel) remain at a significant 13.8%.
Of the bookings registered in the last 7 days in Spain, 50% were made by couples and almost half of the travellers (49.5%) book for between 2 and 5 nights, according to TravelgateX. Domestic tourism predominates among the main nationalities that have booked during the last 7 days through TravelgateX: Spaniards have made 54% of the bookings, followed by British travellers - 18%. And the US market was third in terms of bookings over the past week, accounting for 3.3% of the total.
And, for those Britons currently in Mallorca, they are enjoying beach weather with temperatures topping 30ºC. However, this late surge could be short lived with hotels starting to close for the winter and many of the main attractions, in particular nightclubs, having already closed in resorts like Magalluf.