Majorca recently suffered from a decrease in tourism just before the usually busy summer season, with a loss of German visitors in particular. The popular Balearic island loved by Brits saw a 1% drop in tourism in May, with the island’s overall tourism seeing a 1.6% slump, according to the National Statistics Institute’s Frontur survey.
Despite months of increasing interest from the German market at an average of 10%, there was a sudden decline two months ago. Numbers dropped 2% for the Balearics and 2.3% for Mallorca specifically.
Despite this, the number of German tourists was still much higher than those from other countries, with 600,000 in the Balearics, 540,000 of them in Majorca, Majorca Daily Bulletin reports.
This comes after Ryanair reduced its capacity to Spanish airports from certain German cities, and Eurowings announced it is cutting flights from Hamburg, potentially due to a rise in German air taxes.
Other destinations, particularly in Turkey and Greece, are reportedly more attractive to German tourists as they are better value for money.
Last month, German tourism markets are showed “signs of exhaustion” because of increases in prices, the Aviba association of travel agencies said.
The association’s president, Pedro Fiol, has said they must consider whether they will be able to maintain prices for another season.
He said: “We will continue to grow in terms of the number of tourists this summer because some markets compensate for a deficit in others.”
Spanish tourists also decided to go elsewhere, with the number of visitors dropping 10.7% in the Balearics to 276,000 and by almost 4% in Majorca.
The number of UK tourists, on the other hand, has increased. Despite recording multiple monthly decreases since May last year, British tourism was up 6% in May this year in the Balearics and 9% in Majorca, taking the number up to 310,000.
The overall numbers for the month were 2,270,593 tourists in the Balearics and 1,604,737 in Mallorca.