The Balearic low season of November to March has for years been dominated by the German market supported by a Spanish market that has owed some of its presence to Imserso subsidised holidays.
The islands’ foreign tourism profile is not about to change. The German market is in fact set to strengthen. German flight bookings are already up seven per cent over last year, this increase contrasting with falls in two other main Spanish holiday regions – Catalonia (-18%) and Madrid (-4.6%).
Forecasts for the growth in tourist numbers are in line with the 8.5% increase from January to September. For the November-March 2023/2024 period, there was a record number of German tourists – 597,684.
German tourist spending in the Balearics this year has been up 17% compared with 2023 and has outstripped the average of all markets by six per cent. Fears about recession in Germany have not been reflected in the desire to travel – to the Balearics especially.
The number of hotels open all year in Mallorca is up from 20% to 23%, according to hotelier federation figures.
But contrasting with this positive trend, there is some uncertainty because of the increase in German air tax. Ryanair, for example, has cut its capacities to Spanish airports from Berlin, Dortmund, Dresden and Leipzig and is expected to add Hamburg and Bonn/Cologne. Eurowings has said it will stop operating more than a thousand flights from Hamburg in 2025 because of the “disproportionate” rise in the air tax.
The British low-season market is only around a quarter of the German. There were 147,622 UK tourists from November 2023 to March 2024, a total that represented pretty decent growth: +53% in November and +29% in January, for instance. But the trend in the summer was down – eight per cent in September, 4.8% in August, ten per cent in July.
The Balearic Government and the hoteliers are giving this a positive spin. There is a seasonal redistribution of tourists that is sought for all tourism. Maybe so, but it still amounts to an overall decrease. Up to September there was a four per cent drop in the annual total.
