Mallorca travel bosses say no to Brit travellers for the summer

Mallorca travel bosses have said they are not interested in attracting Brits to the island for the summer as they look to manage overcrowding and unruly behaviour.

According to the Sun newspaper who spoke to the island’s Director of Tourism Lucia Escribano on Wednesday, November 9, Mallorca are concentrating on promoting the island as a winter destination.

He said: “We are not interested in promoting the island in summer.

“We are trying to encourage tourists to visit outside the summer season to enjoy sports or our cultural attractions and museums.

“We want to focus more on out-of-season activities than sun and beaches.”

Mallora has struggled with overcrowding in recent years leaving many local residents unhappy with the influx of visitors. As a result, the ruling council is looking at ways in which to reduce the numbers that do visit the island during the peak summer months.

Among the plans being considered are the compulsory purchase of lower-quality hotels and mass tourism businesses like bars and clubs.

Justifying the plan Escribano said: “We are limiting the number of beds on the island. We want quality not quantity. At the moment we have 300,000 hotel beds and we want less, not more.

“If a hotel wants to make improvements, build a spa or new restaurant, we will insist they remove hotel beds to gain permission.

“We are trying to decrease the number of beds in order to provide a better experience for visitors.

“We are not interested in having the budget tourists from the UK, we don’t care if they go elsewhere to Greece and Turkey.”

He added that the island is looking to welcome high-spending travellers from northern Europe and “Is interested in having less people from the UK and more from other parts of Europe where there is better airline connectivity.”

Other plans include greater fines for the owners who rent out properties and apartments that have not been licensed to do so, as they are looking to stamp out rowdy behaviour with two-star hotels and ‘excess tourism’ businesses.

Heavy fines and limits on “free alcohol” have already been introduced, as have bans on pub crawls and booze cruises.

Although residents support the moves, business owners have vowed to fight the plans arguing that it will ruin hundreds of family businesses and leave many without an income.

Mallorca travel bosses are no shutting up shop but rather are looking to adjust their offer to cater for different clientele at different times of year as they look to deal with inappropriate behaviour and overcrowding. In that respect Mallorca is not unique with many other resorts looking to do the same, although others such as Valencia are actively looking to UK tourists to push their summer occupation. 

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