TUI has hit back at claims from locals in Majorca that the island has “too many” British tourists. CEO Sebastian Ebel said it was “obvious” that the island is going to be one of the most popular destinations to visit this summer adding there was a “significant increase in demand” for holidays to Majorca.
But the increase in popularity has not pleased everyone, with activist groups such as the “caterva” attempting to ease overcrowding and keep beaches for folk living on the island.
In response to the criticism from locals, Mr Ebel said he was unable to say whether a ceiling on visitors had been reached and if a cap should be put in place.
He told Majorca Daily Bulletin: “This is not a question I wish to answer. I would prefer the people of the Balearic Islands to say how many tourists they want to have. The islands offer a great product and people love spending their holidays there.
“If in the end there are too many tourists or too few, that must be decided by the residents themselves.”
It comes after Lucia Escribano, Majorca’s director of tourism said island folk “don’t care” about budget tourists from the UK.
Speaking at the World Travel Market she 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.”
British tourists make up a whopping 26 percent of all visitors to Majorca, with some 2.3 million travelling to the island every year.
Mr Edel said increasing visitor numbers showed the island and Spain in general was improving its tourism offering.
He said: “I’m sure that this is the objective that everyone in the Balearics is pursuing. We want to ensure that we have different types of client who find what they want on the islands, because the variety of the offer is great.
“When my children were little, we loved going to Menorca, which is a very different product to Playa de Palma.”
He added that the island was beginning to offer more to visitors coming to Majorca outside of summer months.
Mr Edel said: “I love sports events like the Palma Marathon. Our task is to offer all kinds of new products to get new customers and make the season longer.
“The weather conditions are what they are. Perhaps you can’t always avoid the rain, so it is important to offer alternatives to tourists if the weather is not that good.”
He was also questioned on whether the Balearics were becoming too expensive as they got more popular.
Mr Edel replied: “The fact that inflation in Spain was significantly lower than that in other European countries should not be underestimated. In the Balearics, there has been a large increase in prices, yes, but the truth is that it has been greater in visitors’ countries.
“It is more a question of the real value of the product rather than its price. As long as investment in the product continues and the quality of the offer is raised, customers will continue to be satisfied. I would be concerned if the quality were deteriorating, but we are not seeing anything like that. On the contrary, the tourist satisfaction rate is very high.”
