Plans to help improve connectivity with the Balearic Islands’ main tourism supplier markets saw a collaboration agreement being signed with Jet2.com for the upcoming low season.
The connectivity campaign will look to promote the current existing direct routes, both by air and sea, with the possibility of creating new ones.
New possible direct routes could include the UK, as well as Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden.
This comes after a few months of intense protests and anti-mass tourism sentiment in Majorca, which saw marches as well as demonstrations including the occupation of beaches by residents. However, the Official Bulletin of the Balearic Islands indicates this agreement campaign was decided back in May 2023 when PSOE previously held the tourism ministry during the second four-year period in office.
They further stated this was a ‘strategic co-marketing’ agreement between the AETIB tourism strategy agency and the airline and was done by the previous government with fears this agreement could spark even more tourists in the region.
In June, it was recorded that the Balearic Islands had one tourist for every two residents and recorded an average daily population of 50 percent more tourists than the census of inhabitants.
In the same month, an all-time high was reached for the Human Pressure Indicator (HPI) in the region.
Lluís Apesteguia, a spokesperson of the party Més, warned of “measures that increase tourist pressure in the Balearic Islands”.
Apesteguia spoke in parliament on Tuesday, September 10 and said: “While they (the government) offer dialogue to society as a whole, the measures they are taking are the continuation of tourism promotion.”
Més held the tourism portfolio for the Balearic Islands’ tourism portfolio during 2015 to 2019 and has registered a parliamentary request for a copy of the agreement in response to this announcement.
Currently the campaigns are for the upcoming low season months as the Jet2 announcement only states 2024 with no indication this could go further beyond then.
