Balearic tourism minister Iago Negueruela said on Monday that while the tourism season has not been a typical one, it has still been good – “much better than we had anticipated”.
In his dual role as government spokesperson, Negueruela highlighted the improving health situation. This allows for “some optimism”, as the cumulative incidence has dropped significantly during August.
Also the employment minister, he drew attention to improvements in the labor market. As an example, the Balearics was the region with the highest rate of reduction of people on ERTE furlough terms in the first two weeks of August. There was a decrease of 22.7% (7,400 fewer people), way more than the next regions – the Canaries and Valencia – which are highly dependent on tourism like the Balearics.
Coming back to tourism, the minister quoted figures from Eurocontrol. These indicate that Palma is registering more flights at weekends – around 1,000 – than any other Spanish airport and is therefore ahead of Madrid and Barcelona as well as airports serving main tourist destinations, eg Malaga and Alicante.
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The recovery of air traffic is “remarkable”, Negueruela stated. “We have recovered 80% of 2019 traffic, a significant figure that is well above the Spanish average.” *
“Statistics for July and August place us at the head of foreign tourism in Spain. “I have predicted that this positive situation will be reflected in the next unemployment figures.
* More pertinent, however, will be passenger statistics that the airports authority Aena reports.