Summer woes

NOW that most people agree that this summer season will not be as good as everyone once thought, it might be an idea for the local authorities to discover exactly what went wrong. Turn the clock back to April and everyone was saying that there could be cases of overbooking in May. Unfortunately, we are not going to even see overbooking in July or August. The spending power of tourists is also said to be low which is understandable if you take into account the global economic showdown. But what concerns me is that the Balearics have done little or no promotion abroad this year. Okay, money is short and there is no budget for the big advertising campaigns we have seen in the past but surely the Balearics could have done something? Also, with a bit of imagination the Balearics could get some great promotion in Britain and Germany which would cost very little. Whatever happened to the parties which were organised to celebrate the arrival of tourist number one million at Palma airport? I think the Balearics have become complacent and the local government believes that tourists will always come to the island. This is no longer the case. The islands face some serious competition from resorts in the eastern Mediterranean, which are cheaper than the Balearics and the hotels, in most cases, are newer and more modern. You can' t take tourism for granted, this is a lesson which the islands are going to learn to their cost.