The ITB Berlin fair has highlighted the fact that German airlines and tour operators are assessing a rescheduling of flights from Turkey. The reasons are the recent earthquakes and veiled threats from Russia. The airlines in particular are said to be wanting to ensure a trouble-free summer and so are therefore looking at safe destinations, with Mallorca top of the list.
Germany's DRV travel association and the UK's ABTA are understood to share the nervousness about Turkey. With both the German and the UK markets set to recover 2022 losses in terms of number of tourists (by comparison with 2019), there is increased demand to contract hotel beds in Mallorca and the Balearics. This does raise an issue as to how well hotels can meet this demand, as they have already responded to what was increased demand in 2022 from other markets, such as France, Italy and Spain.
Turkish representatives at the fair are believed to have been offering promises of subsidies in order to guarantee flights, while tourism industry sources anticipate that there will be fierce price competition. Manuel Morales of the tour operator FTI says that Turkey will "make the most of last-minute sales to take market share from competing destinations, and Egypt and Greece will be included in this strategy".
This said, last-minute sales are a factor for Mallorca as well, the hoteliers having repeatedly pointed to their growth, while price competition is not something the island's tourism industry intends engaging in. Given the excellent forecasts for the summer, there doesn't seem to be a reason why it should.
4 comments
To be able to write a comment, you have to be registered and logged in
Morgan WilliamsIt always amuses me when talking to my friends from Britain that they think Spain = tourism, and British tourism is obviously the most important. They can't get their head round it that tourism only accounts for around 11% of Spain's GDP, roughly the same as the UK.
Turkey needs the Tourist Market to help them to recover from that very bad tragedy. Most of their Tourist areas did not suffer the Earthquake. So they urgently need the revenue and help
Zoltan TeglasYou don't need to say "I told you so". This has been going on since Brexit. Every year we're told that Brits are going to Egypt and Turkey and Greece because it's cheap. Since British tourism is (imaginarily) what Mallorca and basically all of Spain depends on (it's not), what's implied is that they'll all go broke without Brits. Commentators here express that sentiment often, I can only suspect because the sensationalist spin in British media supports what they'd like to believe Of course, to buy into this charade, one must presume that a) all Brits only care about the cheapest, and b) no other tourist nationality can compete with Britain in this one-sided race to the bottom, which the other 75% of tourism doesn't even know about, and couldn't care less. And that's why it never comes to pass. It's only wishful thinking. But around September this year, it'll be trotted out again 🙂
This must be fake news as the MDB has been telling us for months that tourists were abandoning Mallorca and all going to Turkey. I could tell you 'I told you so'.