Jason Moore29/10/2016 00:00
TW
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So the jury is out. Did we have a record holiday season or not? Well, the debate has already started. According to local hoteliers, summer 2016 was the best ever. According to bar, restaurant and shop owners in Calvia, it was good but not great. However, this state of affairs should come as no real surprise. In other words we got the numbers but that didn’t translate into numbers in the till, so to speak.

All-inclusive tourism continues to grow on the island and obviously this has a direct impact on bar and restaurant takings, and British tourists had less spending money. Remember that sterling fell by more than 20 per cent against the euro before and after the referendum so that would have hit British tourists hard. So, at the end of the day, summer 2016 will go down as a good season rather than a record breaking one.

Also, as we all know you can’t please everyone all the time. I do have sympathy for bar and restaurant owners; their livelihoods and very existence is at stake because of the growth in all-inclusive holidays. The government needs to find a way to curb this sort of package even though all-inclusives are hugely popular with tourists, especially families. We must remember that this summer was slightly different than usual. We had far more tourists than usual because of the security concerns elsewhere. I doubt that we will have a similar number next year and of course there is the tourist tax. A recent report stated that tourism would fall by one per cent thanks to the tourist tax. So all this has to be taken into account for next year. It might be an idea to keep the champagne on ice for now. What is clear is that local hoteliers had a record year, which is fantastic news for the local economy. The downside is that local businesses continue to suffer. We can’t have the best of both worlds, I suppose.