TW

Is it time that Majorca woke up and smelt the coffee? Local businesses are suffering from a lack of tourists while in Palma the debate continues over too many cruise ships. Everyone is slowly starting to admit that the summer season is proving to be poor, or worse than last year.

The official line is that the last few seasons had been over-inflated with tourists who would have gone elsewhere but came to Majorca because of the security fears in other destinations. In other words it was an artificial state of affairs, a record number of visitors, never to be repeated. So, those who work in tourism will be earning less money this year; and that is fine? Well the knock-on effects will be felt here and the local economy will suffer. Can Majorca have too many tourists? Well, some are saying that we have seen too many tourists over the last few years and the island simply couldn't cope. Now we have fewer tourists and the island can cope: but are we all happy?

Well the simple answer is no. The majority of people involved in tourism want a return to the seasons of the last few years because more money was being made. Any drop in tourism will be felt on the island and that is why I think that the local authorities should be trying to resolve the cruise ship issue rather than attempting to get the larger vessels to go elsewhere. We need tourists. Remember that it is a long winter with no cruise ships and few tourists. I haven't seen many people moaning about too many tourists in October and November. The bottom line is tourism is our lifeblood and we need it to survive .But how many tourists do we want?