“Attract a type of tourism that doesn’t benefit the image of the island.” This attraction, so it has been reported, is on account of discounts being offered by hotels because they’ve discovered that they have too much supply of beds and that there isn’t the demand.
Majorca tourism
The Blog: There are types of tourist, and there are types
There’s nothing new under a Mallorcan sun
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Not every tourist with money is necessarily the ideal tourist. If you really want to stop bad behavior you should ban all single males from coming to mallorca.
Thanks for the somewhat ambivalent assessment, although you make several excellent points. But it's not all about money at any cost. Yes, we've all been affected by the pandemic. The resorts, in particular, are still reeling from it. For some, money - any kind of money - from anybody, may be the only interest at this moment, but the big picture is far greater than that. One of the curiously lesser publicised aspects of tourism is the decline in "quality" of guest, which you sceptically refer to. This actually began before the pandemic, but I have little doubt the pandemic served to accelerate it. As a long time owner of a fully legal, licenced, taxpaying tourist villa, we've seen this transition first-hand. And we're certainly not alone. It's a global trend. Before about 2019, we could accept just about any request to book without fear of guest behaviour. It was nearly always a pleasant experience for both us and the guest. Guests were generally conscientious, respectful, reasonably clean, honest and respectable. But around 2019, this started to change. Many (not all, but certainly a growing percentage of) guests started to appear a bit "off kilter", demanding unreasonable things, lying about their intent ...ranging from claiming to be "professionals" to "family" and all kinds of things in between, but turn out to be groups of young party animals or people hoping to get free accommodation by booking for two, and showing up with 8, then ravage the facility, cause damage, create public spectacles, etc. And walk away with impunity. That's expensive to rectify, in more ways than just monetarily. Again, not even most guests are like this, but there's been a steady increase in these occurrences, not just in the balearics, but globally. In fact it's come to the point where radical measures have been employed to try to prevent it. Airbnb banned parties. VRBO has additional tools in place, such as allowing hosts to limit bookings to people of a minimum age... etc... I seriously doubt that the hotels are immune to this. Especially as they've had to cut their margins to the bone because of oversupply. Then, many guests take advantage of the rock bottom prices, going a little crazy, cause expensive problems. Whether it's damage or big cleaning bills, or public spectacles, none of it good for business. Present and future. I have plenty of gripes about the Balearic government's tourism ministry, and the way the handle certain aspects of tourism here. But while I often disagree with HOW they approach any issue, I happen to often agree with the WHY they're doing it. Good tourists exist. In droves. With the pandemic, we've often been left with "whatever we can get", which is always a losing strategy. We aren't biting. And we've managed to maintain a good standard. But it's far more difficult now. "Quality" of tourism is important. For all of us, including hotels, and all businesses dependent on tourism. We need to find a way to stop attracting tourists who pay the least and cause the most problems (expense and downgrading of accomodation) making it even more difficult to attract the tourists we really want. We need to maintain a good standard to achieve that. Undesirable tourists make that even more difficult. They seem to seek quantity over quality. Catering to that will never attract better tourists. The balearic government has been trying to "upgrade" tourism for a long time now, with some successes, but with limited support from certain parts of the tourism business. The large hotel chains such as Melia seem to be all in favour of moving away from the 3 star problematic tourist profile (which would attract a better quality of future guest), yet, here we are, after the pandemic, and the hotels are less than half full, at less than half the price. And that indeed attracts a certain "type". Tough nut to crack.
Not all tourists want to stay in apartments or hotels. Mallorca needs to offer something different how about converting the old windmills across the island to offer a unique experience. Tourists are looking for something different not same old , same old.