Tourist in Playa de Palma, Mallorca. | M. À. Cañellas

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The Balearic Islands now have more German tourist bookings than rivals in the eastern Mediterranean, thanks to the easing of restrictions and the end of the State of Alarm.

Up until mid-March, Turkey and Greece had more holiday bookings from Germany, but Spain took the lead at the end of May, according to data from the German website, HolidayCheck.

The turnaround is also due to an increase in coronavirus infections in Turkey, which has been listed as a risk country since April 11, according to the Robert Koch Institute.

RKI and the German Ministry of Health & Foreign Affairs classifiy countries and regions according to the risk of Covid infection. The Balearics are not on the that list because the incidence rate in the Islands is less than 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 7 days.

26.36% of the reservations made after May 31, for travel in 2021 were for Spain, followed by Greece and Turkey.

According to HolidayCheck website data for January-May, 43.2% of searches in Spain were for hotels and holiday destinations in Mallorca; 15.8% for Fuerteventura and 13% for Gran Canaria.

The data also shows that 2.9% of travellers from Germany intended to stay in Playa de Palma; 2% in Cala Millor and 1.5% in Playa de Muro.

"The slow de-escalation promoted by the Government in recent weeks has resulted in the Balearic Islands having the second best incidence rate in Spain and made the Balearics one of the safest destinations in the Mediterranean, which has also boosted the tourist figures," said Government spokesperson and Tourism Minister, Iago Negueruela.

"The Balearic Islands are now capturing 60% of German tourism,” stated Balearic President, Francina Armengol, who predicted that 'the season will be strong and will allow us to recover thousands of jobs.”

In April, 124,674 international tourists chose to come to the Balearics and according to data from the National Statistics Institute through the Frontur Survey, 80,952 of them came from Germany and 12,468 were from Switzerland.