Hotel booking could fall by 25 per cent

The US terrorist attacks, reprisals and global economic instability could provoke a 25 per cent drop in Spanish hotel bookings next month. Palma yesterday hosted the general assembly of Zontur, the Association of Spanish Tourist Resort Hotels and the message from Zontur chairman José Díaz Montañés was a gloomy one. So far, however, hotel bookings in Spain have been unaffected by last week's attacks and the pending military reprisals, but the hotel sector needs to be prepared for a drop in bookings next month once the true extent of the next phase of the conflict becomes apparent. “At the moment, nobody knows what is going to happen and there is a lot of speculation, but everybody is worried in the hotel sector about the repercussions,” Montañés said. Hotel sector bosses from Majorca, Costa del Sol, Costa Brava and Tenerife were present at yesterday's meeting and Montañés said that the first reaction of most consumers is to postpone their holiday plans “but as yet, as far as we are concerned, there have been no cancellations of organised tours to Spain.” However, package holiday hotels catering for the European market may have yet to feel the full force of the US attacks, but the luxury end of the market has. Luxury hotels in the Balearics have been promoting heavily in the States over the past year and the islands' five and four star hotels were proving very attractive. However, yesterday one of the island's top hotels, confirmed that 120 bookings have been cancelled by US clients since last Tuesday. The spare rooms are being taken by European clients, but the disappearance of the US market will hit a few of the island's top hotels very hard.