BALEARIC Minister for Tourism, Joan Flaquer, has hit back at Greenpeace's report into the destruction of the Spanish coastline at the hands of tourism, claiming that tourism has brought more pros than cons to the Balearics.
While admitting that there is always room for improvement, he said that tourism has brought progress, welfare, wealth and jobs to the Balearics.
He also claimed that Greenpeace had singled out the Balearics and failed to study the effects of sun and beach tourism on the rest of the Spanish coast, something which the environmental organisation did in fact investigate.
Yesterday, the Balearic Statistics Institute revealed that, over the past twenty years, the number of hotel rooms and holiday apartment beds has more than doubled.
Between 1983 and 2003, the figure rose by 53 percent with the biggest increase being in Minorca.
Since 1983, the number of holiday beds in Minorca has rocketed by 205 percent.
One of the main growth areas has been in the agro-tourism sector.
In 1983, there were eight registered agro-tourism properties; at the end of last year, there were 2.946.
Another report reveals that over the past ten years, the number of passengers using Palma airport has risen by 24.1 percent from 6.4 million in 1993 to nine million last year with the biggest growing market being the British. The number of Britons coming to Majorca has risen by nearly 41 percent since 1993.
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