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News desk AN additional 100 Majorcan hotels have announced that they will open for Easter, bringing the total up to nearly 50 per cent of all the hotels on the island.

This means that 400 hotels will be welcoming an avalanche of visitors expected, mainly from the United Kingdom and Germany.
Most of the hotels open for Easter are in Palma itself and in resort areas such as Palmanova, Magalluf and Playa de Palma, although various rural hotels and those close to golf courses will also be open.

Sources at the hoteliers federation said that the number of hotels open for Easter is about the same as usual when Easter falls in March.
The sources added that this time of the year is very different for the Balearics compared to Easter in Andalucia or the east of Spain, which cater mainly for Spanish tourists. Here the market is chiefly for British and German visitors.

And, the sources said, business is never as brisk as it is in Andalucia at this time of the year.
A spokesman for the hoteliers federation admitted that the exceptionally cold winter the Balearics has suffered has affected the weekend tourism where foreign visitors opt to take a short break in what is usually a milder climate.

Antonio Copete, the secretary general of the trade union's hotel and tourism sector, said he hoped that the predictions of the Federation were true and that the season would get off to a good start.

But he claimed that about 20 hotels planned to open for Easter only and then close again until May. This, he said, is a very serious matter.
He went on to say that in this way, workers would be contracted for only two weeks, when it would be more logical for the hoteliers to broaden their marketing to guarantee staying open in April.

As to the news that an additional 100 hotels would be open, he said this was “good” but added that the union did not have any information which could confirm this.

Also on the downside, he said that normally between 20'000 and 25'000 temporary contracts are signed at Easter for the entire tourist season, but so far, the union has no information to show that these contracts are being signed.