Ibatur updates Balearic website

THE Balearic Minister for Tourism, Joan Flaquer, yesterday presented the updated design for the website www.illesbaleares.es, a site which had 16.2 million hits last year. The information has also been updated. Flaquer underlined the fact that with the updating of this tourist site, with versions in English, French, German, Catalan and Castellano, special care had been taken to improve the tools for booking directly over the net. To this end, the site has been linked with the sites of the majority of tourist companies which offer Balearic holidays online.
The Minister said that direct selling over the internet, which last year accounted for around 40 percent of total sales in the Balearics, is a growing area in which some three million euros will be invested this year. The new website contains 6'000 pages of information, 3'000 photographs, 1'000 links and 500 “banners”.
Its development has been done, almost exclusively, by the staff of the Balearic Institute of Tourism (Ibatur) at a cost of 45'000 euros.
The director of Ibatur, Raimundo Alabern, said that the current version of the site includes some 75 percent more pages than the old version and announced that “in a few months” an Italian translation will be introduced. New among the contents of the website, whose contents range from cultural and gastronomic information to sporting offers, are maps through which you can access information about the beaches in the islands.