All eyes on Manchester as hoteliers complain about poor start to the summer

PALMA
OVER half a million people are expected to enjoy the Balearic experience being staged in the centre of Manchester this weekend and the Majorcan Hotel Federation hopes that the four-day promotional event will translate into a substantial increase in demand for Balearic holidays in Britain.

Federation President, Antoni Horrach, said yesterday that around 60 percent of the island's hotels are expected to finally open their doors today but many are not expected to start getting busy for months. “We're expecting occupancy figures to be similar to those of last summer, but the bulk are going to come during the three peak months of the summer,” he said.

Horrach said that the length of the summer season, which traditionally begins today and runs until the middle of October, has steadily shrunk over the past three years.