Tourism on par with last year

PALMA
AS children start to return to school across Europe, the Ministry for Tourism has cast a quick glance over the provisional tourism figures for the year so far and the Secretary of State for Tourism, Joan Mesquida said yesterday that he is “moderately optimistic” that total visitors figures for 2008 will match 2007's come the end of the year.

Mesquida, who took over the post at the start of the summer, admitted yesterday that despite the complicated domestic and European economic situations, he is quietly confident that the tourist industry is resilient and experienced enough to have over come the problem.

However, he told tourism chiefs to start thinking and planning ahead for 2009.
According to Mesquida, the summer season has posted “good” results similar to last year in destinations such as Catalonia, the Canary Islands and here in the Balearics.

But, at the other end of the market, destinations traditionally popular with the domestic market such as Galicia and Cantabria in the north have suffered a poor summer season, primarily because of the bad weather.

With just three months of the year left, Mesquida went as far as proclaiming that tourism figures for 2008 will end slightly higher than last year -although he could not deny that revenue from tourism will be slightly down.

Mesquida said that tourism spending is proving rather difficult to gauge because some resorts claim to have enjoyed an increase while others have felt the full punch of the credit crunch. Britain and Germany, the country's two principal markets, have held firm while the French market has taken a five percent dive.

Mesquida also said that, until midsummer, the domestic tourism market performed well but peak season and peak prices forced many Spaniards to either reduce the length of their summer holiday or opt for cheaper alternatives. Mesquida said that there will be plenty of activity in his department over the winter with numerous promotional campaigns being launched over seas to promote all-year tourism for 2009 and repeated his call on the industry as a whole to cooperate and start thinking of new and alternative products, activities and attractions.