The demons' correfoc, one of the highlights of the Sant Sebastià fiestas.

The demons' correfoc, one of the highlights of the Sant Sebastià fiestas. | Jaume Morey

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma14/11/2017 00:00
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Palma's Sant Sebastià fiestas in January could act as an incentive for winter tourists. At the recent World Travel Market in London, the tourism councillor Joana Maria Adrover apparently spoke to Jet2 about it scheduling flights from Manchester and Leeds Bradford to coincide with the fiestas. At present, there hasn't been any response from the airline.

If there were to be some specific effort made to promote the fiestas to overseas tourists, it wouldn't be the first time this has been thought of. In 2008, Eberhard Grosske, when he was a deputy mayor for culture and citizen participation, spoke about a need to promote the fiestas to an overseas audience. Economic crisis intervened, and any further thought of doing so was forgotten.

Adrover made her announcement about the possibility when presenting information about business and employment in the city; she is councillor for trade and employment as well as for tourism. In September, she said, there were 13,693 registered businesses in Palma, the highest number since 2009. In October, there were 18,515 new job contracts. These represented an increase of 168 over September. The bulk of them (88%) were in the services sector.

Unemployment in October was 21,513, which meant a rise of 8.6% compared with September. Adrover accepted that seasonality continues to influence the labour market, but noted that there have now been five years of continuous decrease in unemployment (months compared with those of the previous years).