Figures from the Balearic Institute of Statistics indicate that in July the Balearics attracted 540,552 tourists from other regions of Spain. These tourists represented a 21.6% increase over July 2019, when there were 444,625 national tourists, and were getting on for almost double the number in June this year - 281,492.
The Aetib agency for tourism strategy believes that the rise in July was as a consequence of the plan for tourism reactivation that was launched in April. The figure for national tourists was above that of what is traditionally the Balearics biggest tourism market - Germany. There were 385,352 German tourists in July. Of the British, there were 294,323 tourists.
The increase in national tourists went some way to alleviating losses from overseas markets, but only some. In July 2019, there were 624,084 German tourists and 614,946 British.
For the first seven months of 2021, the difference between the number of German and Spanish tourists was small - 1,074,593 versus 1,042,778. There were 340,171 British tourists; UK government travel policies were, as we all know, a lot tougher than the German government's.
The figure for national tourists clearly has to be seen in the context of Covid travel regulations and also the willingness to travel. In one respect, the July number was particularly positive because Spanish travellers were subject to controls at ports and airports.
Whether the trend continues remains to be seen. The Balearic government hopes that it will and is allocating 2.5 million euros to co-marketing campaigns with airlines to attract Spanish tourists to the islands for the rest of the year (or as much of it as possible).
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