Tourist numbers in the first quarter of 2024 increased by 20%.
In June 2023, Mallorca attracted 1.67 million tourists, the third highest monthly number after July and August. Although the first three months of 2024 may not provide an accurate indicator, tourist numbers increased by 20% from January to March (April figures will be released shortly). It is doubtful whether this growth rate will be maintained in June, but if it is, the 2 million target will be reached.
For all the talk of tourist saturation, there is one type of visitor the island is happy to lose: Spanish students may only be a tiny fraction of the total tourist population, totalling around 25,000, but unfortunately, they are one type that is not really welcomed. And this applies to islanders and other visitors alike.
Some businesses stand to benefit: hotels that house students, ferry companies, clubs that host events (but risk losing regular customers), event organisers such as Son Fusteret, which stages its Dream Island DJ concerts partly for students, and bus operators.
Rafael Roig, president of the Balearic Transport Confederation, said the peak in students arriving mainly by ferry would affect logistics and operations in the bus sector: “There will be a big impact on transfers. We expect there to be small bottlenecks, as there were last year.”
Arenal in Llucmajor is the main city, the others being Alcudia, Magaluf and Palmanova. Arenal has to take special security measures, which makes special demands on the police and civil police.
José Luis Irabella is CEO of Unicampus, which plans to bring 7,500 students to the island, a figure roughly the same as last year, despite travel prices increasing by about 9 percent. “The increase in accommodation prices has been quite noticeable, but in terms of bookings, it’s as expected,” he says.
2021 has been infamous for the large COVID-19 outbreaks among students that resulted in many of them being moved to the government’s so-called COVID-19 hotels. These were exceptional circumstances. At a forum in July that year, Gabriel Escalar of Melia Hotels International said “we cannot allow for the frenzy that we saw last week.” But, in more general terms, he added: “(Student) travel at the end of their courses brings nothing to the economy. There is no interest.”
In March 2022, the then Minister of Tourism, Iago Negueruela, met with hotelier representatives and made it clear that they would join together in the fight against excessive tourism, especially anti-social student trips. Negueruela even suggested that he would look into ways to stop them. But they continue to persist, and although they are a statistically insignificant part of the saturation situation, they are a major headache for many.
