News
The people’s paper ISSUE NO. 1846
19 - 25 November 2020
MALLORCA • WWW.EUROWEEKLYNEWS.COM
FREE • GRATIS
LOOKING FORWARD
TV advertising for holidays in the UK traditionally kicks off just af ter Christmas as families are to gether and generally looking to the New Year with an eye out for bargains if they haven’t already spent up. Regardless of the coronavirus pandemic, the hospitality industry around the world has to either move forward in the hope and expectation that the Covid19 vaccines will work and bring the pandemic under control or give up.
The Balearics rely on tourism to keep the economy buoyant and so far, this year, it has been some thing of a disaster but Mallorca’s tourism federation is looking for ward and has slightly increased its budget for promotion of the Is land in 2021. Whilst Germany provides the largest number of visitors (three million plus on average) the UK is the second most important mar ket with around two million visi tors each year and this is a larger number than those who travel
Palma Airport awaits the 2021 arrival of tourists.
Property plans ahead THE regional government will use €5.4 mil lion of next year’s Budget to purchase empty properties for social housing. The majority will be bank repossessions or those belonging to landlords or companies with large holdings of empty homes. The Govern intends to acquire these prop erties exercising its ‘first refusal and preemp tive rights’ powers granted by a regional gov ernment decree that was approved last March. It will also help to avoid a repetition of its previous loss of control over 5,484 VPO sub
sidised properties when they came onto the market some time ago. The new Housing Law sidesteps this prob lem, as newlyconstructed subsidised homes may no longer be sold on the open market and when they are put up for sale, they will be pricecontrolled and must first be offered to the Govern. The regional government hopes that this will allow the Housing department to in crease its stock of social housing without having to build new properties, although construction will continue.
Balearic government will buy up empty properties. By the end of this year, 502 more proper ties will be completed or under construction and, if all goes according to plan, this number should double by late 2021, explained Marc Pons who heads the Housing department.
from mainland Spain. Brexit and Covid19 are going to test the market, but already nearly €2 million has been allocat ed for major refurbishment at the Palma de Mallorca airport in or der to streamline the processing of arrivals from the UK and this should be completed by the end of the year. British based holiday firms are committing themselves now to secure flights and hotel rooms in expectation of a return to over seas holidays and some are going to start their advertising to coin cide with the socalled Black Fri day which is the day after Thanks giving which is celebrated on November 26 this year. When consumers think of Black Friday, they think of special
offers and price cuts and this is what they can expect from select ed holiday companies with pack ages likely to be available from March to October which all being well will take in Easter and the best of the summer and early au tumn. Another area, but one which is perhaps a little more uncertain, will be the reintroduction of cruis es as there are hugely expensive vessels dotted all over the world just waiting to be able to start tak ing passengers again. Such a return to visiting liners would be positive for the Mallor ca economy and now after what has happened to the economy, it’s unlikely that there will be too many antitourist demonstra tions.