Benidorm Better Than Palma

Quite a bit has made of Palma being "The Sunday Times" choice of the best city in the world to live. The town hall in Palma has latched on to it, as have all the local papers. The publicity value is great, though there has been little or no mention of the fact that the author of the relevant article, Paul Richardson, is well-known to the press office at the Fomento del Turismo (Mallorca Tourist Board). Be that as it may.

Though the best city to live in, it isn't the best destination in the world for travellers. Who says? Trip Advisor of course. Palma doesn't even make it into the top ten of Spanish destinations let alone those in Europe or around the globe. The 2015 Travellers' Choice awards make Barcelona the number one Spanish destination and Istanbul the top European city or resort.

Of other places in the Spanish top ten, two are somewhat obscure - La Oliva on the island of Fuerteventura in the Canaries (second) and Llanes in Asturias (fifth). Otherwise, the destinations are as might be expected, albeit minus Palma, and they include - at number ten - Benidorm. Well, what do you think? Benidorm better than Palma? In the end, Trip Advisor awards and newspaper reviews are all rather subjective.

When looking at comments on Spanish news websites under articles about Palma, another place in Mallorca was given honourable mentions. In the opinion of a few of those commenting, Soller is the best place to live, and Soller was in the Trip Advisor Travellers' Choice top ten last year, as also was Calvia. They are nowhere to be seen this year. As I say, all very subjective.

But who needs awards or newspaper articles when Mallorca and the Balearics can boast that it is the national leader in 2015 in terms of an increase in winter tourism. Yes, you have read this correctly. In January and February, the Balearics registered the greatest increase of any region in Spain - 40,000 more tourists, a rise of 20%. This good news has to be placed in perspective, though. The figure of 230,000 tourists is substantially lower than the 380,000 who came to the islands in January and February not so long ago - in 2008 before crisis really struck.

The increase this year cannot disguise the weakness of Mallorca's winter tourism and also one of the laments that German tour operators have, i.e. the fact that so many hotels are closed. The German market rose by 34% in January and February but so also, according to the Frontur survey which measures these things, did the number of tourists opting to stay in private holiday accommodation. This was up by 24%. Who was it who said that private holiday lets add to the impact of seasonality rather than lessen it? Might it have been the tourism minister by any chance?