CALVIÀ TRAVELS TO FITUR TO PROMOTE THE MUNICIPALITY

The official delegation is headed by the Deputy Mayor for Tourism, Antonio García Moles

One more year, Calvià travels to Fitur, the main tourist fair of the country which takes place in Madrid, with the aim of promoting the destination and attract national tourism for this forthcoming season towards the different areas that make up the municipality. The official delegation is headed by the Deputy Mayor for Tourism, Antonio García Moles.

Fitur, which this year celebrates its 36th edition, will allow Calvià to reaffirm the municipality as a leading tourist destination in the Mediterranean, placing emphasis on the quality of its services and security. Calvià wants to make the most of the recovery of the national tourism thanks to the improvement of the economic situation of our country, as well as the rise of reservations generated by the international tourist demand which searches a safe and smooth destination.

The fair will allow to transmit the atendee the great quality offer adapted to all levels and for all ages located in the municipality, as well as continue with the promotion in the national market of the excellent beaches and exceptional landscapes, as well as the wide attractive leisure offer for young tourism.

It is also a desire of the delegation to explain and consolidate the transformation of the hotel infrastructure in parallel with the modernization of the trade and the associated offer. In recent years, around 250 million euros have been invested in improvements to the hotel industry of the municipality. Numerous projects are underway to improve the quality of the facilities thus raising the level to meet the increasingly demanding demand from visitors. Calvià has around 60,000 tourist beds that host a total of nearly two million tourists a year.

The consistory wants to continue giving active support to the private companies of the municipality to achieve with joint work a change of model and an improvement of the local economy. a paradigm shift and improve the local economy. The final objective of the promotional actions is to lengthen the season in order to increase employment and as a result, improve the economy of the families of the municipality. The Deputy Mayor and his team are working in the fair and contrasting views with representatives of various means of communication, businesses and institutional representatives.

The official agenda of the Deputy Mayor for Tourism, Antonio Garcia Moles, who yesterday attended the 8th Exceltur Tourism Leadership Forum, includes amongst other activities, meetings for today Wednesday with three directors of tourist offices abroad. Therefore, apart from the state of the national tourism reservations, Fitur is being a thermometer to take the pulse of other foreign markets.

The first meeting of the Deputy Mayor has been with Luis Bovés, Director of the Spanish Tourist Office in Moscow. The local tourist sector continues hoping for a possible improvement in the arrival of visitors from the Russian source market, which, due to several factors amongst which outstand the problems related to the visas to travel to the Turkish territory granted by the Russian authorities, can lead to an increase in the arrival of visitors coming from the Slavic country after several years in decline.

According to the data provided by Mr. Bovés, the Russian source market broke the negative trend in the month of November after 18 months of decline and showed a timid growth of 3%, although it is true that this figure does not consider neither the effects of the incidents of the downed plane on the Egyptian territory nor the plane shot down by Turkey. The destination Turkey (with 5 million of Russian tourists) and Egypt (with 3 million) are right now markets closed to the Russian tourists, therefore a total of 8 million tourists have no defined destination for this forthcoming season.

Calvià works to attract these potential visitors, therefore the municipality is considering taking part in a promotional event before the Summer with travel agencies and media in which the municipality of Calvià is promoted as a safe destination. Calvià also expects to participate in the MITT, the Moscow tourist fair which takes place at the end of March.

The second meeting of the morning has been with Enrique Ruiz de Lera, Director of the Spanish Tourist Office in London. The slight decline of the British currency in the last months against the euro does not worry the sector which expects a good year from the British market. The volume of reservations for Mallorca in the current Winter program (November 2015 - April 2016) has increased by 19%. For Summer 2016 the reserves of the islands as a whole have risen 17%, although for the island of Mallorca are somewhat lower, 10%. It should be noted that Tunisia is not being commercialised in the UK for this coming season, and although Turkey and Egypt are available, the reservations have fallen drastically.

The Director of the Tourist Office in London has also confirmed that the British customer profile is changing. The trend indicates that the demand for sports, health and family tourism products are on the rise, and within the specific segment of family tourism, the demand tends to seek an increasingly specialized offer for each family member. Calvià wants to work with all sectors -tour operators, accommodation, air operators and specialised offer- in the line of promoting the creation of new products that meet the necessities of new travellers, increasingly demanding.

The evaluation of the two meetings this morning is very positive. To end the official agenda of the day, after the commemorative lunch of the 25 years of the tourist magazine Preferente, the head of Tourism of the consistory of Calvià will meet this afternoon with the Director of the Spanish Tourist Office in Stockholm, Octavio González, to contrast the latest forecast on reservations in the Nordic market for this upcoming season.

The official agenda of meetings of the Deputy Mayor, Antonio García Moles, includes a meeting with Isabel García, of Turismo Vivencial, and another meeting with Manuel Butler, Tourism Advisor of the Spanish Embassy in Berlin. The traditional source markets are generating high expectations amongst the tourist sector due to external factors such as the political instability of several competing destinations or the low fuel prices which cheapen the air transport, so crucial to the Islands.

The Head of the Spanish Tourist Office in Berlin has forwarded to the municipal team that bookings from Germany towards Spain for the Summer season have increased by 10.9% compared to 2015. Mallorca specifically registers an increase of 6.5%. Mr. Butler has emphasized that the enormous interest for Mallorca by the German population still remains, and has indicated that bookings towards countries such as Turkey and Egypt have fallen by up to 27% due to the recent attacks.

The Municipal Tourism team also met with Teresa Ortiz, Director of the OET of Vienna. This office is also responsible for the emerging markets of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Slovakia, where the increase is 2-3% by 2016. These are markets with a high potential growth which have doubled the amount of visitors have doubled between 2009 and 2015.

The municipal Tourism team has also met with representatives of Galben Travel & Business, organizers of the Mallorca Walking Event which will be held in Calvià from 7th to 10th April. The objective is that about 500 hikers coming from the countries of northern Europe can participate. This is a first edition with prospects of reaching 1000 participants in a second edition.