Travel agencies to stop bringing UK tourists to Majorca after 'limit' imposed

Travel agencies have threatened to stop bringing tourists to Palma in Spain if guided tours are limited. They consider that the new civic ordinance makes it "unfeasible and very expensive" to organize excursions in the European Union holiday hotspot.

Travel agencies are up in arms over the regulations which limit the maximum number of groups on guided walking tours of the city to 20 people, a restriction that the Business Association of Travel Agencies of the Balearic Islands (Aviba) considers "disproportionate" and "absurd".

"If it is carried out, you can be sure that we will stop taking tourists to the city of Palma . At operational levels it would be unviable and very costly," said the president of Aviba, Pedro Fiol. According to Fiol, limiting the excursions to 20 people will force them to make them more expensive in order to pass the cost on to the end customer.

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This, he warns, will in turn mean that tourists will have “less budget to spend at the destination”. “I don’t know if the merchants will be very much in agreement”, he said. "We are currently having a lot of problems in carrying out excursions because we do not have guides, we do not understand how they are now going to demand that we double the number," he added.

Aviba said that there have been no official guide positions announced for 16 years, although Mallorca's Council has reportedly hinted that this may occur next year. Aviba has reproached Cort for its "inefficiency", which "has been made clear by the problem of S'Escollera".

They underline that this type of transport contributes to decongesting the roads by transporting fifty people in a single vehicle. "Our way of operating is the most efficient of all, what we are doing is controlling the flows," they said.