It’s jerky in Mallorca – that’s a good sign!
The “Ballermann” is open and drunk people are falling from balconies again – Mallorca seems to be expecting a season like before the pandemic. But such an island cannot simply start up again without any problems. Guests should be prepared for this.
Vacation trips are getting more and more expensive
If you are planning a holiday now, you should not hesitate too long. After two years of the corona pandemic with sometimes severe travel restrictions, demand is high. In Spain and Greece in particular, the prices for an overnight stay have risen sharply.
NAfter two Corona years, Mallorca is preparing for a season with full capacity. Can 2022 be as good as 2019, the last year before the pandemic with a record 14 million visitors to the Balearic Islands? Many planes are currently taking off from Hamburg, Düsseldorf or Paderborn heading south, as if the aim was to test the island’s carrying capacity in a holiday bet. On the way between Palma and Cala Ratjada you can’t overlook it: the British are all there already.
Reports of shark sightings and drunken young people falling off balconies suggest things are back to normal. The “Ballermann” is open every day from ten in the morning, and the “Megapark” (self-promotion: Europe’s largest open-air beer garden) even recently requires advance payment to cope with the large crowds. The “Mallorca-Zeitung” warns that access only after purchasing a “consumption voucher” in the amount of 25 euros.
But a holiday island doesn’t just go from almost zero to a hundred again without further ado. There is a lack of rental cars in Mallorca, as elsewhere in the Mediterranean, for example (1000 euros for a week in the entry-level class are not uncommon), there is a lack of staff, deck chairs and parasols on the beaches. Even the weather still seems awkward: heat waves with temperatures up to 37 degrees alternated with unusual cold snaps and heavy downpours in May.
Demolition orders against popular beach bars
The “back-to-the-future-summer” seems to have come as surprising in some places on Mallorca as every winter for the railways in this country. The beaches all belong to the Spanish state, their “management” must be applied for, concessions must be awarded in good time to mostly private operating companies. Every community does it in its own way. This explains the different prices for loungers and umbrellas from bay to bay.
But despite the urgent procedure, the award was not yet complete everywhere at the end of May. The bathing season usually starts at the beginning of May. The delays are particularly noticeable in the east and south. You rarely saw so much free beach. If there are no rental loungers, there is at least more space for the towels and folding chairs of the self-sufficient.
Recently threatened with demolition: one of Mallorca’s typical beach bars
Quelle: picture alliance/imageBROKER
Demolition orders against popular beach bars, the so-called chiringuitos, cause additional uproar. The coastal authority in distant Madrid argues with landscape protection. Nevertheless, the kiosk owners, who now have to remove parts of their terraces or the entire stand at the start of the season, are wondering what these measures are supposed to do now that the chiringuitos have often been tolerated for decades.
The rows of shops with holes in the holiday resorts show that a good number of shops and restaurants did not survive the pandemic. In the recovery phase, there was actually no need for any additional restrictions with greetings from the central government.
So the Balearic holiday machinery, which otherwise runs so smoothly, is jerky. Guests should be prepared for this – and be particularly lenient here and there. But jerking is a good sign: Mallorca is alive! It will return to its usual standard, maybe even this season. The Mallorcans have often succeeded in doing the unexpected.
Cause of flight chaos – “Massive staff shortage and desire to travel”
After two years of the pandemic, many people are packing their bags to go on vacation again. But that requires strong nerves. At the counter it says: wait. The reasons for this are “a massive lack of staff and a desire to travel,” says Laurin Meyer, WELT editor for business and finance.