“For us, the news from the Dutch is worse than the news from the English”. Alfonso Rojo, president of Pimeef, answered the call from Diario de Ibiza a few minutes after hearing the news that TUI Holland is cancelling its operations with the Balearics for two weeks, and he can’t hide his concern: “If the tour operators decide not to come, if connectivity is lost, we have a serious problem”.
“The Dutch government does not prohibit people coming to the Balearic Islands, it only says that if they are not vaccinated, when they return to their country they have to ungergo a PCR. However, TUI goes much further and decides to cancel the connections,” Rojo explains. “It’s a private company, it can do what it wants, but I think it’s too drastic a decision.
The president of Pimeef is keeping his fingers crossed that the perfect storm that everyone fears will not occur: that after TUI Holland, an alarm is unleashed that generates a domino effect that will drag other tour operators and governments along with it which will mean the end of a tourist season that started late but that has begun in July in a very promising way.
A sense of alarm that, according to the vice-president of the Confederation of Business Associations (CAEB) in the Pitiusas, José Antonio Roselló, began at a very specific time and date: “The day after receiving the green light from the United Kingdom, the explosion of cases in Mallorca and Menorca was unleashed”. Roselló laments that “while the association Ocio de Ibiza is doing a very good job, elsewhere it seems to be Jauja and you only have to look at the reggaeton concert in Palma, which was one of the triggers of this situation”.
The withdrawal of tour operators could lead to a drastic reduction in airline connections
The president of the employers’ association of the island rehighlights the importance of the decision of the British government, which he describes as “to be expected”. “The fear was that they would give us the red light. With the amber light, vaccinated Britons can come freely,” Rosselló recalls. As of today, 55% of the British are already vaccinated with the full vaccination schedule: “If this decision had been taken a month and a half ago, it would have been a disaster. Now it is not so bad.
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