Majorca restaurant crisis as staff shortages force opening hours to be cut | World | News
Staff shortages that were evident in the restaurant industry in 2022 and 2023 have worsened and led to a reduction in opening hours, with some businesses being forced to close at certain times of day on the popular tourist island of Majorca.
The new president of the CAEB Restaurants Association, Juanmi Ferrer, who took up the position last week, also said that since June, there has been lower spending with a 30 percent fall in turnover.
Ferrer added that a weak high season minimises the possibilities of staying open beyond October, especially in the resort areas.
“Whoever can open will open. Restaurants which are better organised and have a network of local clients will hold out.”
Indeed, a drop in demand for holidays to islands including Majorca, Menorca and Ibizaat the end of August and for the remainder of the holiday season has forced some businesses to launch special offers and lower prices to encourage tourists to book last-minute getaways.
Ferrer believes that restaurants in tourist areas want to stay open after the end of the season, “whenever the situation allows it”. However, very few ever do.
Business in the high summer season determines whether restaurants remain open or not: “If they have had a good season, they may well open in winter. But if they haven’t, they will think twice,” Ferrer explained.
In 2023, the total number of tourists to Majorca and the other Balearic Islands increased by a staggering 1.3 million to 17.8 million, with estimates in May suggesting that it was not inconceivable that the total for 2024 could increase by a further two million, reaching 20 million, twice as many as at the start of the century, according to the Majorca Daily Bulletin. Only time will tell if the restaurant industry is able to keep up with growing numbers of tourists amid falling staff numbers.
In 2022, it was reported by The Mirror that hospitality bosses were struggling to fill 200,000 jobs and keep services operating in holiday hotspots. Thousands of workers left the industry when international travel shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic and many never returned. Potential employees were offered bigger salaries, free accommodation and extras such as cash bonuses and health insurance in a bid to fill outstanding vacancies.
One of the key concerns during the summer’s mass tourism protests in Spain has been the lack of affordable property for local people. In September, it was reported that local workers are deserting the island due to ever increasing rent and property prices.Instead, investors have been buying up apartments in order to rent them out to holidaymakers in the short-term.
Earlier this year, Spain’s employment minister, Yolanda Diaz, said that restaurants staying open until one in the morning was “crazy” and proposed they shut earlier. This was met with outrage from locals. The president of the CAEB Restaurants Association at the time, Alfonso Robeldo, said that Diaz’s proposal was “a nonsense”, arguing that if Majorca’s bars and restaurants closed earlier, “no one will want to come”.
The retail sector in Majorca has also faced a similar issue. Carolina Domingo of the Pimeco association says: “Shops that have a bad season will simply not open. We are back to where we were years ago, with many parts of the island almost without activity in the winter months.”
