Formentera to get updated statistical data on visiting tourists

foto 2022ix estadistiques turismeToday Ana Juan, Consell de Formentera president, together with Iago Negueruela, Balearic minister of economic model, tourism and labour; Alejandra Ferrer, Consell de Formentera vice president and councillor of tourism, and Llorenç Pou, general director in the Balearics of economic model and employment, announced in press conference that Formentera will now have disaggregated tourism data after intense and coordinated efforts between the Balearic Institute of Statistics (Institut Balear d'Estadística, IBESTAT) and the National Institute of Statistics (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, INE).

In this way the Balearic Government addresses a long-standing local plea and methodological effort to obtain disaggregated data for the island. The data will provide a clearer picture of local tourism and a better understanding of Formentera's visitors and related trends in the short, medium and long term.

President Juan said that differentiated data between the islands marked the fulfilment of a local request and called it "very good news". "This instrument will afford us a more complete understanding –of the tourists who visit us; of excursionistes, which we've always said that Formentera needs to regulate; of tourist spending, and of issuing markets– in definitive data that help us design promotional policies and complement the data of the Formentera Data Observatory".

Vice President Ferrer welcomed the fulfilment of Formentera's request to have data segregated by islands, and voiced hopes that now "IBESTAT and the Formentera Data Observatory can collaborate and unify methodologies for more accurate data. This will put us in a position to determine promotional policies, see where tourists spend their money and direct our support for various sectors. This information will directly impact residents and their quality of life".

IBESTAT will provide Formentera's tourism data as it already does with Eivissa, Menorca and Mallorca: monthly in summer and quarterly the rest of the year.

Day-trippers, a differential element
Data for Formentera will not only include the number of tourists, visitor profiles, spending and origin, it will also be uniquely differentiated. Since Formentera is an island where some visitors arrive in the morning and leave the same day, information on these visitors, known as "excursionistes" (day-trippers), has been included.

From now on, Formentera will have statistics on the number of visiting day-trippers.

Greatest recovery of tourist spending
Tourism on Formentera has rebounded as on neighbouring islands and currently tourism is more profitable than it was before the pandemic. Tourist spending has grown 44% since 2021 and is up 19% compared to 2019. Total tourist spending (i.e. cumulative spending from January to July) is higher than it was in 2019 and Formentera is the only island that by last year had essentially returned to 2019 levels. This increased spending has been achieved without changes in the number of tourists, a sign of increased profitability.

8 September 2022
Communications Office
Consell de Formentera