Majorcan holidays to cost more

(First Edition)

PEOPLE taking package holidays on Majorca face price rises of 20-25 per cent next year because of the island's move to stop children over 12 sharing their parents' rooms, a travel chief warned yesterday.

'The Balearic Islands are actually saying we don't want the families,' said David Crossland, chairman of Airtours, Britain's third biggest holiday company.

Majorca and the other Balearic Islands Minorca and Ibiza would take three years to recover from it, he added.

Mr Crossland said: 'The price of holidays to ordinary families going to the Balearic Islands next year is going to go up between 20 and 25 per cent.'

Mr Crossland said he did not mind governments interfering in areas such as health, safety and security.

But he added: 'The travel industry is the largest employer of people in the world now. I think governments should be grateful for the effect tourism has on their economies.'

Mr Crossland was speaking at the Association of British Travel Agents' annual convention in Palma, Majorca, where it emerged at the weekend that the Balearics were cracking down on overcrowding in cheap holiday accommodation.

On Sunday, travel agent Pickfords warned that the move could lead to 280,000 families across Europe giving the Balearics a miss next year. Last year, 1.9 million British holidaymakers visited the Balearics - 11 per cent more than in 1991.