Retail on the Balearic Islands grows — but for whom?

Retail on the Balearic Islands grows — but for whom?

The figures are clear: up to October, retail sales on the Balearic Islands are 4.6 percent higher than last year. Between July and September, visitors spent around €1.1 billion on purchases — almost nine percent more than in the previous year. And retail employment has climbed to a record level of over 53,800 people. But these bare numbers raise a guiding question: is this increase enough to stabilise the sector in the long term — and does every island really benefit equally?

The answer is not just a matter of numbers. On Palma's Carrer de Sant Miquel the first goods are already being unpacked in the morning, the clatter of backpacks mingling with the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Tourists buy T‑shirts and souvenirs, but the substantial revenues shown by the statistics often come from places with high visitor numbers: shopping streets, markets like the Mercat de l’Olivar and the harbour promenades. That brings money — and creates jobs. Still, other notes can be heard in the backyards where delivery vans manoeuvre: many positions are seasonal, part‑time or on call.

What the statistics reveal is a dependence on tourism. The sales increase clearly correlates with rising tourist demand in the summer quarter. This can feel reassuring in the short term: shops restock their shelves, cafés have full staff rosters again. In the long term, however, the question remains whether growth so closely tied to visitors increases the resilience of the local economy or merely amplifies its fluctuations.

Regionally the data paint an uneven picture: Mallorca, Menorca and Formentera show gains — Ibiza, however, reports a significant decline in retail jobs. That is more than a footnote. For islands like Ibiza, where the labour market and prices are particularly volatile, a drop in jobs can quickly lead to noticeable problems in districts and neighbourhoods.

What is often too little discussed in the public debate are questions of quality: how sustainable are the new jobs? Are wages in retail rising with turnover? How strongly do higher sales drive up shop rents in Palma's old town or at Playa de Palma? And what role does online sales play — does e‑commerce fill the gap outside the tourist season or does it harm the small shop around the corner?

A concrete everyday scene: it is Friday noon on Avenida Jaime III, a coach stops, groups stream into boutiques. The sales assistant who came from the provinces two years ago says quietly she is pleased about the busy days but fears the winter months. Many feel the same: joy about today's turnover, worry about tomorrow's stability.

What can be done? Some practical approaches:

1) Promotion of year‑round customer flow: Strengthen targeted markets, events and cultural formats in the shoulder seasons so that shops do not earn only in summer. Cooperations between tourism operators and local retailers can attract visitors in quieter months as well.

2) Strengthening locally produced goods: More visibility for Mallorcan food, crafts and fashion — for example through labelling, weekly market partnerships and digital marketplaces. This helps improve margins for small businesses.

3) Fair working conditions: Grants for further training, clear rules against precarious contracts and incentives for businesses to create full‑time positions with fair pay. A qualified workforce ensures service quality and customer loyalty.

4) Rent regulation and land use: Encourage dialogue between municipalities, landlords and shop owners to curb excessive rents in prime locations and to creatively repurpose vacancies.

5) Tailored support for Ibiza: Analyse the causes of the job decline and implement targeted programmes that support retraining, foster new business models and promote offers independent of the season.

These proposals are not silver bullets, but they point the way from mere celebration of turnover to greater resilience. Retail is the heart of towns; if it only beats in summer, life in the neighbourhood feels different than with a steady heartbeat throughout the year.

Conclusion: the 4.6 percent increase and record employment are good news — but they are not an automatic free pass. We need a debate about how this upswing is distributed, which jobs are created and how the islands can make their economic base less vulnerable to seasonal swings. You can feel the liveliness today in the plazas and shopping streets. Whether that turns into lasting strength will be decided in the back rooms of city halls, in consultancy offices and at the coffee tables of shopkeepers in the coming months.