![]() ![]() "What is not clear at the moment is when we are going to get any normality back," he added by telephone. He fills his days reading, including French novelist Albert Camus's "The Plague". "I have not received one euro in the past month and a half," said Elias Suliar Nicolau, a 34-year-old reception manager at a hotel in north-west Mallorca who has had to pay rent out of savings as he waits for payments from a state furlough scheme. The huge wave of temporary layoffs in hotels and restaurants is taking time to process, leaving many without cash. Many people who rely on the tourism industry in the archipelago work on a "six months on, six months off" model. Desperate to reopen, even if in a reduced capacity, hotels are lobbying government to allow limited travel between Germany and Mallorca - both of which have relatively low coronavirus incidence rates, says Xisco Porcel, vice-president of the island's Peguera and Cala Fornells Hotel Association. So they face a particularly acute threat from the spending squeeze and restrictions on movement during the crisis, which has hit Spain hardest in Europe after Italy. The Balearic Islands, of which Mallorca is the largest, are one of the biggest attractions in Spain, which welcomed nearly 84 million visitors in 2019 to maintain its position as the world's second most popular holiday destination. ![]() On the tourism-dependent Spanish island of Mallorca, a total shutdown of hotels due to the coronavirus outbreak has destroyed livelihoods across the sector, from reception staff to farmers who provide food for restaurants. ![]()
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