Roger Munns

2007 has proved to be a good year for Spanish tourism, and with Majorca doing particularly well, the sister island of Menorca is doing her best not to be overshadowed.

With official figures some way off, the general feeling in the hotels and holidays trade is that, like Majorca, an increase in the number of visitors compared to 2006 is likely.

The annual battle between holiday resorts to attract visiting tourists and their wallets each summer is over, and it appears that the Spanish island of Majorca has won over the British market at least.

Since the advent of package holidays some fifty years ago initiated by holiday companies such as Thomas Cook and Thomson Holidays, whole areas of Spain and other European countries have built their economies around tourism, and each year they hope that the holidaymakers will come to their area.

Yachting is a luxury activity. Super yachts can measure up to 90 meters long. They are a symbol of wealth, sophistication, power, and adventure.

Monaco is the centre of the yachting world, where sandy beaches and clear water meet jutting rock cliffs. Each year Monaco is the home to an annual yacht show.

What is the Monaco Yacht Show?

Monaco's annual luxury yacht show is a four-day event that is celebrating its seventeenth year.

It is estimated that over the last 100 years, nearly 180 million people have visited what is, undoubtedly, Europe's favourite island in the sun. Over those 100 years, these visitors have gone to the beaches, the mega-resorts, the small towns, the farming villages, and the mountains. Majorca has proven that it truly is a destination for everyone.

So what led to this island becoming 180 million people's destination of choice for their holiday getaway? It was not any one incident as with all good things, tourism in Majorca was influenced by many things.

The days of easy travel abroad have been over for a while now, with frequent long queues at passport control and baggage checks making air travel in particular a chore more than a joy.

But when the journey is fraught, if the destination is good the inconvenience is soon forgotten, and for sunshine holidays if good beaches and security are high on the tourist agenda, the island of Malta in the Mediterranean could be a good choice.

A slump in tourist numbers earlier this year has made the ski country of Andorra realise that they need to do more to attract skiers for the 2008 season and beyond, and they're investing heavily for future seasons to return the country to a dominant ski tourist destination.

After several years of attracting some ten million tourists to her ski slopes between early December and late April, visitor numbers slumped in the 2006/7 season due to the lack of snow, a problem shared with many other European ski resorts.

Weekend clubbers from around Europe, and especially from the UK and Germany, descend upon Ibiza in the summer months for a week - and often two - of non stop partying.

Ibiza runs second only to the UK's main cities of London, Manchester and Liverpool in terms of popularity for clubbers, and some of the Ibiza clubs are as well known as any in the UK.

Holiday makers and business people visiting Malta are enjoying lower fares since the introduction of low cost airlines late last year.

Not only has their choice of airline and airports serving Malta widened considerably, but the perennial favourite of many business and holiday travellers, Air Malta, has fought back against the new low cost airlines with reduced fares and offers of their own.

Andorra's businessmen and women are normally counting their takings at the end of the country's ski season, but after the worst year for tourism for twenty years some are instead counting their blessings that they are in business still at all for the forthcoming 2008 skiing season.

While some might consider this year - when the first meaningful snow fell in mid March instead of mid November - a rare event, others are considering a future where diversification could be the key to their survival and continued profitability.

Tourist statistics have shown the holiday island of Malta has enjoyed a ten per cent rise in arrivals this year compared to last.

Low cost airlines started flying to Malta in November 2006, and as well as showing the rise in visitors, the figures show that the tourists haven't diluted the amount spent per person. One of the concerns some in the tourist industry had before the island agreed to allow low cost flights was that the amount spent per passenger arrival would be lower than the status quo.