Mallorca’s island council, El Consell, said that the campaign, which got under way on 25 March, will focus on the commitment of local citizens in the battle to overcome the pandemic. Using the hashtag NosvemosprontoMallorca, (translated as ‘see you soon, Mallorca’), the aim is to highlight the importance of individual effort in helping get the island through the effects of the global health crisis as quickly as possible.
A Consell spokesperson said that they will be using 30-second graphics that ‘simulate a WhatsApp chat between Mallorca and a person, who could be any one of the millions of tourists that visit us each year’. It is being distributed through all the major social networks, encouraging every company involved in the island’s tourism sector to pass it on and try to reach as many potential visitors as possible (going viral, you might say – Inappropriate Ed.)
The plan is to ‘create a communicative support tool for the tourism sector … to strengthen the relationship of brand Mallorca with the leading markets, to be present during these weeks of uncertainty’, said the Consell.
Figures released by the national Ministry of Health on 25 March showed Spain registering the second highest levels worldwide of deaths from Covid-19 after Italy. The government has sought parliamentary approval to extend its current state of emergency to 11 April.
The majority of deaths have been in the capital and its surrounding region, the Comunidad de Madrid, at 1,825 out of 14,597 cases, followed by Catalonia with its regional capital of Barcelona at 516 and 9,937, and the southern inland region of Castilla-La Mancha at 263 and 2,780.
The Balearics region, of which Mallorca is the largest island, is one of the least affected so far with 19 deaths and 562 cases, as are the Canary Islands, which registered the first known case of Covid-19 in the country.