El paquete turístico de todo incluido: un análisis de sus implicaciones económicas para el caso de las Islas Baleares

The percentage of tourists visiting the Balearic Islands that choose the all inclusive package holiday has increased impressively since the turn of the century. The aim of this paper is to analyse the reasons behind this increase, as well as the economic effects that it is causing. For that purpose, several econometric models are estimated with data drawn from the Tourist Expenditure Survey and the brochures of the main tour operators in the Balearics. The main results are the following: (1) it cannot be accepted that the all inclusive product is capturing new segments of demand. (2) The increase in the percentage of tourists that choose the all inclusive product seems to be the result of a price strategy from tour operators. (3) The comparison of mean expenditure among the different types of board shows that the all inclusive option implies an expenditure per tourist per day clearly lower than that from the rest of types of board. (4) The increase of the importance of the all inclusive package is causing a dramatic change in the distribution of tourism receipts among the different economic agents. In fact, the all inclusive package shows levels of revenues paid in origin and in the Balearics highly different from those detected with the other tourist options.