Menorca’s restaurant sector fails to recover: nearly 45% of businesses report lower revenue this July

Menorca is maintaining visitor numbers and seven out of ten tourism businesses are matching or improving their results, yet bars, cafés and restaurants are once again being left out of this positive trend

The tourist season is progressing steadily in Menorca, but this relative prosperity is not being felt in the same way at restaurant tables. July figures provided by PIME Menorca once again place the restaurant and catering sector among those hardest hit by visitors’ tighter spending.

44.83% of cafés, bars and restaurants say their revenue was lower than in July 2025, while only 20.69% reported improved results. This contrasts with Menorca’s tourism sector as a whole: 33.33% of businesses increased their turnover, 38.95% maintained it and 27.72% saw it fall. In other words, seven out of ten tourism businesses are maintaining or improving their results.

The restaurant sector, therefore, continues to move at a different pace.

And this is not a phenomenon limited to July. In May, 38% of restaurant businesses were already reporting a fall in revenue, compared with just 24% that had improved their results. In June, the situation worsened further: 44.64% recorded lower turnover than a year earlier, while only 19.64% improved.

The figures therefore point to a trend that has persisted throughout the first three months of the season.

Fewer restaurant visits and tighter control over spending

The problem appears to lie less in the number of tourists than in what they do with their money once they are in Menorca. The airport recorded 623,099 passengers in June, 1.2% more than a year earlier. International passenger numbers rose by 3.6%, while passengers on domestic connections fell by 2%.

The domestic market has traditionally been a particularly important customer base for Menorca’s restaurant sector.

Restaurant owners were already warning in June about a change in consumer habits. Antoni Sansaloni, president of PIME Menorca’s Association of Cafés, Bars and Restaurants, explained that families who previously ate lunch or dinner out three or four times during their holidays are now doing so only once or twice. He also noted greater attention to menu prices, more dishes being shared and a reduction in family spending per diner.

The diagnosis is consistent with what is being seen across the Balearic Islands: visitors are still taking their holidays, but rising transport and accommodation costs leave them with less money available to spend on restaurants, excursions and shopping. The restaurant sector is seeing both a decline in average spend per customer and a reduction in how often tourists eat out.

This reduced spending power is compounded by the pressure of the costs borne by restaurants themselves. At the beginning of the season, the sector was already warning that higher food prices and operating expenses were squeezing margins at the same time as customers were cutting back on consumption.

High July temperatures, which business owners say particularly reduce activity during lunchtime hours, are making the situation even more difficult.

The 2026 season is therefore once again raising an issue that goes beyond simply counting tourist arrivals: how much wealth each visitor actually leaves in Menorca and how much of that spending reaches restaurants and local produce. For an island that has made gastronomy one of the main pillars of its tourism quality and identity, this will be one of the indicators to watch most closely over the remainder of the summer.