Mallorca moves to limit bomb damage to tourism

A Spanish National Police officer stands guard beside a restaurant in the Portixol beachside in Palma de Mallorca August 9, 2009.

MADRID (Reuters) - Although no people were hurt by bombings in Mallorca at the weekend, people working in Spain's already battered tourist industry are concerned the economically vital sector might not escape unscathed.

Three small bombs planted by Basque separatist group ETA went off on Sunday afternoon in Palma, the capital of Mallorca, the biggest of the Balearic Islands which were visited by 10.1 million tourists last year.

On July 30, ETA made its first lethal attack in Mallorca with a car bomb that killed two police officers in the busy resort of Palmanova.

In a country where tourism accounts for about 11 percent of gross domestic product, authorities have rushed to reassure potentially nervous visitors.

"We are working with the consulates of the countries where we have most clients ... to give them information all the time," said Francesc Antich, leader of the Balearic Islands government.

"We are trying to provide as much information as we can and transmit a sense of normality."

ETA has targeted the island before, including foiled plots against King Juan Carlos who takes his summer holidays there.

It is a common ETA tactic to detonate small bombs in tourist areas, often issuing warning calls in advance. The presence of the royal family guarantees the group maximum publicity.

ETA wants to carve make an independent state of the Basque homeland in northern Spain and southern France.

ETA experts see the summer attacks as a show of strength as the group marks its 50th anniversary and wants to prove that a string of arrests by French and Spanish police have not blunted its military capabilities.

The group has killed more than 800 people, with its bloodiest decade in the 1980s. Spanish security forces say they expect it to continue to strike when it can as its weakness makes it more desperate.

"When you look at the figures you can see that ETA has been significantly weakened," Ignacio Sanchez Cuenca of the Juan March Foundation social research organization told Reuters. He estimates the group has lost a third of its sympathizers, once estimated at 150,000.

"From 2006 to 2009, they have killed 11 people. They used to kill that many in a year," he said.

The summer attacks damage the reputation of Spain's tourist destinations, already hit by a global slowdown and the high euro which has scared off many Britons whose pounds are far less valuable than in previous years.

But Mallorca's tourist sector said no bookings had been canceled as a result of the bombs.

"It was a nasty scare, but up until now there has not been any kind of cancellation," the head of Mallorca's hotels association, Antoni Mas told national radio.

"The tourist season is in line with our forecasts given the economic uncertainty, and for the time being there has been no drop (in numbers) which we could attribute to this," he said.

A day after the bombing, during which police cordoned off the beach and evacuated several restaurants, calm had returned to Palma de Mallorca.

"The feeling today is of absolute calm and indeed it was like that yesterday by 6 p.m.," said Susan Friend, a Briton who has lived on the island for more than a decade. "I was sitting at a bar near the Plaza Mayor (where one of the bombs went off) and it was absolute normality. Lots of people around."

(Reporting by Judith MacInnes and Sarah Morris; editing by Robin Pomeroy)