The water in Majorca don't taste like NEWater

But that shouldn’t deter Singaporeans who can now fly daily to Barcelona with further promotional goodies coming from a tie up between SIA and Spaniards.

The Spanish Tourism Board and SIA have agreed to commit funds through to the end of this year to support advertising and promotional campaigns, as well as familiarisation programmes for trade and media, among other plans.

Spain is an important part of Singapore Airlines’ network and its growth in recent years has been promising. Since launching thrice-weekly flights to Barcelona in 2006 with Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, the service has been increased to seven times weekly, using Boeing 777-300ER aircraft fitted with the Airline’s newest cabin products.

Beyond Barcelona, Singapore Airlines customers can connect to the Spanish cities of Bilbao, Madrid, and Palma de Mallorca on codeshare partner Spanair’s services. In March 2011, Barcelona also became Singapore Airlines’ gateway to its first South American destination – Sao Paulo.

“The signing of this MOU means a lot to us since it’s the first of its kind signed by Singapore Airlines with a European destination to cover several target markets,” emphasised Ms Angela Castaño, director of the Spain Tourism Board. “We hope that it will encourage people from Southeast Asia and other parts of the Asia Pacific to travel to a destination where they can enjoy what they love most, culture, food and shopping. This is an important step that encourages us to promote Spain more than ever in Asia Pacific.”

Key target markets under the agreement include Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore.