04 March, 2015

By VIVA Team

Tourists to the Costa del Sol are expected to bring in more than €9 billion this year

Having smashed records in 2014, the tourism industry of the Costa del Sol is already showing signs that 2015 could be its best year yet.

Data unveiled by Spain’s national statistics institute (INE) for January shows that the number of hotel visitors in Málaga province – which covers the chief resorts of the Costa del Sol – hit 199,246 visits, which is a ten per cent increase on the same month last year…

This figure is also the third-highest ever for the month of January, and Andalucía as a whole enjoyed a more rapid increase in visitor numbers (9.6 per cent more this year than last year) than Spain did as a whole (where hotel visitor numbers for January are up an encouraging 7.6 per cent nationwide when compared to 2014).

Last year as a whole, the Malaga Province attracted more than 10 million tourists, which represented a 7.3 per cent increase on 2013.

On the job front, there were 447 more people working in the Costa del Sol’s hotel sector in January this year compared to last year, taking the total to 7,332 employees.

These impressive figures will be aided by the news this month that the region is to receive an additional €1 million in funding designed to help bolster its already world-class tourism image.

Málaga Provincial Council leader Elías Bendodo signed an agreement in Madrid at the beginning of February with Spain’s Industry, Energy and Tourism minister José Manuel Soria to steer funds towards 11 dedicated pro-tourism projects in the province.

These projects are thought to include infrastructural improvements to popular hiking and rural tourism attractions, extra money for residential upkeep in certain towns and villages, and improvements to roads and other key parts of the region’s street furniture.

The direct economic benefit of tourism to the region is vast, with tourists spending more than €7 billion on the Costa del Sol last year, and indirectly ploughing an estimated €10.8 billion into the wider economy.

This level of spending is expected to be topped in 2015, and may break the all-time record, which was set in 2004 when tourists to the region spent close to €9 billion.