Tourists heading for the delights of water park Parque Acuático in Mijas, the Paseo Maritimo and 10th-century Sohail Castle overlooking Fuengirola, and the lovely Plaza de los Naranjos in Old Town Marbella have added their numbers to another record-breaking summer at the Costa del Sol. August 2016 sees hotel occupancy rates soar to 95%, and that’s without special offers and hoteliers only accepting bookings with a minimum stay of five days!
Historic Record for Andalucía’s Hotel Sector
July 2016 exceeded all expectations for Andalucía’s hoteliers and all those working in the tourism industry. With an average hotel occupancy rate of 80% for July, hotels are expecting August to end on a historic high, the best ever monthly results achieved for the Costa del Sol.
Not just in terms of actual tourist numbers, but also with regard to length of stay and tourist daily expenditure, tourism experts are predicting. Determining what effect residential tourism has on the Costa del Sol’s economy will be rather more difficult to calculate than the hotel sector’s successes.
What is certain, however, is that more tourists than ever are renting self-catering apartments and villas, and more holiday home owners are returning to stay in Marbella, Estepona, Mijas and Fuengirola than in previous years. House sales in the Malaga Province as a whole have risen by 11.6% in the first six months of this year, a clear sign that international house buyer confidence in Spain is up after the market crashed in 2008. Buying a luxurious Marbella property and renting it out to tourists is once again regarded as a lucrative investment alternative to the French and Italian Riviera or Florida.
In 2015, the Costa del Sol welcomed more than 620,000 visitors from 1st August onwards, which resulted in around 2.6 million overnight stays for the whole of August, the highest occupancy figure for the entire year, according to data collated by Turismo Costa del Sol. This year demand has been so high that hoteliers can demand top-room rates and accept only bookings of five nights or more. Tour operators are not only using up their allotted quota of rooms, but also that set aside by hotel-chains for their own marketing efforts – an utterly unexpected development in the sector.
Families looking for fun-packed Holidays by the Sea head to the Costa del Sol
And who wouldn’t want to come at least once to Andalucía, where tourist attractions like Marbella’s Puerto Banus luxury marina complex, Sea Life at Puerto Marina, which boasts Europe’s largest collection of live sharks, and Crocodile Park with hands-on displays in Torremolinos beckon families to have a fantastic time?
Holidaymakers coming to the Costa del Sol are prepared to spend more on having fun this year, too. Owners of beach bars and cafes believe their turn-over will have grown by between 5 and 6 percent in July alone, compared to the same month last year.
“And that was already a fantastic month in 2015,” muses Manuel Villafaina, the president of the Beach Business Association. As for August 2016, he explains: “We are absolutely full in the first half of the month. We have had people, families of four or five, ringing us up to see if we can help because they can’t find anywhere to stay.”
Unusual Developments
There have also been some unusual developments that may or may not be connected to Britain’s impending exit from the European Union. Numbers of German visitors have shot up dramatically, compared to 2015. Traditionally, Brits are the Costa del Sols biggest spenders and largest market. However, with Pound Sterling taking a beating on the currency markets against both Euro and Dollar, British holidaymakers are feeling the pinch and are forced to re-exam their holiday budgets for this year.
With a healthy economy, Germany’s sun-hungry visitors can afford to spend more on hotels, buying holiday apartments and villas, eating out and shopping, as well as sight-seeing. But Germans are also buying more Costa del Sol and Balearic properties this year. The hills behind Marbella, once occupied by genuine mountain pueblos with enchanting white-washed houses, are rapidly becoming a play-ground for German and Russian retirees intending to live out their days playing golf at Benahavis’ Atalya Golf Club.
Traditionally, this Marbella-hinterland was occupied by Brits; since the 2008 housing market crash, other foreign nationals have begun to snap up these luxurious properties located just 10 km inland from Marbella. Anyone contemplating buying a retirement home at the Costa del Sol should not dither for long – prices are rising steadily and resale bargains are becoming rare thanks to Andalucía’s booming tourism sector.