Hotel owners on the Costa del Sol are optimistic about the near future. They notice a reactivation of tourism and expect to end May with an occupancy rate of 34%. Much depends on the travel advice for the British.
The Costa del Sol Aehcos hotel association confirms the government’s announcement to open the land to vaccinated tourists from June 7 has “positively adjusted expectations of the revival of the tourism industry”. They have suffered significantly in recent months and suffered great losses from the pandemic.
In addition, a spokesman for Aehcos in the newspaper SUR points out the prelude to the high season has also been positive. However, there are still only moderate occupancy forecasts of around 34% of the currently open branches.
According to José Luque, chairman of Aehcos, the customers were mainly domestic tourists who travel on weekends.
More hotels to open in June and July
Luque expects more hotels to open their doors in June and July. However, everything depends on decisions made in foreign source markets such as the United Kingdom, Germany and France. Any restrictions they maintain would affect results.
Foreign clients represent between 65% and 70% of Costa del Sol hotels’ customers. The Costa del Sol currently has 330 branches affiliated with Aehcos; with a total of 32,656 places that are now open. That is 38.8% of the total number of places.
“We are at a time that can be seen as a turning point for the summer with the recent opening of the borders between the autonomous regions. And despite final approval of the European digital green certificate before the beginning of July, we are certainly concerned about the UK market, because of its importance to the Costa del Sol, ”said Luque.
Spain still amber for the UK
The UK has assigned Spain the colour amber in the traffic light system of its travel advice. So even though Britons can enter Spain without hindrance, they must quarantine for ten days on return and produce negative PCR tests.
Very annoying for the industry as the British traveller normally accounts for 30% of the tourist activity. They are key to a good tourist season for the Costa del Sol. That is why everyone is eagerly waiting for June 7, the day when the British government will update the list of green countries – those without travel restrictions.
