Foreign holidaymakers on Costa del Sol up sevenfold last month

OCTOBER turned out to be an unexpectedly good month for the Costa del Sol tourism industry – especially among international holidaymakers.

A total of 455,055 hotel guests on the coast of the province of Málaga last month along translates to a 307% hike on numbers for October 2020.

And this has proven to be largely thanks to foreign visitors – although travellers from other parts of Spain also soared compared with the same month last year, by 139%, hotel guests from abroad increased sevenfold.

Latest figures from the Andalucía regional tourism board show holidaymakers from outside Spain taking their October break on the Costa del Sol were up an eye-watering 697% on the same month in 2020.

Throughout the Málaga province as a whole – including inland from the coast – hotel guests last month were not far short of 1.6 million, or the equivalent of about 3% of Spain's population descending on the area in the space of 31 days.

Overall, numbers for the entire province were up 542%, to 1,577,397, being an increase of 1,331,644 on October last year.

Visitors were tending to stay longer, too – although October is not peak holiday season, the weather in southern Spain is still very pleasant, warm and sunny most years, but not too sweltering to make sightseeing uncomfortable; as a result, it is a month when weekends away, city breaks and beach holidays are all feasible.

This means length of stay may be shorter in October than during the peak hot-weather months, but on average, trips to the province were 1.27 days longer than they were in the same month in 2020.

Tourist spending also rocketed – not only were more people choosing to visit Málaga in October 2021 and extending their stays, but they also shelled out more per head once there.

Known in Spanish tourism industry speak as the RevPar – amount spent per available hotel room – this rose by 313% year on year, to €70.97 per night's stay.

Costa del Sol tourism boss Margarita del Cid says between four and six in 10 people staying in Málaga-province hotels last month were from abroad, the majority from the UK, The Netherlands and France.

The Netherlands showed the greatest growth – 1,605.2% more of them than in October 2020 – although all international markets presented a marked year-on-year rise, Margarita del Cid says.

Figures show the number of hotel stays across the province in October were over half of the total to date for 2021 which, as at the end of last month, was just under 2.9 million.

These data show that numbers have increased 62% on the same 10-month period in 2020, with international travellers nationwide up by 50.3% and 'staycation' trippers by 70%.

“We do have to be cautious at this stage, but it's true that the data confirm a recovery in international tourism markets after many months of the national market being the main player,” the regional councillor admits.