Throughout the pandemic, the Costa del Sol has been flexing its muscles and for the first time ever, the province can now accommodate over 450,000 tourists. In addition, during the two years of its worst-ever crisis, the Costa del Sol has managed to reach the record number of 50,000 places to stay. Despite the crisis caused by Covid-19, the figures illustrate how much confidence there is in this area.
2019 was a record year for visitor numbers and income from tourism, however, last December, the amount of beds for tourists in the area rose by 50,000. Given this, new projects are now on the cards, and growth is predicted to continue, despite uncertainty from the invasion of Ukraine. At the end of 2019, the province was able to accommodate 400,000 tourists. This was primarily due to the increase in the amount of holiday homes.
Because of the pandemic, some of these properties went back to long-term letting as a result of the decrease in tourists. However, this is now starting to change according to statistics from the National Institute of Statistics. The rise in the number of holiday rental properties started before the pandemic and this resulted in a huge transformation in tourist properties in the Costa del Sol. The demand was so high that hotels could maintain their usual occupancy rates also.
In 2019, there were more visitors than ever before which means this alternative type of accommodation was beneficial to the destination. The tourism sector is now keen to attract more tourists and even better-quality travellers, who spend much more money on their holidays and enjoy trying new experiences throughout their stay. The Costa del Sol was also found to be a very strong tourist destination when compared with the remainder of Andalucia. The Costa del Sol is home to around 62 percent of Grand Luxury hotels and these hotels have 78 percent of the beds available.
