Jacque Talbot
THE number of tourists who visited the Costa del Sol has shot up this summer, with 1.32 million travellers staying at the coast’s hotels during July and August, a 7.1% increase from last year.
Data from the National Statistics Institute show that this year the area has had one of the highest numbers of tourists over the past 15 years.
Academics have suggested that the ‘rebound’ is thanks to a lot of political unrest in other countries, such as Turkey, Egypt or Tunisia, with people who are looking for a few weeks in the sun opting for a trip to Spain’s south coast instead.
In July and August of this year, the hotels have had 589,453 Spanish tourists stay, 12.7% more than the previous year, while the amount of foreign tourists has increased to 737,609, some 3.1% more than the summer of 2018
In August alone, Malaga was the fourth Spanish province with more tourists staying in its hotels after the Balearic Islands, Barcelona and Madrid.
