Joanne Oakley
IN the province of Malaga, 25% of hotels will not reopen after the end of the coronavirus crisis.
That is the stark prediction by the president of the Association of Hotel Entrepreneurs of the Costa del Sol (Aehcos).
Luis Callejon Sune, in a statement to Sur said: “This volume of hotels will never be able to lift their heads again.”
These circumstances are also leading the industry to give up on a high season due to the loss of income from Easter and summer.
Callejon Sune warned that: “The sector depends on the arrival of tourists and this will not occur the next day or the weeks following the end of the confinement in Spain.”
The Aehcos president believes it is essential that tests be carried out on the entire population, to determine who is immune to the virus, who is positive and who is asymptomatic.
However, talking of a unanimous agreement reached by hotels, restaurants, beach bars and travel agencies, among others, to start working together to recover through groundbreaking ideas, he said: “We have achieved something unusual.
“For the first time we have parked the egos and the sector is one, with the strength of the Costa del Sol brand and the seal of sustainability, in an initiative that will mark a before and after.”
As the tourism industry is relying on the current restrictions being lifted, it also relies on the airlines which could be grounded until June.
And as Jet2 has announced that flights could resume by mid-June, the industry then may be able to start the journey to recovery.
It is the fifth largest airline in Malaga, carrying almost a million passengers to the airport last year, and also works in collaboration with 150 hotels in the province.
