Low season highs for Costa Almeria visitor numbers

THE long early December bank holiday weekend brought very respectable numbers of visitors to the Costa Almeria.
Despite being the low tourist season, average occupation levels in the province’s hotels and rural accommodation was 78 per cent for the Friday and Saturday nights and averaged 60 per cent over the whole of the four-day long break.
Total bank holiday overnight stays in Almeria added up to 43,000.
The latest figures on tourism from the Andalucia Institute of Statistics also paint a pretty positive picture for the province this autumn. Information relating to October shows that visitors to Almeria stayed for an average of 6.4 days, while the average for the whole of Andalucia was just over five days.
Among the Andalucia provinces, only Malaga registered typically longer tourist stays.
Foreign visitors to Almeria stayed for significantly longer than national tourists: an average of 12.2 days for other nationalities compared to 3.7 days for Spaniards.
Of the more than 6,000 arrivals over the month, only 1,935 were foreigners, but together they accounted for 23,514 of October’s registered overnight stays.
The institute figures also reveal that the British made up the biggest group of Almeria’s foreign visitors in October (773), followed by French (219), German (202) and Belgian (199).
Roquetas de Mar attracted the month’s greatest share of travellers: 3,938, who clocked up 18,972 overnight stays in all and typically spent five days in the municipality.
Vera registered average stays of nearly eight days and 696 travellers.
Carboneras received 271 tourists, registering just over 1,200 overnight stays, and Nijar 738 and 2,219 stays.
RESPECTABLE: Average occupation levels in the province’s hotels and rural