Almeria capital focusing on national market for autumn tourism

VISITOR PROFILE: Typical visitors to Almeria this summer have been couples from Valencia, Madrid and Barcelona, the City Promotion councillor revealed CREDIT: Ayuntamiento De Almería Facebook @aytoalm

ALMERIA is focusing on attracting visitors from other parts of Spain for autumn tourism in the provincial capital.
Presenting a balance of what kind of summer season Almeria has had, City Promotion councillor Carlos Sanchez revealed that this year the three big markets have been Madrid, Barcelona and the Valencia region, and typically couples.
The travel restrictions imposed by the UK and in elsewhere in Europe have meant international visitor numbers have inevitably dropped on last year, he said.
Hotel occupation levels have also gone down significantly.
The average for July was just under 60 per cent, compared with nearly 90 per cent in the same month of 2019.
In August the average was only 68 per cent, while last year it was 93 per cent.
The impact of the pandemic on Almeria’s tourism sector is also reflected in the figures for visits to the city’s museums over the peak summer holiday season.
Visitor numbers plummeted 40 per cent, from nearly 19,200 to under 11,000.
By contrast, 20 per cent more people joined guided tours of the provincial capital than last year.
“Tourists prefer visiting the open spaces on the tours we have in our programming”, the councillor commented.
Sanchez took the opportunity to praise the Municipal Tourism office team for all their hard work over the last few months.
He pointed out that while the number of people dropping into the office was down from getting on for 12,000 in the holiday months last year to less than 4,700, staff had taken more calls than normal.
“Tourists wanted to know first-hand the situation Almeria was experiencing on its beaches and in terms of measures”, Sanchez explained.

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Written by

Cathy Elelman

Cathy Elelman is the local writer for the Costa de Almeria edition of the Euro Weekly News.

Based in Mojacar for the last 21 years, Cathy is very much part of the local community and is always well and truly up on all the latest news and events going on in this region of Spain.

Her top goals are to do the best job she can informing the local English-speaking community, visitors to the area and the wider world about about the news in Almeria, to learn something new every day, and to embrace very new challenge this fast-changing world brings her way.

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