Club La Costa World, whose headquarters are in Mijas on Spain's Costa del Sol, has announced that it has been placed into liquidation.

The bankruptcy administrator, Juan Carlos Robles, has told SUR that the liquidation affects seven companies in Spain and one in the United Kingdom.

The administrator stressed that this liquidation does not affect the real estate property titles - the 'timeshare' business.

Faced with the "avalanche" of calls, Robles has clarified that these will remain "intact". He said however that a large part of the services will not be in full operation during the coming months.

Club La Costa World has around 700 workers who could lose their job, both at the Mijas headquarters and in Tenerife. Many of them have been laid off since last year through the Erte furloughing scheme.

Therefore, the administrator said that the first objective of this process is to try "at least" to save half of these jobs.

To do this, he proposes creating a series of "productive units" that can be sold off.

Robles clarified that he is trying to maintain a minimum activity in some areas - such as maintenance - because this would facilitate the sale of these units with "greater ease".

Brexit and Covid

Club La Costa has issued a brief statement saying that with regret it has had to make "some difficult decisions".

It added that the situation of its resorts, current partners and customers will remain "as usual" - within what Covid restrictions allow - and it is currently working to save as many jobs as possible in Tenerife and on the Costa del Sol.

According to the bankruptcy administrator, both the Covid virus and Brexit have affected the business equally.

"You can't last a year with no activity," said Robles.

Town hall hopes as many jobs as possible will be saved

News of the liquidation has shaken Mijas as a large part of the employees of CLC World are local people.

The town hall sent out a message this week in which it maintains its hope that CLC World will get back on track.

"It has always been a benchmark in tourism, not just in the province [of Malaga] but in southern Europe," said municipal sources.

They added that CLC was known for its "great involvement in the town", and that it hoped that as many jobs as possible could be preserved "given the circumstances".