Surge of British tourist bookings accelerates the reopening of hotels on the Costa del Sol

Despite the ongoing impact of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 on the travel sector, hoteliers on the Costa del Sol continue to see light at the end of the tunnel. On this occasion it is a surge of bookings from the British market that has excited them after the UK announced the lifting of all testing requirements for eligible fully vaccinated travellers arriving in the UK from 4am on 11 February.

The hoteliers association on the coast, Aehcos, has announced that there has been such an increase in reservations by British travellers that some establishments are bringing forward their reopening dates after being closed for the winter season.

José Luque, president of Aehcos, said, “The optimistic data brings us ever closer to the long-awaited recovery that the sector has been waiting for since the start of the pandemic.”

“Little by little we are approaching data from 2019 and we see that this return to normality is progressing and is getting closer every day,” he said. This trend is reflected in the forecast number of air seats offered for the coming months at Malaga Airport.

Aehcos anticipates that the first month of the year will close with an occupation rate of 42 per cent. The data represents a decrease of 15 percentage points compared to January 2019, which registered a rate of 57.2 per cent, and improves almost 27 points on that recorded in 2021, which did not even reach 16 per cent.

The forecast for next month, February, is similar, with a hoped-for occupancy rate of 44 per cent, with peaks of 51 per cent on dates such as Valentine's weekend.

Luque said, "Even though 30 per cent of the establishments in the province are closed, the data for January and the forecast for February predict a better year for 2022 than the previous one, but still far from 2019, our reference year."