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ARCHIVED - Foreign tourists spent over 1.1 billion euros in the Costa Cálida during 2019
British visitors accounted for over 42 per cent of all those coming to Murcia from abroad
Each visitor from outside Spain spent well over 1,000 euros in Murcia
The breakdown of the figures regarding the international tourism sector in Spain during 2019 provides a mixture of positive and negative news for the Costa Cálida, with what appears at first sight to be a worrying drop in the number of people visiting Murcia from abroad mitigated somewhat by various extenuating circumstances and uncertainties over exactly how the figures are arrived at.
The bare numbers themselves tell an interesting story: according to the central government’s statistics unit a total of 1,055,610 people visited the Region of Murcia from outside Spain in 2019, representing a decrease of 6.9 per cent in comparison with the year before. At the same time, it is calculated that the amount of money they spent while in the Costa Cálida, thus contributing to economic activity, fell rather less, a drop of 4.7 per cent bringing about a total of 1,144 million euros: over 1.1 billion euros is still a lot of money – in fact it equates to over 3.1 million euros per day!
On the other hand, it is reported that the average amount spent by each visitor while in the Region rose by 2.43 per cent to 1,084 euros, indicating that tourists appear to be able or willing to spend more while in the Costa Cálida: as recently as 2016 the equivalent figure stood at 961 euros, since when it has risen by almost 13 per cent.
At the same time, the average daily spending increased last year by a very significant 5.2 per cent to 91 euros, 20 per cent higher than 3 years ago.
But in the context of a slight rise in both visitor numbers and the amount they are reported to have spent in Spain as a whole, the results raise obvious questions regarding what might have caused the Costa Cálida to register some of the least encouraging results among Spain’s 17 regions.
One theory advanced by representatives of the tourism sector, particularly in and around the Mar Menor, is that the “gota fría” storm of September and the subsequent flood damage had an especially negative effect on the sector, and given the dramatic effect on beaches, accommodation and tourism infrastructures it would be hard not to agree. There was a surge of cancellations in bookings in the immediate aftermath of the storm, and many hotels which had intended to remain open until Christmas closed their doors three months earlier than anticipated.
Given that close to two thirds of international tourist activity in the Region is in the area of La Manga and the Mar Menor, this is bound to have had a significant effect on the numbers, while continuing concerns over the water quality in the lagoon have doubtless done little to counteract the negative effect of the “gota fría”. Soledad Díaz, the president of the Hostetur association which represents hotels and tourist accomodation businesses in the Costa Cálida, reports that in at least one hotel in Los Alcázares the losses caused by the storm amount to 10 million euros, while also adding that things have gone far better in Mazarrón and Águilas.
On the other hand, Jesús Jiménez of the Hostemur association also points to what he calls a “lack of coordination between the regional government and Town Halls, some of which he says appear extremely reluctant to adopt strategies to develop the tourism sector.
Meanwhile, sources at the Department of Tourism in the regional government are quoted in Spanish language regional media as saying that the drop in foreign tourist numbers is due “mainly to the generalized decrease in British tourists and residential tourism” during the year, associating this phenomenon with the effect of the UK’s departure from the EU.
All of these explanations deserve analysis, and no doubt there is an element of truth in all of them. To address the question of visitors from the UK first, it is indeed true that the number of British tourists to Murcia also fell last year: the total is reported to have reached precisely 447,464, representing a decrease of 5.8 per cent in comparison with 2018.
But that means that the figure for visitors from other countries fell even more sharply – by 7.8 per cent, in fact: as a result, it can be deduced that while Brexit may indeed be responsible for a drop in the number of Britons coming to Murcia this is far from being the only contributing factor.
In fact, the proportion of non-Spanish visitors accounted for by the UK increased last year to 42.4 per cent, according to the official figures!
What, then, of the claims that the gota fría of September ruined what otherwise would have been a healthy year for the sector?
Logically, if this is reflected in the official figures published by the government then the monthly breakdown would back it up, and to a certain extent this is indeed the case. In the last four months of 2019 the number of non-Spaniards visiting the Costa Cálida, according to the official figures, was 287,595 after a fall of almost 14 per cent in comparison with the same period last year.
(Similarly, the figures for British visitors between September and December dropped by 7.2 per cent to 121,462.)
But at the same time it has to be recognized that the figures also fell, albeit less significantly, in the first eight months of the year, before the first of last autumn’s two heavy storms and before the subsequent acceleration in the alteration of water quality in the Mar Menor: there was a 4 per cent drop in the number of visitors from abroad and a fall of 5.2 per cent in those coming from the UK between January and August.
So, while the events of September appear to have exacerbated the problem, they seem not to be solely responsible.
It may just be, perhaps, that another reason for the decline is to be found in the opening of the Region of Murcia International Airport in Corvera on 15th January last year. That is not to say that the airport has directly caused a decrease in international tourism, but the way in which the statistics are compiled may make this appear to be the case.
The statistics’ unit’s data include various sub-categories, including the method of transport used by visitors to reach their destination – by air, by sea, by train or by road – and for the Region of Murcia this breakdown has not been made public. But there is a suspicion that airport passenger numbers and tourism figures are closely related, and that it is hard to measure the number of people flying into Alicante-Elche airport although their destination is in fact the Region of Murcia.
In this context it is interesting to compare the trends in the two sets of figures over the last four years:
- Airport passenger numbers at San Javier rose by 2.7 per cent in 2016, by 9.1 per cent in 2017 and by 6.4 per cent in 2018, before falling by 12.6 per cent in 2019
- Foreign tourist numbers rose by 7.2 per cent in 2015, 14.4 per cent in 2017 and by 14 per cent in 2018 before falling by 6.9 per cent in 2019
The two sets of figures mirror each other fairly closely, and if the measurement of tourist numbers is indeed taken almost exclusively from airport-related statistics this would also partly explain the increased proportion of the total accounted for by British visitors, as flights from Germany and the Netherlands, for example, have disappeared from the scheduling in Corvera coinciding with the opening of the new airport.
This is not to say that the 2019 figures are nothing more than a reflection of quirks in the method by which data are gathered, but it is possible that what is in fact happening is that many visitors are just flying into the Costa Cálida “under the radar” by landing at Alicante-Elche airport!
The cumulative total of passengers for 2019 through Corvera airport was 1,112,513 (including the first fortnight when 21,559 people were on board the flights still taking off and landing at San Javier), over 160,000 (or 12.6 per cent) fewer than the total for the year before, whereas Alicante airport handled 15,047,840 passengers, an increase of 7.6% compared to 2019.
How many of those were Murcia bound?
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