Hard winter for hotels

Wednesday, 08 September 2010 12:58

Written by Editor

Despite an encouraging rise in tourism, the president of the Costa del Sol's Hoteliers Association, José Carlos Escribano, has warned that this coming winter will be a hard one and some hotels will have to close, as they did last year. Describing himself as a realist, Sr Escribano told a local newspaper that it was better to close a hotel for the winter than run the risk of closing it for good. He said summer tourism figures had nothing to do with winter ones. He said the majority of winter visitors in the past had been Britons and Germans – many of whom will be forced to stay at home because of the economic crisis.

He said efforts must be made to attract the Scandinavians, Dutch and Belgians, especially the over-55 age group who seek quality at reasonable prices.
He said forecasts that tourism would have fully recovered by the end of next year were incorrect. He predicted it would be another three or four years before tourism figures got back to their pre-crisis level.