Except for some occasional closures of hotels due to renovations or because they have not yet resumed their activity after the winter break, all the establishments in the five provinces of the Andalusian coast have opened their doors this Easter, the prelude to a high season that is finally reminiscent of that of 2019 before the pandemic.
The recovery in tourist demand so far this year, the expected influx at Easter and the good business prospects for the coming months have left the number of establishments closed in Malaga, Cádiz, AlmerÃa, Huelva and Granada to a minimum. according to an analysis of Comisiones Obreras.
The x-ray of the sector in April contrasts with that of the low season of 2022-2023, when some 150 hotels located on the coast of Malaga, Cádiz, AlmerÃa, Huelva and Granada were closed, totaling some 64,200 beds, EFE has detailed the responsible for Hospitality and Tourism of CCOO, Gonzalo Fuentes.
The Marbella Playa and Diverhotel hotels, both located in Marbella and belonging to the Playa Senator chain, as well as the Hotel Tritón in the Malaga town of Benalmádena, by Best, are closed for renovations to their facilities.
The union leader is confident that this well-known establishment can soon open to the public like the old Byblos in Mijas and Don Miguel in Marbella, today La Zambra and Club Med Magna Marbella, which opened last year completely renovated after several years closed.
Two establishments that closed for the season and have not yet opened this year are the two Diverhotel located in Aguadulce and Roquetas (AlmerÃa), he has specified.
“If the expectations at Easter and in general are confirmed, the year 2023 is expected to be the best tourist year in the history of Spain and Andalusia, surpassing 2019,” said Fuentes, who stressed that “not even the most optimistic could think in the rapid recovery of the sector after the pandemic”.
The good weather and the recovery of international tourism after the impact of the covid-19 have contributed to the fact that this winter the hotels have closed later and the seasonality has been reduced.
Given the “excellent” tourist season that is coming up, the CCOO has appealed to the administrations with competences in the matter and to the businessmen of the sector to bet on quality employment and to reduce workloads.
He has also encouraged Andalusian destinations to be “in perfect magazine condition” so that the millions of tourists who visit the community leave “happy and satisfied”.
For his part, the president of the Board, Juanma Moreno, assured on Holy Thursday that Andalusia “is doing very well” this Holy Week and that it is meeting all the tourist occupancy forecasts, with all the provinces around 80% and two of them , in the case of Málaga and Cádiz, even above that figure.
Facing the immediate future, the union considers it “fundamental to create the conditions” so that the hospitality industry and other professions linked to the Andalusian tourism industry are attractive to young people and that they are valued through training.
To do this, it sees a priority to unblock the negotiation of those agreements in which it is blocked, as well as to give “a boost” to the state-level hospitality labor agreement with more content to improve working conditions in concepts such as wages, hours, conciliation and occupational health.
The objective is that, through good training in the sector, it is glimpsed that there are “great opportunities for stable work and a future”, he indicated.
