Tourists arrive in mass to Marbella

9 August 2014

More than 2.500 flights and 430.000 tourists are expected to arrive to the town of Marbella and they all have a distinctive profile. Spaniards will spend less, the British tourists will be bragging about their extended stays and Germans will showing how much they can spend while on holiday. Many of these tourists will be arriving to Marbella with hired cars but those who hate the parking problems will be arriving in style in a private taxi transfer from Malaga airport arrivals lounge.

Everything points to this summer being one of the best ever on the Andalusian coast thanks to the recovery of the Spanish national tourism market. A good indicator of how this trend will go is Malaga airport. Between July 30th and August 5th, the airport received more than 400.000 passengers. Just during the weekend, 130.000 passengers arrived.

If tourists had doubts about what to expect, they only had to leave the terminal and feel the hot weather, so much so that many were seeking the shade as soon as they left the airport.

Most of the tourists came seeking good weather to enjoy the luxury hotel pools and sun drenched beaches of Malaga. During the morning, Malaga airport saw a constant stream of passengers flowing into the arrivals lounge, though the coordination was perfect and there was never a moment where things became overcrowded and stressed. The tourists started their holidays in a peaceful manner, and so did the travelers returning home from their holidays. Malaga airport has never functioned as well as this in all of its illustrious history.

The greatest number of passengers was felt early in the evening. Jack Smith said he was coming to Malaga because “the sun here is totally unlike in my country”, adding that it was not his first time spending his holidays in Marbella.

Most of the flights that landed were coming from the UK from just about every city that has connecting flights to Malaga. Some passengers were planning on going to the beach straight away, so much so that some of the young men and women were already shirtless or were wearing their swimsuits under their t-shirts. Taxi ranks were bustling and many felt it worthwhile that they pre- booked a transfer in advance and had a driver waiting for them.

Tourists arriving in Málaga to spend a few days or a couple weeks during the summer holidays were crossing paths with those returning home or with the locals that were leaving the area to spend their holidays in an area with a different climate.

Spaniards are the ones with the smallest budget and their stay tends to be shorter than the rest of tourists (most of them stay an average of 10.8 days). Their budget is about 500 euros and their spending money averages 42 euros per person per day. It is a market mostly composed of tourists from Madrid and Andalucía, averaging 45 years old. The Spanish tourist travels with their family or their spouse and they are very faithful to their favorite destination.

British tourists are more likely to spend over 700 euros per person and they also spend more days on holidays - around 2 weeks, but their average spending budget per day when actually on the Coast is only of 39 euros, mainly because they have pre-booked and pre paid for half or full board in hotels before arriving to Spain.