Marbella sets hopes on foreign tourists

MARBELLA is setting its hopes on foreign tourists to bring up occupancy rates this summer.

In 2011, there were five per cent more visitors to Marbella, with a total of 1.5 million, according to the National Institute of Statistics.

Their average stay increased from 3.4 to four days.

However, the figures also show that while 150,000 more foreign tourists visited the city, 80,000 fewer Spanish tourists spent their holidays in Marbella.

Similar figures are expected this year, as the Spanish are increasingly unable to travel, due to the financial crisis, or if they can, they take shorter holidays.

A year ago, four and five-star hotels in Marbella already had 65 per cent of their rooms booked for the summer, but this year, except for a few well-known hotels with faithful clients, most of them are not yet seeing anything of the like.

Nowadays, tourists are leaving it longer to book their holidays, possible due to the greater need and difficulty to save money first.