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Date Published: 04/10/2021
ARCHIVED - Tourist accommodation in Torrevieja and Orihuela up 10 per cent despite pandemic
The coastal towns in the Vega Baja, Alicante province offer more beds than Benidorm
Tourist accommodation in the Vega Baja, specifically Torrevieja and Orihuela, increased by 10% in 2020, despite the uncertainty and restrictions due to the pandemic.
The two coastal towns offer a combined 40,000 beds for holidaymakers – 10,000 more than Benidorm in the Marina Baixa, one of the Costa Blanca’s most popular destinations amongst Brits and other tourists.
Torrevieja, which ranks seventh in the Valencia region in terms of volume of holiday lets, recorded a growth of 11.2% compared to 2019. At the beginning of 2021, the municipality had 21,502 beds distributed across 5,405 flats and villas.
In Orihuela, which has the ninth highest number of tourist lets in the region, the year-on-year growth was even higher, rising by 14.7% to 19,499 beds in 4,021 properties, centred almost exclusively on the coast
According to experts at the University of Alicante, in Torrevieja alone, the tourist flat accommodation sector generates more than 25 million euros a year, and occupancy this summer has exceeded that of 2019, largely due to national tourism.
However, the surge in staycations due to international travel restrictions has not had such an impact in Orihuela Costa “which depends more on British, German and Nordic tourism”.
Whilst Torrevieja and Orihuela share the biggest slice of the tourist accommodation market in the Vega Baja area, Rojales and Guardamar del Segura are also strong contenders with 2,600 beds available.
Researchers at the university claim 41% of all holiday apartments registered in the Valencia region are privately owned, “a figure that is increasing year after year”.
“Renting through online platforms such as Airbnb makes it possible to manage the use of the property at the owner’s discretion, for example, at specific times during the high season or during the week, something which is impossible with seasonal or conventional rentals, which are losing ground on the coast.”
According to Valencia’s Hotel and Tourist Business Association (Hosbec), destinations across the region saw average occupancy levels of around 70% in September, with the sector, in particular Benidorm, “awaiting the opening of the United Kingdom”.
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