Residential Tourism in Costa Blanca
September 21st, 2006
We are flocking to Spain for our holidays in greater numbers than ever before. But forget the old annual fortnight’s package holiday. Now we want to hop on a low-cost flight to our own home in Spain – preferably, for two thirds of us, on the Costa Blanca or Costa del Sol – and we want to visit it at least four times a year with friends and family. These are the findings of a new report by Lighthouse Spain, which caters for ‘residential tourists’ – people who have shifted from spending on package holidays to buying a holiday home there instead.
While the Spanish property and construction markets boom, along with local services catering for residential tourists such as furniture shops, supermarkets and restaurants, many hoteliers are hanging up their room keys in despair as they watch 14 million Brits each year head to Spain, only to see 4.1 million of them last year stay in a property belonging to friends or relatives instead of in a hotel.
“Spain is by far the number one destination for residential tourists and the Costa Blanca is particularly popular because of its excellent year-round climate, good infrastructure and extensive expat communities,” says Shaun Powell, Managing Director of Lighthouse Spain, which works with a network of ethical Spanish estate agents to sell holiday homes to British and other Northern European buyers.
“In Costa Blanca, especially in the south of the region, you still have a large choice of properties available from 100,000 euros, so people who have been priced out of the Costa del Sol can still afford a Spanish holiday home on a popular coastline,” adds Powell. “Home owners have the added benefit of being able to rent out their home to other holidaymakers so their property is a source of enjoyment and investment.”
The Costa Blanca has been a bastion of package tourism since the 1960s. But now it has become a hub of residential tourism, with Alicante airport witnessing passenger numbers from the UK rise by 30% in 2003.
While Benidorm, with its long sandy beaches and year-round entertainment, remains a thriving resort for foreign and Spanish tourists, surrounding coastal and inland towns which have been little-known to the average British holidaymaker are starting to figure on the residential tourist’s map.
As prices in prime coastal locations such as Calpe and Javea approach those on the Costa del Sol – with seaview villas from 600,000 euros and apartments from 350,000 euros – inland towns and villages within easy access of the coast’s facilities are growing in appeal for foreign buyers.
“Hotels are becoming non-existent in some places as more foreigners buy properties as a holiday base instead,” says Tomás Mazón, Professor in the Sociology of Tourism at Alicante University. “There is a shift inland among foreign second home buyers who want to live in small, less developed villages with a higher quality of life, but which are well connected to the coast by motorways,” says Mazón.
Funded by the Valencian Government to research the impact of residential tourism in the Alicante province, Mazón recently interviewed 1,000 foreign home owners who spend at least six months a year in the province.
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