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According to the Malaga Councillor for Tourism and Sport, Elias Bendodo, Malaga City is the favourite destination for cultural tourism and city breaks in the whole of Andalucia. Nationally, the city is streets ahead of Madrid, Cordoba, Sevilla and San Sebastian, coming second only to Barcelona.

Malaga should be very pleased with last year’s results which showed that 853,481 tourists booked into hotels in the city in 2010, which was 14.35 per cent more than in 2009, and 8.9 per cent more than 2008, which was historically, the best year for tourism until these figures were released.

12.75 per cent more people stayed in the city, equalling a total of 1,591,552 visitors, with an average stay of 1.85 days.

Just over 54 per cent of the tourists who stayed in Malaga city hotels in 2010 were Spanish, some five per cent more than the previous year, and most of them came from the rest of Andalucia, followed closely by Madrid and Cataluña. Read more »

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I thought I’d share with you all some Valentine’s Spanish vocabulary. For those singles out there, maybe you can try out a few of the lines…! For those who already have a partner, I hope you just enjoy the day and whatever your sweetheart may bring you.

For those of you who are well-versed in Spanish already, these are a few words and phrases you might not already know, which will pepper your vocabulary with some extra spice. For those of you who don’t speak Spanish at all or speak very little, I have added in the phonetics pronounciation, which will help you get the words out more or less perfectly.

Enjoy!

NB: I have written the feminine ending first (because, yes I am a woman) and the masculine after: e.g estoy enamorada instead of enamorado. Just remember: “a” for women, “o” for men.

Dia de San Valentin /Dia de los enamorados – (Dee-yah de San Ba-len-teen) (Dee-yah deh los enamo-ra-dohs) – Valentine’s Day Read more »

The regional government, the Junta de Andalucia has announced that the Costa del Sol will host 5 major sporting events in 2011. The start of the cycling event “Vuelta a Andalucia” will take place on February 20^th , starting from Benahavis. Also in cycling, stages of the national tour “Vuelta Ciclista a España” will be hosted at the end of August and the Desafio del Buda cycling competition will take place in the Axarquia region.

In March, the Andalucia Golf Open will be held at the Malaga Golf Parador.

In April, Marbella will once again play host to the Andalucia Tennis Experience. It has also been announced that there are 11 planned events in total for Andalucia in 2011, which the Junta hopes will promote the region internationally. Read more »

Last Wednesday, the 31^st edition of the international tourism fair “Fitur” was inaugurated by Queen Sofía, who opened the feria by raising aloft the World Cup which was won by Spain during the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

Also present at the international tourism fair were the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce, Miguel Sebastián, the General Secretary of Tourism and Interior Commerce, Joan Mesquida, the president of Iberia and the Director of “Fitur”, Ana Larrañaga.

According to Joan Mesquida, 2010 was a better year than 2009, and this year is expected to be a continuation of the upward trend. He was quoted as saying that Spain was going in the right direction, consolidating a growth that will bring more income to tourism in Spain.

Andalucía’s President, José Antonio Griñán, was singing from the same hymn sheet and was also quoted as saying that he is confident that, notwithstanding the light drop in numbers last year, the region will pick up again in 2011. He based his well-balanced optimism on data from 2010 showing more overnight bookings and increased average spending and length of stay.

Despite the various problems that have plagued Malaga airport, including the volcanic ash cloud and the controllers’ conflict, the airport finished the year with a bang, concluding that in excess of 12 million passengers used the airport in 2010, which represents a considerable 3.8% increase over the previous year.

The launch of the new terminal at Malaga Airport, the T3, (as mentioned in my previous article) has raised the transit of passengers and flight traffic over the past year. Specifically, the airport in the capital of the Costa del Sol operated a total of 105,631 flights from January to December, a 2% increase over the previous year.

This is also the first time since the onset of the economic crisis in 2007 that passengers and flight movements have increased at all. Read more »