Laurence Dollimore
ANDALUCIA is set to lose eight million tourists due to the coronavirus pandemic, officials have predicted.
Junta vice president Juan Marin has lowered the forecasts for this year from 32.5 million visitors to 24 million.
It means Spain’s southernmost region, which includes the Costa del Sol and Sevilla, will lose an estimated €5.5 billion in income from tourists.
Andalucia saw 512 hotels close yesterday, 80 of them on the Costa del Sol, which will see all closed by the end of the week – costing 12,000 jobs.
Meanwhile, most flights have already ceased at airports like Malaga.
Easyjet, the location’s third largest airline, stopped operating from today, as has TUI.
Ryanair, meanwhile, has reduced its operations by 80%.
Most other flights are cancelled while the rest are made up of tourists returning home.
Job union headquarters this morning have been inundated with hotels filing for mass temporary job cuts.
Spain now has more than 13,700 coronavirus cases.
