THE Costa del Sol has revealed strong Semana Santa tourism figures after shrugging off gloomy predictions.
Despite a lack of high speed connections, Spain’s southern coastline registered an average hotel occupancy of 82.85% during Semana Santa, a 2.67% increase on last year.
As Aehcos (Spain’s largest professional hotel association) revealed these statistics, they were quick to highlight how ‘positive’ the ‘elevated’ figures are, putting them down to international tourism and great weather.
During Holy Week’s ‘key’ days, from Thursday to Sunday, occupancy rose to 85.26%, which was also 2 percentage points higher than the same days in 2025.
This growth in occupancy surprised some professionals: “We expected less people than have come,” confessed Manuel Villafaina, president of the Federacion de Empresarios de Playa de Malaga.
Villafaina anticipated less visitors because of the lack of high speed rail connections between Malaga and other Spanish cities.
It is perhaps this suspension of the AVE services that led various officials to raise concerns that tourism would decrease across Andalucia over Semana Santa.
Javier Salas, a government subdelegate, criticised the ‘Tourism Minister, Economy Minister and Junta President Moreno Bonilla’ for taking this weary stance and stated that ‘they should show more respect for the truth and manipulate the public less.’
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The concerns raised by these aforementioned ministers and presidents were however not entirely uncalled for.
As Villafaina stated, fewer Spaniards were seen on the Costa del Sol than in previous years. Although, this was compensated for by the large number of foreigners that visited the area, meaning that ‘the billing has been the same as last year, and improved in some cases’.
International tourists formed 77.95% of all that traveled to the Costa del Sol for Holy Week with experts suggesting that the domestic market slowed down due to external factors such as train connection issues.
“All areas of the province have functioned similarly,” says Villafaina, a point that is echoed by Aehcos who highlighted the top performing areas.
Benalmadena took the top spot with an occupancy rate of 90.3%, followed by the Costa Orinetal-Axarquia with 86.67% and then Torremolinos with 85.85%.
The hotel association also pointed out that weather has helped these positive results.
It’s not only Semana Santa that has seen an increase in hotel occupancy when compared with last year; in March this year the average occupancy was 78%, 5% higher than March 2025.
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Now as we move into the summer months Jose Luque, the Aehcos president, has said that he is ‘closely monitoring’ how the domestic market will evolve.
The association is taking a ‘cautious approach and keeping a close eye on developments in the domestic market’ while highlighting the need to improve connectivity and restore ‘high-speed’ rail as soon as possible.
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