‘Making hay’ on a marvellous May Day
Tourism chiefs want bank holidays to be transferred to Mondays due to the very positive knock-on effects for tourism
MANY hotels in the Valencia region reported that they were fully booked over the bank holiday weekend, according to hoteliers and tourism association Hosbec.
A Hosbec spokesman explained that with May Day falling on a Monday, and Tuesday being a ‘fiesta day’ in Madrid region, ‘one of our main sources for tourists had four days of holiday’, which provided a major boost for reservations.
This is something that ‘has not happened for years’, with May 1 falling on a Sunday in 2022 and the two previous years being lost to the pandemic, noted the spokesman.
As a result, tourist accommodation was ‘technically full’ across the Valencia region, with the Spanish market providing the lion’s share of the visitors.
Over the weekend the hotels in Benidorm were nearly 96% full, bettered only by Valencia
city which notched up 98.3%.
Along the Costa Blanca, excluding the Benidorm figures, hotels were at 92.5% of total capacity, according to provisional figures from Hosbec.
The good results led Hosbec to call once again for national and regional bank holidays to be ‘transferred’ to Mondays where possible – ‘as occurs in other countries in Europe’.
They stated that this minimises the disruption to industry and other professions, and stimulates tourism.
“As such it would be a measure that would be very well received by the hotel and tourism sector in the Valencia region,” said the spokesman.
Cycling
Torrevieja enjoyed the additional boost of ‘La Vuelta Femenina’, with this year’s women’s tour of Spain cycle race starting in the municipality with a time trial through the streets of the town on Monday.
The south of the province also provided the setting for the second stage of the race, with the cyclists setting out from Orihuela and heading through many towns and villages in the Vega Baja, including Rojales, Benijófar and San Miguel de Salinas before finishing in Pilar de la Horadada.
Provincial president Carlos Mazón noted that thousands of cycling fans had arrived to watch the event, with 160 racers from 23 cycling teams taking part.
See cycling report on the side bar.