For the first time in history, Malaga recorded three million hotel stays per year

It was expected that the city would be nearly 97% full on New Year's Eve, while the figure for the Costa del Sol as a whole could be around 80% on the last weekend of the year.

According to new data, a record three million nights were registered in hotels in Malaga in the first 11 months of 2023. The figure, published by Spain's national statistics institute INE, exceeds the 2.8 million hotel stays recorded last year, which is about 100,000 more than in 2019, the year before the pandemic. This is reported by surinenglish.com.

Málaga City Hall noted that last month's hotel bookings brought the total number of nights in 2023 to 3,071,226, an increase from the 2,877,592 nights recorded from January to December 2022.

"The city crossed the barrier of three million nights, registering 252,132 hotel nights in November with 117,526 hotel travelers passing through the city of Málaga in the penultimate month of the year, according to INE data," the report said.

According to the INE and the Alliance for Excellence in Tourism (Exceltur), Malaga is also among the top five leaders in Spain in terms of visitor quality and spending. It showed that Málaga became the fourth city in Spain with the highest level of hotel profitability after an increase of 35.5% compared to the first nine months of 2019. Only Girona, Oviedo, and Santa Cruz de Tenerife experienced greater growth.

The November report also noted that more foreign visitors are choosing to travel to Málaga. In November, two out of every three of the 168,593 overnight stays were by foreign tourists. The most common visitors were citizens of the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK.

The British market continues to be the leader in terms of visitors and stays: 12,040 travelers booked 31,167 hotel nights. The Netherlands and Germany are in second and third place in terms of the number of tourists and stays. They are followed by Italy, the United States, and France. The occupancy rate in November was 79.2%.