Friday, 16 January 2026, 11:57
Andalucía and the Costa del Sol are heading to Madrid next week for the 46th international tourism fair, Fitur, to be held between 21 and 25 January.
The Costa del Sol delegation goes with the aim of winning back Spanish tourists. President of Turismo Costa del Sol Francisco Salado has said that, over the last two years, the destination has lost almost 7% of its share in the national market: from 44% of all tourists on the Costa del Sol coming from within Spain in 2023, to 40.1% in 2024 and to 37.6% in 2025.
Although 2025 closed with unprecedented figures in terms of tourist arrivals and revenue, Salado said that they need to win back Spanish visitors.
The president said that an estimated 5,505,000 national tourists arrived in the province in 2025, which is a decrease of 5.1% compared to 2024. This can be attributed, he said, to the lower purchasing power of Spanish families in the context of inflation. The Spanish tourists who visited the province generated an economic impact of close to 6.37 billion euros, which is 1.3% less than in 2024.
“Note that the average income generated by Spanish tourists is much lower than that of international tourists because, although they represent 37.6% of the tourists who come, they only account for 29.2% of the total economic impact,” Salado said.
He added that 2.7 million national visitors had stayed in hotels, flats, rural houses and campsites in the province, generating seven million overnight stays, lower than in 2024.
In a bid to win back Spanish tourists the Costa del Sol is taking a 400,000-euro campaign to Fitur this year. “We’re going to Madrid with some 600 professionals, 60 municipal government teams and an agenda with 70 presentations and more than 50 professional meetings,” said Salado. The spotlight will be on Malaga on 21 January, when the destination is going to advertise the “endless experiences” it offers at the Las Ventas bullring.
According to Salado, the decrease in Spanish visitors in the Costa del Sol is not due to a lack of satisfaction or quality, but because “the recovery of purchasing power of Spanish families is much slower than in the rest of Europe”.
The year has started with good forecasts, however, reflected in the figures that show how many people in Spain have searched for flight tickets to the Costa del Sol “between 1 September and 30 December” for holidays “between 1 January and 30 April 2026”. In this period, 6,983,716 searches were recorded, which is 34.3% more than in the same period last year.
Andalucía
Andalucía will also be out to attract Spanish tourists at Fitur next week with the region’s biggest ever stand, covering more than 7,000 square metres and a budget of 4.4 million euros.
The region will be showing off a mosaic of destinations with the common thread of light as “shared emotion. Dawn and dusk as a metaphor and as a promise to return,” explained the regional minister for tourism, Arturo Bernal, this week.
The Andalusian delegation will be accompanied by 240 companies that will be holding meetings in the business area on the region’s stand.
Bernal said that the design of the stand was aimed at “satisfying all the destinations and all the professional profiles. Andalucía is not a collection of isolated spaces, but a mosaic. Each province, each city, each destination preserves its identity, its language and its offer, but they all form part of a strong, recognisable and coherent common framework.”
Fitur will see the launch of Andalucía’s new campaign ‘El trato andaluz’ which is aimed at maintaining the identity and respect for culture and customs of the tourist destination.
“It’s a campaign that speaks of coexistence, respect and shared responsibility,” said Bernal. “Because sustainable tourism can’t be imposed by a slogan. It’s built from a balanced relationship between those who come to visit and those who live here,” he added.