First Pickleball club at a hotel resort in Spain will be on the Costa del Sol

The Costa del Sol is set to become home to the first Pickleball club in a holiday resort in Spain as Holiday World Resort and Pickleball Europe have teamed up to manage four professional courts, which are already under construction on the terrace of La Cabaña restaurant at the beach club. The courts are due to be operational by December for people to play the sport, which combines elements of tennis, badminton and table tennis, played on a smaller court than tennis, using a rigid racquet and a perforated plastic ball.

Mari Francis Peñarroya, CEO of Holiday World Resort, is convinced that “Pickleball Europe is the best partner for this new project because of their track record in this sport. Today they are one of the businesses that manages the largest number of courts in Andalucía, which will now be joined by Holiday World Resort”. She added that “together we aspire to become the benchmark in the area. The experience of our new partner in the promotion and dissemination of pickleball, together with our unbeatable location and the wide variety of quality services that we offer at the resort make us confident that we will be a great success”.

According to the World Pickleball Federation the sport has grown exponentially all over the world in the last five years and is played in more than 70 countries, with an outstanding growth in Europe, where it already has more than one million players and more than 70,000 courts.

The federation explained that “tourism associated with this sport is growing rapidly, driven by the popularity of the sport around the world. In the United States alone it is estimated that 8.9 million people travel related to this activity”. They consider that the Costa del Sol, with its privileged climate and international air connectivity, is emerging as an ideal destination for this type of active tourism.

The latest data published by Growth Market Reports put the income from Pickleball tourism at 1.47 million dollars in 2024, making a projection towards 2033 in which a growth of up to 4.25 million dollars is noted, driven by North American sports tourism. In Spain, they point out that it already has more than 20,000 players and is regulated by the Pickleball Committee of the Royal Spanish Tennis Federation (RFET).

Juan Luis Cebrián, founding partner of Pickleball Europe, who attended the signing of the agreement with Miguel Aróstegui, says that “since we started our journey in 2022, we have seen how pickleball is growing all over the world, but undoubtedly the most exponential growth in Europe is taking place in Spain and the Pickleball Europe team is proud to have been part of it”.

Cebrián added that the opening of the new facilities at Holiday World Beach Club opens a new phase, which he described as “wonderful. We have the best possible companion and its more than 20 years of experience endorse it”.

Holiday World, the largest all-inclusive holiday resort on the Costa del Sol, is a benchmark for sports tourism in the area. The resort hosts an outstanding volume of professional and amateur sports groups each year, including basketball, football, hockey, rugby, cycling, judo, and volleyball, among others. “This business sector already generates almost five per cent of the resort’s total income and is mainly concentrated in the months before and after the tourist season, which makes it a fundamental element in the deseasonalisation strategy”, the company pointed out.