Smaller Spanish cities such as Toledo are increasing in popularity as more people give the coasts a miss.
Tourists are calling off trips to Spanish holiday hotspots – and taking to lesser-known Spain – as British visitors face a summer of protests. Smaller Spanish cities such as Toledo are increasing in popularity as more people give the coasts a miss.
Tourists in Spain are increasingly turning away from popular “sun and seaside” resorts, a Spanish government source has told The i Paper.
Holiday resorts such as the Canary Islands and Balearic Islands, the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca, remain popular, but tourists are increasingly looking for hidden Spain, according to the newspaper, amid the growing wave of protests around overtourism.
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The trend raises questions about whether the vocal anti-tourism protests may ultimately damage the very economies they claimed to be protecting.
“What we are seeing recently – and this, for example, is data from an American [credit] card company on card spending to see where spending is happening. It shows that spending is growing, especially in the months outside the summer months, what they call the shoulder months, before and after the summer months,” said a source at the Spanish Economy Ministry.
“And it is also growing in a dispersed way outside the sol y playa [sun and beach] resorts.”
Patrick Millar, of city break specialists Kirker Holidays, said: “In demand are the smaller cities of Ávila, Salamanca and Toledo, where visitors are increasingly opting for our boutique properties and Paradores, which have seen more than a 25 per cent increase in bookings to date.”
“Brits are moving beyond the usual beach holiday locations to cities which offer not only history and culture, but also a fresh experience,” a One Sure Insurance spokesperson added this week.
Packages popular with Brits include ‘Walking the Catalan coast in style’ and Ronda and the Sierra de Grazalema, according to insiders.