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Visitors splash out
BRITISH and French tourists are the international visitors who spend the most in the Valencia Region.
According to figures published by the Spanish National Statistics Institute for 2022, foreign visitors spent more than €6.7 billion in the region last year more than in 2019, ie before Covid.
But the final figure is believed to be much higher, as it only includes card operations at hotels, restaurants and other businesses plus cash withdrawals, but not transactions carried out with money already changed in the visitors’ countries of origin.
This makes Valencia the fourth Spanish region with the highest income from the tourist trade in 2022 after Catalonia, Andalucía and the Balearic Islandsbut the only one with better figures than in 2019.
By countries, the UK accounts for the largest fraction with British visitors spending more than €1.2 billion last year, followed by French tourists with €853 million and Dutch visitors with €680 million.
Analysts have welcomed the figures as a return to form following the pandemic and believe that this year they will be even higher.
RELLEU will have its own heliport for emergencies.
The town council has donated an 800 squaremetre plot of land to the Alicante provincial government to build a landing pad for helicopters and aeroplanes during forest fires, traffic accidents or mountain rescue operations in and around the town and in neighbouring Sella, Jijona and La Torre.
Relleu mayor Lino Pascual pointed out that the town, despite having just 1,200 inhabitants, has a very large municipal extensionmore than 76 square kilometres, double the size of Benidorm.
This means that “there is a lot of available land but, on the downside, the risk of forest fires is higher than in other areas,” declared Sr Pascual.
In addition to forest fires, the council leader also pointed out the increase in rural tourism in the area with more mountain walkers, cyclists and motorcyclists, making it imperative for the aerial rescue services to be able to arrive quickly in case of accident.
THE elite athlete, mountaineer and climber Beatriz
Flamini exited from a cave in the coastal town of Motril in the province of Granada on Friday morning, April 14. She had completed a ‘Timecave’ marathon 500day stay living alone, some 70 metres underground. In the process, this amazing woman also set a new world record.
