Palm Sunday celebrations

Puig confirmed: “The na‐tional museums do not have to be in Madrid, everything does not have to be cen‐tralised, why not locate a section or part of the Nation‐al Museum in Elche?”

Elche’s mayor, Carlos Gonzalez, affirmed his inten‐tion to turn Elche into the capital of Iberian art with the Dama as the maximum ex‐ponent of this exhibition. Gonzalez also recalled that this project aims to ex‐hibit it in the context of Iberi‐an art, surrounded by 50 pieces of great value, cur‐rently housed in the Alcudia Museum.

EASTER Week in Elche 2023 registered an influx of more than 350,000 people which is 16.67 per cent more than last year, making it the most crowded in the last decade.

According to Local Police fig‐ures, 70,000 people accompa‐nied Jesus Triumphant in the Palm Sunday procession, while the afternoon procession at‐tracted 40,000.

Easter Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday brought to‐gether 25,000, 30,000 and 30,000 locals and visitors re‐spectively.

On Maundy Thursday, the Cristo de Zalamea took 40,000 people out onto the streets, while the rest of the proces‐sions attracted 20,000.

On Good Friday, in the gen‐eral procession, there were 30,000 and on Alleluia Sunday, the end of the Easter Week in Elche, 70,000.

From the point of view of hotel occupancy, and accord‐ing to data from the Associa‐tion of Tourist Companies of Elche (AETE), the occupancy rate was 87.6 per cent, exceed‐ ing the 80 per cent recorded last year.

The large number of proces‐sional celebrations, including Palm Sunday with its declara‐tion of International Tourist In‐terest, have become the focus of attraction for a demand that identifies Elche as a reference destination at Easter.