Showing solidarity

OVER 4,000 people took part in Sunday’s Solidarity against Cancer walk in La Nucia, after a two-year hiatus caused by the Covid pandemic.

The five kilometre trek between the Ciutat Esportiva and the El Captivador environmental education centre became a trail of green with participants wearing the special event t-shirts.

Despite a few early drops of rain, the weather turned sunny for the event which was about raising money through raffle ticket sales for the Spanish Association Against Cancer and Anemone Association.

TWO of the Valencia region’s airports recorded record January passenger numbers in a positive sign of how tourism is recovering after the Covid pandemic.

Alicante-Elche airport welcomed 795,148 passengers - up by 68.1% on 2021 and crucially a 1.3% increase on the record-breaking 2019 total.

The biggest number of foreign arrivals were from the United Kingdom on 245,279, with the Netherlands a distant second on 69,503.

Valencia’s total of 585,771 was an even larger 7.9% improvement on 2019 and a 73.4% increase on a year earlier.

Flying High

Italian arrivals lead the list with 94,177, followed by the United Kingdom on 48,348, and France on 43,947.

Spain had 71.6 million international tourists last year - 14.3% less than in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

Tourism bosses have confidently predicted a busy 2023 with a survey of 2,000 businesses published last month by Exceltur predicting that revenue will be up 4.7% on 2019 figures.