Many hotels on the Costa Tropical manage to keep going through the winter thanks to Imserso, which is a state-subsidised, pensioners’ holiday scheme. However, this winter, like the swallows, they’re staying elsewhere.

Year after year, this faithful ‘lifeline’ for the hotel low season has literally blessed Almuñécar’s major hotels. Despite the fact that there is a only a very narrow margin of profit, these elderly Spaniards from around the country act as free advertising, as they return home and recommend where they have stayed to their families.

Quite apart from that, running on a slender margin of profit is far better than closing or running at a loss, of course.

However, this winter things have been very different; from the 29th of November to the 23rd of January, there is not one party of Imserso booked in at five of the town’s six hotels… It appears that our pensioners have decided to give other areas a visit: Majorca, Benidorm or Torremolinos.

Despite the bleakest December in 15 years, according to Rafael Lamelas – spokesman for the Costa Tropical Hoteliers Association and manager of Hotel Helios – from October 2011 to May 2012 around 15,000 pensioners will be booking in at Almuñécar’s hotels.

But Almuécar’s hotel sector has another faithful component to their habitual, winter-guest list; elderly Nordic visitors, who not only stay longer but also have a higher spending capacity than their Spanish counterparts. For this reason, the 2012 drive is going to be the Nordic market.

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)