The Sierra Nevada park in Granada has ended its summer season and, despite a wide and varied programme of nature and sports activities, has received around 20% less visitors than last year.
The station is run by Cetursa and they attribute some of the decline to the fact that the lifts were not open this summer. However, others report that general hotel occupancy in the resort during July and August was 30% down on last season and some restaurants suffered a 50% reduction in turnover.
For the past few years the general trend at the resort has been upward. Cetursa also believe that a general change in tourist ‘trends’ has had a negative impact on visitor numbers, more so than current economic conditions.
On the other hand, the president of the Asociación de Empresarios de Sierra Nevada, Carlos Pascual, is of the opinion that a major problem this year was that promotion campaign failed to reach the audience it was supposed to be aimed at.