Alicante is anticipating six visits from tour operators and correspondents who specialise in MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and events) tourism, as well as vacation and gastronomic tourism. The Alicante City & Beach Tourist Board will provide support for these promotional activities, which are referred to as “fam trips” and “press trips,” from March 20th to April 6th.

International tour operators are placing their bets on Alicante.

The initial of these excursions will be conducted by Jet2, a British tour operator with the third-highest number of connections at Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport. The company has scheduled two business trips: on March 20th and April 2nd. During these excursions, its agents will have the opportunity to personally experience local establishments and experiences before recommending the destination to their clients. Jet2, a company that specialises in vacation packages and city breaks, continues to prioritise Alicante as one of its primary destinations.

Evolution Travel, an Italian tour operator, will conduct a “fam trip” from March 23rd to 26th to investigate the city’s tourist attractions and promote travel packages and experiences to the Italian market.

The tourist attractions of Alicante will be discovered by journalists from New York.

On March 23rd and 24th, Alicante will be visited by a group of tourism correspondents from New York. The Spanish Tourism Office in New York, in collaboration with the Alicante Costa Blanca Provincial Council and the Regional Ministry of Tourism, is currently organising an excursion to capitalise on the increasing interest in the city among the American market.

The journalists will have the opportunity to visit a variety of iconic locations, including the Old Town, Santa Cruz, San Nicolás Cathedral, the Esplanade, and the seafront, during their visit. Additionally, they will be provided with comprehensive information regarding Alicante, the Spanish Capital of Gastronomy, and will have the opportunity to participate in a culinary workshop to acquire the skills necessary to prepare rice dishes. They will also be treated to a gastronomic tour of the Central Market.

Alicante is also a focus of MICE tourism.

A delegation of ten MICE tourism specialists from various regions of the United Kingdom will arrive in Alicante on March 28th in conjunction with the Spanish Tourist Board in London. Their objective is to acquire knowledge regarding the city’s potential for organising incentive excursions, conferences, and events. They will have the opportunity to visit Santa Bárbara Castle, one of the most alluring locations for this type of tourism, as well as the city’s most iconic monuments.

On Czech television, the cuisine of Alicante is in the spotlight.

Czech television will also transmit Alicante’s international promotion. Between April 4th and 6th, the culinary program “Foodies Viajando” will air a special on the city’s gastronomy, with filming taking place in various locations across the country. Ondrej Ruml, a Czech actor, will serve as a special visitor on the program. He will disclose the culinary traditions and flavours of Alicante.

A significant contribution to the promotion of tourism in Alicante

These visits serve to bolster Alicante’s international market image and solidify its status as an appealing destination for travellers from a diverse range of demographics. Due to the collaboration between the public and private sectors, the city has maintained its status as a premier destination in a variety of sectors, including leisure tourism, gastronomy, and MICE..

This Monday, the Torrevieja City Council initiated an initiative to reduce the occupancy of public spaces on Paseo de Juan Aparicio by restaurant terraces.

The local hospitality industry’s golden mile’s numerous terraces had been violating the ordinance for years by occupying more space than their permits permitted, as evidenced by the use of a few litres of yellow paint, chalk, masking tape, and the labour of municipal employees. In comparison to others, some had implemented numerous square meters of public space into their operations.

Federico Alarcón, Councillor for Safety and Occupation of Public Spacessaid that the City Council would verify compliance on-site after reinstating the payment of the fee for occupation of public spaces, without evaluating whether restaurateurs were complying with the ordinance.

That is to say, the amount that hospitality businesses have been paying since the tax was reinstated in response to the pandemic has been adjusted to reflect the actual space they occupy on a daily basis and the square meters defined by the municipal ordinance for that specific area.

Torrevieja was one of the tourism municipalities that maintained its tax exemption for the longest period following the pandemic. There are four complete years between 2020 and 2023. During this period, local regulations were also exceptionally adaptable, as businesses demanded benefits in the face of extremely adverse circumstances and installed an increased number of chairs and tables, which were protected by health and safety regulations.

Torrevieja City Council has also established a reputation for being one of the most permissive in terms of permitting the occupation of public space, with a preference for the profitable use of hospitality businesses.

The municipality alone generates 1.4 million euros annually from the occupancy of public spaces by terraces, excluding street markets and other taxable activities in public spaces.

“Faced with the need to return to the pre-pandemic line or create an intermediate one, we have decided to return to the previous one,” according to Alarcón. The last time an occupancy limit line was ordered to be drawn, leaving tables that exceeded it visible and readily distinguishable on the ground, was over seven years ago, during the coalition government (2015-2019), when Javier Manzanares was the councillor for the area.

The promenade’s pavement, which is also referred to as Las Rocas, had already begun to discolour after an extended period of time. The PP municipal government discontinued the signage of the COVID measures that were implemented in 2020 to guarantee that the hospitality industry could continue to operate with specific health precautions.

Upon the return of normalcy following the pandemic, residents residing on the front lines had identified the absence of control over the occupation of public space by hospitality businesses. Terraces encircled benches along the promenade, and establishments relocated their tables and chairs just over three meters from the seafront. The permissiveness of the municipality extends to the incorporation of permanent installations, which are provided with designated spaces on the canopies, palm trees, verdant areas, and streetlights on the promenade.

This situation has resulted in significant traffic congestion at pedestrian crossings over the past two summers, as the terraces were required to accommodate unlicensed street vendors, known as the “top manta.”

Yesterday, Monday 17th March, the Municipal Public Road Occupation Department commenced the process of removing chairs and tables from the majority of the hospitality establishments along Juan Aparicio Promenade. Signs have been posted by municipal labourers and the Local Police officer who is responsible for enforcing the ordinance. These signs will be posted from the Hombre del Mar area and will extend along the promenade to Punta Margalla, including those situated on Playa del Cura.

Councilman Alarcón clarified that the Association of Hospitality and Regional Businesses, with which he maintains a close relationship, had been warned and had informed its members. The group’s board of directors has not responded to this newspaper’s attempts to contact them.

Nevertheless, the employees of the establishments were evidently perplexed, as they were required to remove a significant portion of their terraces after the installation. Additionally, they were uncertain about how to dispose of the remaining furnishings. The issue has been temporarily resolved by the rain, which has decreased the number of individuals who can fit in the fixed installations on the terraces that are already covered.

The Libertad promenade, which is one of the main promenades, has been closed to the public since March 12th as a result of the renovation of the port and the removal of vendor stalls, which is also a result of the municipal initiative. The pedestrian area has been further restricted and will be redirected to the Juan Aparicio seafront promenade in anticipation of Holy Week.

Conversely, the City Council has temporarily suspended the finalisation of the new occupancy ordinance due to its extensive nature, which encompassed a wide range of uses, including the amusement park, bohemian craft market, and terraces. Alarcón observed that the current proposal is to divide the text into distinct ordinances to ensure that they are tailored to the specific use.

The City Council’s intention to implement an external software application to facilitate the payment process for the use of public roads has also been impeded. The municipality contemplated transferring the territory to Suma Gestión Tributaria after promoting the project. However, the autonomous body of the Provincial Council is uncertain about certain aspects of this delegation of functions, and the municipality has temporarily suspended this initiative. The councillor also expressed his optimism that the planned reinforcement of Local Police officers will enable the addition of additional officers to the inspection of public roads throughout the year.

The Levante beach coastline, which is the city’s busiest and, if anything, most touristy beach, was entirely renovated by Benidorm in the 1990s. In addition to numerous other components, they instituted a remarkable lighting system that consisted of a garland that connected each lamppost, extending from one end of the beach to the other.

Currently, the catenary is exhibiting the typical condition of an infrastructure that has been subjected to a corrosive element such as the sea for over three decades. The Benidorm City Council has awarded the contract to Elecnor for the second phase of its renovation, which will encompass the section between Avenida de Europa and Calle Metge Miguel Martorell, following the completion of the first phase. The announcement was made yesterday, Monday 17th March.

The mayor of Benidorm, Toni Pérez, has declared that the project, which has a budget of €854,885, is anticipated to be entirely completed “in the first few months of 2026.” The project has a completion period of eight months.

The Benidorm Visión 360 Sustainable Tourism Destination Plan, which is also a component of the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan, will be used to execute the project. This plan is funded by the European Union-Next GenerationEU.

In this regard, the mayor expressed his disappointment with “the State’s failure to assume responsibility, despite its obligation to execute the task.”

Renewal after thirty years

Toni Pérez recalled that the City Council completed the first phase of the project, which encompassed the section from Plaza del Torrejó to Avenida de Europa, with an investment of €1,972,119.41, entirely financed with municipal resources, three decades after its original installation. This investment resulted in a reduction in energy output of over 33.65%.

“And not only have we managed to become more efficient and significantly reduce CO2 emissions, but this project has also earned our city awards and recognition for its sustainability, such as the one we received in Madrid from the EnerTic platform,” Pérez emphasised.

Finally, the mayor expressed regret that, “as has already occurred with many other infrastructure projects, such as the first phase itself, the access to the tertiary sector, or the so-called second phase of the Paseo de Poniente, this project should have been financed and executed by the State, but what we have found is a further failure to fulfil its responsibility, in what is probably the only municipality in Spain with a seafront promenade where the Ministry fails to fulfil its jurisdiction and responsibility.”