27 May 2013 10:25 AM:
For a family holiday, the Costas in Spain can be prohitively expensive and hotel prices in Barcelona are eye-watering! Many Barcelona hotels charge double for two people in a double room! Some of the restaurants on Las Ramblas are nothing better than fast food rip-offs charging top dollar for junk food. Of course, Barcelona doesn't need nor want long term visitors, it wants business people during the week and hen parties and suchlike at weekends.
However, get off the beaten track and Spain is beautiful with extremely cheap food and accommodation available. A few years ago it cost me less for four nights in three different 3Star+ Spanish hotels than it did for one night in the Plymouth Holiday Inn. Spain falls over when it comes to keeping the youngsters entertained with the theme parks charging stupid prices. The last that we went to was in Benidorm and there were no queues as very few Spanish people will pay those prices. Spain depends on a tourist trade that little effort is being made to cultivate. It is not enough to have sunshine anymore as other resorts are offering much more for cheaper.
However, it would be very difficult to persuade the average Spaniard that building theme parks is the way to invigorate the economy when there is an unemployment rate of 25%+ with more than 50% of those below 25 years of age unable to find a job. I have professional Spanish friends desperate to find a job but there is absolutely nothing available. Spain will probably take many many years to recover from a poorly regulated building industry induced economic collapse. The country was just unfortunate that its crisis happened at the same time as the European banking crisis.
Thread:
Has Spain "lost its way" in Tourism ?
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