The Mijas Town Hall has attended the International Berlin Fair (ITB), which is held from March 7 to 9, to publicize its rural and sustainable tourism offer in the German market, where it will promote the nature segment and the trails through the mountains, as announced on Tuesday by the mayor of Mijas, Josele González.
The mayor stressed that “at Malaga airport arrives every year more than 600,000 Germans and obviously many of them end up in our city”, noting that it is “the third market after the Spanish and the British”.
‘Mijas, rural and sustainable’ arrives at the ITB with four fundamental pillars such as the trails through the mountains, the typical Andalusian town, gastronomy and crafts. “95% of tourists of this nationality look for complementary activities when choosing their destinations, they don’t just want an offer based on sun and sand,” added González.
In this sense, he stressed that visitors “seek culture, gastronomy or nature, and Mijas has that asset, because not only do we have a fantastic climate throughout the year, we also have other attractions such as the natural trails through our mountains”.
A varied and attractive offer that has been put on the table of I work with private companies and tour operators such as Sidetours, which is based in Las Lagunas and which manages more than 4,000 direct flights with Germany with the three main tourist issuing cities Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and Berlin. The City Council has closed with this company “some meetings and we are working so that in the future we can carry out coordinated actions”, he highlighted.
For his part, the Councilor for Tourism, José Carlos Martín, has assured that “we came to the ITB with the same enthusiasm with which we have been present at other fairs in the sector such as FITUR or the World Travel Market because we know precisely how important it is to continue reinforcing and promoting our brand within the Costa del Sol”.
“We have ahead of us a Contact schedule with tour operators, private companies and the media to continue promoting our tourist offer, which in this edition focuses on rural and sustainable tourism, based precisely on one of our most important segments: nature. Mijas has all the characteristics that the German profile is looking for ”, he emphasized.
A rural and sustainable tourism that Mijas presents in the German capital with the endorsement of positioning itself in 2021 “as one of the 20 rural coastal destinations preferred by users of the prestigious ‘clubrural.com’ accommodation portal”, stated the mayor, who stressed that this segment “is a great ally to break with seasonality and allows our economy to be revitalized outside of the summer season”.
The German fair as a showcase for Easter
With Easter just around the corner, the ITB postulates itself as the best showcase to exhibit what it will bring to the sector from April. “We are prepared to receive all these tourists and the expectations for this kick-off to the high season are important. We have to make tourism once again the spearhead of our municipality”, Martín concluded.
He German market is the third issuer of tourists arrived in Spain, a destination that remains an international leader. In 2022 alone, the Costa del Sol received 578,000 German tourists, generating an economic impact of 861.7 million euros. Hence the importance of being present at an appointment that, for three days, crowns Berlin as the epicenter of world tourism.