After the Costa del Sol, the standard mass tourist destination in Southern Spain started to become saturated many tourists started to look for alternative locations. This change in tourism behaviour was not just inspired by the saturation, but also the increasing deterioration of their natural setting of the Mediterranean coastline.
Quickly the rural inland areas of standard locations like Malaga or Almeria began to see an increase in the number of questions for locations to stay. The city government of Andalucía saw in rural tourism a chance to reactivate the economy of little inland villages and hamlets which had been experiencing a reducing population due to the absence of opportunities for the young individuals. Generally the rural locations of Andalucía solely depended upon the extensive agriculture which produces really few man-hours of work during the year.
With the aid of Spanish and EU moneying many villagers started to bring back abandoned homes and transformed them into country homes, modern cottages with ancient design or standard fincas and haciendas. Like in lots of inland areas the rural population of Andalucía is relatively skilled constructors and the majority of the properties have been converted into nation houses and holiday homes of high standards and quality.
The incredible development of the demand for rural tourist in the late ’90 has already been captured up by an ever more amazing increase in the offer. If it was not difficult to have an occupation of 50 – 60% % in the early days, today lots of owners of rural country houses and inland vacation houses in Andalucía have terrific difficulties to even get near to these numbers.
The mayor reason for this is the absence of professionalism and experience in marketing the holiday houses. The majority of owners of country houses in Andalucía have no specific studies in the filed of rural tourist and do not speak any other languages apart from Spanish, that makes it difficult to interact with foreign clients in the pre-reservation stage. It also makes it very hard to contact tour operators abroad who specialise in rural tourism in Andalucía.
The mayor part of the nation houses in the provinces of Granada, Malaga or Jaen is empty practically all year around, except for the Spanish school vacations. Foreign travelers, who take a trip outside the conventional Spanish vacations, can find exceptional great deals for lovely country houses of high quality, a lot of them in fantastic natural settings, like the Alpujarras, the Ronda Mountains or the Axarquia in Malaga.
We have actually seen cases of astute owners with understanding of foreign languages who have to handle an overbooking circumstance throughout many weeks of the year and others, less fortunate but with nation houses of extraordinary quality and high requirements, who have vacancies for these very same weeks. These cases can typically be found in the more remote towns of Granada, Malaga, Jaen or Almeria where there is a larger absence of professional online marketers.
Some of the most beautiful natural locations in Spain, like the Alpujarras, the Valle del Lecrín or the Axarequia still offer vacation deals in choose nation homes and fincas, even during the durations considered high season.