Turismo Costa del Sol brings together the Golf Board to address the key challenges

There are a few weeks left before the start of the most important women’s golf tournament in the world, the Solheim Cup, which will take place on the Costa del Sol in September and in this context, Turismo Costa del Sol has met the Golf Board, the advisory body of this segment, to assess the development of the 2023 Action Plan and raise the challenges that arise in the next three years.

Antonio Díaz, managing director of Turismo Costa del Sol, has highlighted the importance of this segment for tourism in the province of Malaga, “especially in a key year for the expectations of the sector, with the celebration in September of a tournament as relevant as the Solheim Cup”.

The Golf Board is the consultative body of reference and is made up of twenty-five experts in the sector. This year, as a novelty, it has representation from both private agents -golf clubs, resorts, travel agencies, etc.- and public entities, which places this entity as the main channel to develop strategies in which synergies of both areas are united for the development of tourism around golf trips to the province of Malaga.

In the last meeting of the Golf Board, Antonio Díaz has highlighted the good moment that the segment is experiencing in the so-called Costa del Golf, after the campaigns that have been carried out in the 2023 Action Plan to make visible and value the leadership of the province of Malaga as a destination for the practice of golf, such as participation in fairs and meetings with professionals in the sector.

Díaz also highlighted the success of the celebration on the Costa del Sol of the IAGTO European Convention, which took place from April 24 to 26, which, in his words, “has been a unique opportunity for European travel agents and tour operators specialized in golf to have been able to verify the high level of services and infrastructures of a destination that has the largest offer of golf courses in southern Europe and the added value of an excellent complementary offer, both in terms of accommodation and tourist attractions, with an important artistic and cultural heritage legacy, as well as a careful gastronomy, which is one of our best business cards”.

In this sense, the managing director has highlighted again the relevance of the Solheim Cup being held this year at the Finca Cortesín, “in September the great event will arrive worldwide, which for the first time will be held in Spain and specifically on the Costa del Sol: the Solheim Cup. The women’s tournament equivalent to the Ryder Cup, which will take place from 22 to 24 September, will bring together the main figures of women’s golf and put the Costa del Sol in the spotlight.”

The Golf Board has also raised the challenges that await in the next three years and what will be the main lines of action until 2027. Some actions that will be aimed at strengthening the positioning of the destination in a segment, which as indicated by Díaz, “has a high strategic value for tourism on the Costa del Sol, for its undoubted de-seasonalizing power and for the economic contribution, since the purchasing power and the level of expenditure of golf tourists is higher than the rest”.

To all this we must add the good ratings that the Costa del Sol generates among fans since, as Díaz added, “golfers give the destination an average score of 9.24 out of ten, an exceptional figure backed by safety, humane treatment and value for money”.

It should also be noted that, throughout 2022, more than six million advertising impacts and almost six thousand five hundred leads were achieved; twenty-eight thousand flights arrived to Costa del Sol and more than seven thousand greenfees and golf packages were hired, as well as almost four thousand hotel bookings for tourists who came to the destination to practice golf.