When
was Costa del Sol the first recognised as a tourist destination?
It’s difficult to say precisely, because you would
have to go as far back as the Phoenician period, or the
Romans... The first tourists, in the real sense of the word,
were the romantic travellers of the 18th and 19th centuries.
The good climate and the famous wines of Málaga and
the trading associated with them, helped to attract visitors
to the region.
By the end of the 19th century, people were already starting
to arrive in large numbers for the winter season, the fair
in August and the celebration of the Semana Santa, thanks
to the improvement in transport links by land and sea.
The history of tourism in the Costa del Sol is closely linked
to the development of Torremolinos. Tourism exploded in
the Costa del Sol after theng of the airport ‘El
Rompedizo’ and the introduction of the charter flight.
The person responsible for this invasion was considered
to be George Langworthy, popularly known
as ‘El Inglés’ who at the end of the
century, bought a property called ‘Castillo de Santa
Clara’, where both he and his wife lived happily for
many years until she died.
The tourist ‘boom’ did not actually occur until
the end of the 50s and the beginning of the 60s, when large
groups of people started to go religiously each year to
Torremolinos. The key date in the history of tourism in
the Costa del Sol was 1959. This is the year in which the
first luxury hotel ‘Pez Espada’d. Shortly
afterwards famous people started to arrive... Frank Sinatra,
Orson Wells, Julio Iglesias to name but a few
As the area grew successful, tourism increased massively
(also because the destination appeared in many popular films)
and suddenly everybody wanted to go to the Costa del Sol,
to get their picture taken on the beach or on the famous
street of San Miguel. This same phenomenon was also happening
to the nearby Benalmádena (for many people this area
was only an extension of Torremolinos and was already known
worldwide); Fuengirola (popular with Spanish tourists);
Mijas (where people were starting to buy second homes) and
many other locations in the east of the Costa del Sol.
Then the new ‘boom’ area became Marbella. There
was a time that the only villa belonging to a famous person
in the city was that of the flamenco artist Lola Flores
... a few years later the area was inundated with numerous
famous people. Sometimes they would buy summer residences
or they would just come to spend their holidays here. The
forerunners of these famous people were Norberto Goizueta,
José Luque and Alfonso de Hohenlohe, the individual
who helped to establish the ‘Marbella Club’.
Later on, James Stewart, Rock hudson, Gina Lollobrigada,
Ringo Starr, Onassis and María Callas, the Duke of
Windsor, Thyssen, Bismarck, Rostchild, the Kennedys and
Sheiks from Arabia were regular visitors to this exclusive
hotel.
At the time Puerto Banús, designed by José
Meliá, was considered the centre of high-class international
tourism. Meanwhile, the Costa del Sol was busy developing
secondary facilities: golf courses, aquatic parks and the
valuable cultural and rural tourism of the Serranía
de Ronda and La Axarquía.
