Torrevieja’s looks forward

A hundred days has now passed for each and everyone of Spain’s Municipal councils and while many are pleading poverty and are fraught with infighting, it seems to be business as usual in Torrevieja as Mayor Eduardo Dolon and his team continue to bring a fresh look to governing the city. This summer the city enjoyed a rise in seasonal visitors over 2010 and local small and medium business, bars and cafes, have enjoyed full terraces for much of July and August.

The fresh faced council are pushing forward with ambitious plans for the next four years and with the summer behind them, vacations taken, it’s back to the task at hand in promoting the City of Salt. With little in way of industry, Torrevieja’s economy is primarily based around residential tourism and construction, which have gone hand in hand with each other for the last decade. One of the most obvious signs of a return of confidence in the economy is that slowly the construction industry is starting to return to work, there has been an influx of house sales to Northern Europeans, mainly from Russia, Scandinavia and France and even in September, the beaches are still packed with tourists.

Without entering into debate about what is good for the city and what is not, the city has a number of fabulous facilities for its size and compared to other regions of Spain, it has a development plan while others, for economic reasons or otherwise, seem to have stood still! While the likes of Benidorm and La Manga are ghost town like in the winter, offering little more than discounted rates to pensioners for long stay holidays, hotel occupancy figures in Torrevieja improved to 90% this summer, the Fontana hotel opened its doors again and the city council are actively looking towards working with investment groups on new hotel construction, in part to cater for what they foresee as a huge convention market, the main reason for building the 1,400 seat auditorium along with it being a superb facility for classical artists.

The City’s sports facilities continue to grow with six new local sports facilities, two new outdoor swimming pools, a new sports arena slated to open in October, a new gymnasium plus upgrades to older sporting areas. Still in the planning stage is the expansion of the Vicente Garcia Stadium to seat up to 12,000 spectators, the ice rink, for which the planned building area was recently cleared and flattened, a new rugby team in the guise of the Torrevieja Tigers and over a thousand applications for municipal sports from Torrevieja’s youth. Sport and sport tourism is booming in Torrevieja.

The city thrives on culture and 2012 should see the new Fame Academy style of Performance Centre start construction, which can cater for upwards of 3,000 visitors at any one time. The New Music Conservatory of excellence is due to open anytime soon but since it is a conservatory of superior quality and excellence, it is designed for primarily one-on-one or very select groups and so this will probably be a softly-softly opening rather than a major event. Also on-line for 2012 are new plans for the design and construction of an International Social Centre, which will become home for many of Torrevieja 200-plus groups, associations, performers, actors, theatre groups and social societies, offering rehearsal areas, meeting rooms, staging, storage, café, bar and restaurant.

In terms of tourism, the Tourism Department are busy working with event management companies, entertainment promoters, sports teams and touring companies, looking for unique events and offerings to attract more tourists to the city. Hand in hand with the new events is the desire and need for new hotels and leisure facilities and a basic plan of action is in place for a fully functional cruise ship dock, which would raise the profile of the city even further and add a new, up-market dimension to the city, With a privileged location just 45 minutes from Alicante airport or San Javier, Murica, and Murica’s new city airport due to open in Spring 2012 plus the continued development plans for the billion euro Paramount Theme park due to be discussed in Madrid next month, which is less than an our away, Torrevieja is perfectly positioned as a Tourism Capital for the region.

All these items are nothing new. One does not have to look much further than the PP Election Manifesto to discover the bright and innovative ideas that Mayor Dolon and his team want to bring to the city. Already Torrevieja can boast being in an area, that according to the World Health Organisation has the cleanest and healthiest air in Europe, it has three excellent hospitals, Microsoft are just about to start developing their World Headquarters for Florence program of Public Health management, the city offers a micro climate giving it an average of 320 days of sunshine and average winter temperatures around 19C and we haven’t mentioned the magnificent natural lakes and park land, environmental tourism nor the sand, sea and sun!

It’s now down to Dolon and his team of professionals to promote the city at International fairs, work with International Investment Companies, seek unique events and activities and follow their plan for the future to make the city one of Spain’s most desirable places to both live and visit on the Costas. A hundred days have passed and there are but 1,300 more to make the desire a reality. In Torrevieja the glass is most certainly half-full and looking to overflow with credibility, stability and profitability in the years to come.


Keith Nicol