Traveling to play golf, sail in a boat or practice some of the possible nautical sports make the Costa Tropical of Granada, and especially Motril, is in fashion. It is an enclave in constant development that means that those who come to get to know the region or the city, especially in recent years, tend to repeat thanks to the many attractions that they present and the different initiatives that are being promoted from the public and private sectors, which make it more and more attractive to visitors.
The responsible and sustainable sports tourism it has more and more potential on the Granada coastline. It is mainly thanks to the diversification of activities and the innovation that it presents with the practice of multiple options, both competitive and simply enjoyable. And its boom in sports activities has shown after the pandemic that new opportunities have opened and a greater offer for this sector sustainable.
Sports tourism goes far beyond simple training for elite athletes. Serve as data that In the last year, different national concentrations of high-performance athletes have been held to prepare for the Olympics, all hand in hand Royal Spanish Athletics Federation (RFEA) and points out that it will be repeated in 2022. It is also striking that more than 1,200 people stayed a few dates ago in Motril and its surroundings to participate in a international crossfit tournament in the Park of the Peoples of America.
What is already considered a post-Covid fashion contributes to raising awareness about the need to be respectful and careful with the environment and that it can directly benefit a more sustainable economy and, in turn, serve to boost new local businesses to settle in the area, as pointed out from the sector.
Such circumstances have been reflected in the high levels of occupancy that have been registered in the last summer season, which have been expanded until a few days ago, and that even in 2021 has led to the need to put the full poster in the different hotel complexes that are available, but what is more important, that it is maintained in other seasons of the year.
This tourist pull has been produced mainly by the national visitor, and to a lesser extent by the international visitor, who They come to the Costa de Granada looking for alternatives to the traditional offer of sun and beach with which Andalusia has distinguished itself for many years. And it is that in recent times it has been possible to unite activities related to leisure, culture and sport, which make the Granada coast much more attractive, especially in seasons away from summer, thanks to maintaining a very pleasant temperature for the sports practice during the rest of the year or simply to rest.
In this sense, sports such as golf or nautical activities are serving as a claim for visitors who consider highly advisable get away from the big cities to move to the Costa Tropical in a clear attempt to ‘detoxify’ with the practice of some sport clearly non-competitive or simply to take care of their physical and emotional health; Circumstances that are gradually being noticed in the occupations of the only golf sports complex on the Costa Tropical, which is reverting to pre-pandemic levels for the practice of this sport. A golf tourism Highly demanded, among others, by groups of Danes and Nordics, who in recent times have been seen more frequently in the vicinity of the golf course.
“The good weather throughout the year serves as a claim for that tourist who seeks to spend long days enjoying golf and who, at the end, can have a drink watching Sierra Nevada in the background”, explains the Deputy Mayor for Tourism and Coastal Development of Motril, José Lemos, which ensures that many tour operators are visiting the area to promote golf tourism, “a tourism with a high purchasing power and that combines perfectly with the other tourist sectors,” he adds.
We read a review that already the creation of another golf course is planned with “a very green and very attractive environmental development”, which would be located in the northern area of Granada beach and that “the European tourist demands more and more”. Currently the compensation board is working together with various architects in this project of the new development, which is integrated in the Partial Plan PLA-1 and PLA-2 to reconvert it, since “it was a 2004 project and nowadays others are looking for values”. The Deputy Mayor for Tourism and Coastal Development points out that work is being done to make it “the jewel in the province’s crown, and even Andalusia “and that serves as a trigger to” be part of the most beautiful and expected development and by all people from Motrileños. “
On the other hand, the rise of nautical sports is evidenced by the future start-up in early 2022 of a new nautical sports center in Playa Granada on a municipal plot of about 1,750 meters that has been promoted by Awa Watersports and that it aspires to become one of the benchmarks of the entire region.
On the Costa Tropical, but especially in Playa Granada, you can see every day how dozens of kites fly your sky and take advantage of the wind that sometimes blows from the east, something calmer, and other times it makes it from the west something more furious, and where almost every day they are ideal for practicing the most and best cultivated water sports in the area.
In Playa Granada practitioners of all ages meet, starting with the now veterans who were pioneers in this area by jump into the water on a board a little over a decade ago, when these sports were still quite unknown in the province of Granada and curious that they are now beginning.
The kitesurf It has become one of the sports that has more followers every day. It is a sports specialty that in recent years there has been a real explosion and that has become an attraction when contemplating how on windy days you can see the sky full of these large kites whose size depends on the weight of the user and the usual speed of the wind with which it is sailed.
It is a sporting activity that is gaining followers in most cases from different parts of the Andalusian geography, and that are passionate about challenges and more if they involve water in between, one of these cases is that of Ruth M. Mancilla, who admits that he got hooked on kitesurfing “by chance”, while looking for an activity for his son, some years ago. And since then he has been practicing it, as he says “his life has totally changed.”
“Every time you practice it, you have feelings that are difficult to explain,” says Mancilla after ensuring that he has no words to describe “the Liberty sensation what gives you “is”something indescribable When you handle the kite that you have attached to your body and you slide over the water on a board, I have a real passion for this sport, even if it is amateurish. “
But kitesurfing is not the only sporting activity in vogue. Windsurfing, paddlesurfing, kayaking, dinghy sailing … the offer is increasing, as is the demand, contributing to the seasonal adjustment of sun and beach tourism and that, together with golf, as well as other sports, are contributing to Motril becomes a benchmark for sports and sustainable tourism.
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