Record October bank holiday in Dénia: hotels full and Les Rotes turned into a car park

"Hotel full, do not insist"

Dénia closes today, Monday, still a public holiday, one of the October bank holidays with the most visitors remembered. Awaiting official figures, the flow during this long weekend, which began on Friday with 9 d'Octubre, has been the kind that makes history in the city, according to La Marina Plaza.

The image that best sums it up is a sign hung on the door of the Maison Marineta hotel, which occupies the spot where the old Mediterráneo bar once stood: hotel full, terrace exclusively for guests, do not insist. The establishment, one of the boutique hotels proliferating in the city, has a well-known terrace with pool and views over the entire port and bay.

Les Rotes, a car park

The pressure has also been felt outside the centre. According to the same source, the coast at Les Rotes has turned into a genuine car park these days, with cars parked all along the area.

Hotels above 80 %

Forecast from the sector already pointed to a very busy bank holiday. According to figures from the hotel employers' association Hosbec published before the bank holiday, hotels in the Valencian Community had 85.4 % of their beds booked for the period between Friday 9 and Monday 12 October. On the Costa Blanca, excluding Benidorm, confirmed occupancy reached 80.6 %, whilst Benidorm was approaching 90 %.

The association itself warned that these figures only reflected already registered bookings, and that last-minute sales could raise them. The General Directorate of Traffic, for its part, had forecast 5.76 million road journeys across Spain during the bank holiday.

More hotels in the centre

Saturation is coming amid a proliferation of small hotels in central Dénia. Very close to the Maison Marineta two others are being built: the one at El Penal, which will be a four-star hotel with 27 rooms, and the one on Colón street, next to the Condado, where excavations have uncovered twelfth-century Islamic houses.

Even so, the bulk of tourist accommodation in the city is not in hotels: almost nine in ten tourist beds in Dénia are in homes, so hotel occupancy only reflects part of the actual flow.

Final figures for the bank holiday occupancy will be known in the coming days.