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Date Published: 24/01/2015

ARCHIVED - Murcia weekly bulletin 24th January

Aena to close San Javier airport, Euro-sterling exchange rate hits 7 year high, optimism in Spanish property sector following ECB injection and Bárcenas is out of jail

The week began with a flurry of snow in the north-west of the region as much of Spain felt the first cold blast of winter after a year of record high temperatures. Fortunately Murcia receives very little in the way of snow, the high points of the Sierra Espuña, Moratalla and Caravaca de la Cruz always the first to feel that cold kiss when it does fall, but fortunately the snowfalls co-incided with the fiesta of San Antón which meant bonfires ARCHIVED - Murcia weekly bulletin 24th January and BBQ’s in the areas affected so failed to cause too much disruption.

However, this doesn´t stop these areas being the most popular for rural tourism and along with the snow reports came the news that Moratalla has been included at number 8 in a national survey for its popularity as a rural tourism destination. With the major Fitur trade fair looming next week, thoughts have been very much on the forthcoming tourism season and we’ve produced three detailed articles analysing last year and the predictions for the coming year. (further detail at the bottom of the bulletin.)

What is certain is that in Murcia it’s the British who represent the most important sector for Murcian businesses, over 55% of those visiting Murcia last year coming from the UK, and spending the most.

The region has gained a new impetus in its tourism promotion over the last few months with a raft of new initiatives, the latest launched this week being 20 refrigerated container lorries signwritten with images of the ARCHIVED - Murcia weekly bulletin 24th January tourist attractions of the Murcia Region which will be busy delivering a boost to brand awareness along with regional produce for the rest of their working lives, joining the millions of pieces of Murcian broccoli and melons which are now carrying stickers to promote the region in German supermarkets.

Of course, the whole subject of airports is an essential part of the ongoing tourism development of the region, and this week has been an interesting one in the life of the San Javier – Corvera airport saga. This week the former concessionary witnessed the departure of its president as it prepares its defence in a number of court cases relating to the rescission of its contract as the concessionary of Corvera airport following its failure to open the airport within the specified timescale.

The regional government is busy preparing conditions for opening the bidding process to find a new concessionary who will operate the airport, and has been meeting with the agricultural sector to design a logistics centre which can help maximize the use of the airport by increasing freight shipments, and on Friday gained an agreement from Aena that it will not only be bidding to operate Corvera airport itself, but that it will guarantee the closure of San Javier within a specified time period once the new concessionary has been appointed. No details have yet been released about the deal, as the region’s politicians are all immersed in the PP pre-election pow-wow in Madrid this weekend, with election campaigning clogging up the news already. Full report to be published on Monday.

However, this time the government agreement seems to be on a more formal footing than the last one four years ago and a working committee will agree the timescale of the closure, likely to be 6 months after Corvera opens, ensuring that there are not 2 airports in the same small region competing for the same traffic.
ARCHIVED - Murcia weekly bulletin 24th January However, there’s still a long way to go and we’ve been here before, surprisingly, just before the last set of municipal elections!

This week Murcia has made the national news for all the wrong reasons as a major sex scandal featuring under-age girls frolicking with lawyers who are old enough to know better made the national press, along with a story of a Lorca man who attacked a man with a knife after he sexually abused his daughter. We also managed to feature in the nationals with a nasty explosion of a gas bottle which hospitalized an elderly couple: if you have gas appliances please read the info about gas scammers, which contains some basic safety guidelines for those using bottled gas about maintaining these appliances. This is the fifth case we’ve written about since the weather cooled down and some of the others have involved fatalities.

Flu has also reached epidemic status this week, the Puente del Estacio has re-opened in San Javier so tall vessels can once again transit the Mar Menor and Mediterranean, the first stone has been laid on a new marina in Lo Pagán, and more than half of the cars running around the region are over 10 years old!

News stories all in the Murcia Regional news

Murcia what’s on
In brief, as it’s Saturday afternoon, the Fiesta de Cuadrillas will attract over 30,000 people in Barranda in Caravaca de la Cruz on Sunday tomorrow, and there is also an artisan fair in nearby Cehegín. It’s likely to be ARCHIVED - Murcia weekly bulletin 24th January chilly, but sunny, and is a huge occasion as the region’s Cuadrillas play their traditional music, with lots of food, crafts, dancing and tradition. Great fun if you can make it up to the north-west.

There’s an excellent flamenco guitar concert on Sunday evening at the Murcia Auditorium which is well worth going to if you enjoy flamenco guitar. The artist comes from an important flamenco family and the Ed watched him win the prize for guitar at the Cante de las Minas festival in La Unión in 2011. He really is an extraordinary guitarist and well worth seeing. There have also been a flurry of exhibitions opening this weekend, so we’re busy preparing a new edition of “an arty morning out in Murcia” for those who like to broaden their horizons.

Archena has a mediaeval market and a spot of Moors and Christians merrymaking in its half year fiestas and this next week the fiestas of San Blas and the Candelaria will also take place in Alhama de Murcia and San Javier as normal with their romerías.

Lots of things to do in the What’s on section, all listed in date order which is constantly updated. Often events come in during the week and are over and done with by the weekend, so keep an eye open as events are archiving every day. Also plenty of active options in the sporting section, with family activities and lots of walks.

Spanish news round-up
One word has dominated the news this week: Bárcenas.
ARCHIVED - Murcia weekly bulletin 24th January The former treasurer of the ruling PP party has finally managed to get bail after being locked up for 19 months without any formal charges having been made against him, due to his alleged handling of the “B-books” and involvement in the Gürtel cash for contracts scandal. These are a second set of accounts which are alleged to show “donations” from business to the PP party, a certain amount of which is alleged to have been distributed to senior party members in envelopes, and not been declared in formal party accounts or on tax returns, some of the businesses those receiving public works contracts. It’s a nasty scandal for the government to handle full stop, and now that their former treasurer is once again within reach of the media, and is obviously less than happy about having been incarcerated without trial for such a long period of time, fur is set to fly. There will be one winner from the scandal: Podemos, the new kid on the block of Spanish ARCHIVED - Murcia weekly bulletin 24th January politics, with a yet unblemished record, attracting an increasing following from those disenchanted with the seemingly endless corruption scandals which have assailed voters in the last couple of years. This week even the artworld was touched as police raided the Palau des Arts in Valencia.Some of the language used by Podemos is worryingly radical, as is the lack of clear and precise policies, but whether voters will vote to protest against the alternatives is going to keep the media very busy this year.

Other news this week: see Spanish news Repsol has abandoned drilling for oil off the Canary Islands, electricity is set to go up again due to adverse meteorological conditions, the government of Cataluña has ARCHIVED - Murcia weekly bulletin 24th January been fined for insisting on teaching students in Catalan and not Castellano ( the Spanish we learn), legal cigarette sales in Spain are reported to have halved, the margin permitted to drivers on Spanish roads is being removed, so SLOW DOWN AND KEEP TO THE SPEED LIMITS, and changes to the legislation governing use of the roads has been sent back for revision following a media free for all over the subject of joggers being fined for breaking the speed limit.

And in Crevillente they’re proposing DNA testing on dog poo which is not cleared up by owners of pooping pooches, so stock up on plastic bags if you live in Alicante province: the pooping pooch patrol will be on the streets near you soon!

Spanish Property news summary

The last week in the Spanish property market has been one of consolidation, as all of the latest figures published serve more or less to confirm that the slump appears to be over at last and that stability is the ARCHIVED - Murcia weekly bulletin 24th January keyword. Click to read Spanish property news articles

Figures published during the last seven days indicate that during the last few months of 2014 mortgage lending increased, sales remained constant at between 25,000 and 30,000 per month, prices fell only marginally if at all and, in general terms at least, there was a comfortable sense of predictability settling into the market. The Eurostat bureau of the EU even reported that Spanish residential property prices rose slightly in the second half of last year!

The only worrying aspect was another indication in the statistics published by Spain’s notaries this week that the second-hand market is outstripping new-builds by a long way in terms of the number of units sold. Despite this, promoters remain upbeat, claiming that this is due to the way in which “new-builds” are defined, and not to the reported price differential of 17%.

The outlook for 2015, meanwhile, is positive, all the more so following this week’s continued falls in the Euribor, which determines the vast majority of mortgage interest rates in Spain, and, particularly for UK nationals, the weakness of the euro. On Friday the exchange rate peaked at 1.34, the highest for seven years, meaning that Spanish property is suddenly a good deal cheaper when seen through the eyes of buyers from Britain.

Expect the Mediterranean coastal real estate markets in Spain to become even more reliant on buyers from the UK in the near future if this trend continues!

Meanwhile, another success story in the property news this week concerns Princess Cristina, who is reported to have sold her Barcelona residence for around six million euros, possibly to a Russian buyer. A sign of the times, though, is that if the original purchase price and the cost of subsequent refurbishment are taken into account she will be about three million euros down on the deal!

Tourism news ahead of the Fitur tourism fair
One of the main reports to make the headlines in Spain this week has been the publication of the annual ARCHIVED - Murcia weekly bulletin 24th January Exceltur report, which analyses the results and prospects of the country’s tourism industry.

The 2014 report concludes that last year was an excellent one for the sector, with the number of foreign visitors rising by 7.1% to 65 million and the amount they spent in this country increasing by 3.9% at the same time, generating an overall increase in tourist activity of 2.9%. The only worrying notes in the report were sounded by the tendency towards “cheaper” tourism being preferred, with the average spending per visitors falling last year by 3.4% and hotel owners still unhappy at the competition they face from unregulated privately-owned rental accommodation.

As for the future, the Exceltur team forecasts similar potential growth rates for 2015, but the degree to which the industry depends on unpredictable external factors was illustrated by a couple of events this week.

On Thursday the ECB’s confirmation that it would be injecting at least 1.1 trillion euros into Eurozone economies sparked a sudden fall in the value of the euro, with the result that a strong pound suddenly makes holidays in Spain even cheaper for visitors from the UK. As a result of this and of low fuel prices, as well as the cold weather in central and northern Europe, areas like the Costa Blanca are already reporting that reservations are running higher than at the same point in January last year.

However, other external factors such as the Russian economy, the elections in other European countries, the effect of the French Jihadist attacks on tourism in north African countries and the future development of fuel prices could all tip the scales one way or the other: despite the efforts being made at next week’s FITUR tourist fair in Madrid, the fortunes of Spain’s main tourist destinations over the coming 12 months are, to a large degree, out of their hands.

This week currency exchange rates at a 7 year high at 1.3163. Click for this weeks currency round up showing the exchange rate between Sterling and the Euro.

Those who transfer their pensions across to Spain are still getting more euros for every pound sterling at the moment than they have for some considerable time, and it also makes Spanish property even cheaper for those buying with Sterling, but rates change constantly, so keep an eye on currency rates if planning a transfer any time soon.

If you still use a bank to transfer money, ask our currency experts for a quote to use a money transfer service, youll be amazed how much more you get for your pounds using this method and its really easy to do!

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