PROPERTY SEARCH
Dozens of new apartments and tourism businesses spring up in Murcia
More visitors, more hotels and more investment mark a record-breaking year for the Region of Murcia
The tourism industry in the Region of Murcia is positively booming with more new businesses, more people employed and more holidaymakers than ever before.
We’re only now settling into August, arguably the biggest holiday month of the year, but during the first half of 2025 the tourism sector was already experiencing remarkable growth. According to the National Statistics Institute (INE), a total of 275 businesses focused on tourism were registered in the Region, including 158 holiday apartments and 90 country houses.
This wave of new ventures matches the steady increase in visitors, with more than 850,000 travellers choosing Murcia for their holidays so far this year, a 1.3% rise on the same period in 2024.
For local businesses, the surge has been dramatic. Álvaro Donas, manager of CaboXperiencia in Cabo de Palos, shared how this summer has been extraordinary. His company, which operates from the Sub-Up Hostel and offers kayaking, paddleboarding and equipment rentals, has seen record-breaking results.
“June was much stronger than usual; I can say we tripled our turnover compared to last month,” he said.
He, along with other local business owners, believes the early influx of tourists may have been helped by the excellent weather, adding that “in June the weather was already very good, so we could get out and do activities sometime, while last summer it was a bit more difficult.”
Mr Donas summed up the surge of visitors as “insane.”
Alongside adventure sports and outdoor experiences, visitors are increasingly drawn to cultural and traditional activities, and the Ministry of Tourism has responded by expanding its training programs for professionals in the sector.
After delivering 31 online courses to 850 students earlier this year, it recently announced 14 additional programs running from September to December.
With the extraordinary popularity of the Region of Murcia as a holiday destination for both Spanish and international tourists, it’s no surprise that over the next three years, solid plans are in place to add 16 new hotels and more than 700 more beds, a clear sign that the industry is planning for even greater demand.
Among the most exciting projects are the expansion of the five-star Ona Mar Menor Golf Resort & Spa in Torre Pacheco, the transformation of Hotel Arco in San Juan de Murcia into the first five-star hotel in the city and the construction of the new Alhama Nature Resort in Condado de Alhama.
Additional developments are planned for the Vega Plaza shopping centre in Molina de Segura and the Thader Shopping Centre in Murcia.
And interest is growing every day, with the Tourism Institute receiving 41 requests over the past year for preliminary assessments of future projects before construction begins. These include 20 tourist apartment complexes, eight rural houses, seven hotels, four motorhome areas and two campsites.
Juan Francisco Martínez, director of the Murcia Region Tourism Institute, believes these numbers show a sector full of drive and potential.
“This activity reflects the dynamism and commitment to entrepreneurship in the sector,” he said.
Image: CARM
