page_title: Andalusia
section_title: Tourism in Andalusia
hierarchical_section_title: Andalusia / Economy / Tertiary sector: services / Tourism in Andalusia
caption_attribution_description: English: Royal Collegiate Church of Santa María la Mayor in Antequera, Andalusia, Spain. View of Antequera town on the right. Peña de los Enamorados ("The Lovers' Rock") mountain in the background on the right. Español: Real Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor, Antequera, Andalucía, España. Polski: Kolegiata Santa María la Mayor, Antequera, Andaluzja, Hiszpania. Widok na Antequerę po prawej stronie. Góra Peña de los Enamorados ("Skała Zakochanych") w tle po prawej.
context_page_description: Andalusia region is the southern autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous, and the second largest autonomous community in the country. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The territory is divided into eight provinces: Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and Seville. Its capital is the city of Seville. The seat of the High Court of Justice of Andalusia is located in the city of Granada.
  Andalusia is located in the south of the Iberian peninsula, in southwestern Europe, immediately south of the autonomous communities of Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha; west of the autonomous community of Murcia and the Mediterranean Sea; east of Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean; and north of the Mediterranean Sea and the Strait of Gibraltar. Andalusia is the only European region with both Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines. The small British overseas territory of Gibraltar shares a three-quarter-mile land border with the Andalusian portion of the province of Cádiz at the eastern end of the Strait of Gibraltar.
context_section_description: Due in part to the relatively mild winter and spring climate, the south of Spain is attractive to overseas visitors–especially tourists from Northern Europe. While inland areas such as Jaén, Córdoba and the hill villages and towns remain relatively untouched by tourism, the coastal areas of Andalusia have heavy visitor traffic for much of the year.
  Among the autonomous communities, Andalusia is second only to Catalonia in tourism, with nearly 30 million visitors every year. The principal tourist destinations in Andalusia are the Costa del Sol and (secondarily) the Sierra Nevada. As discussed above, Andalusia is one of the sunniest and warmest places in Europe, making it a center of "sun and sand" tourism, but not only it. Around 70 percent of the lodging capacity and 75 percent of the nights booked in Andalusian hotels are in coastal municipalities. The largest number of tourists come in August—13.26 percent of the nights booked throughout the year—and the smallest number in December—5.36 percent.
  On the west (Atlantic) coast are the Costa de la Luz (provinces of Huelva and Cádiz), and on the east (Mediterranean) coast, the Costa del Sol (provinces of Cádiz y Málaga), Costa Tropical (Granada and part of Almería) and the Costa de Almería. In 2004, the Blue Flag beach program of the non-profit Foundation for Environmental Education recognized 66 Andalusian beaches and 18 pleasure craft ports as being in a good state of conservation in terms of sustainability, accessibility, and quality. Nonetheless, the level of tourism on the Andalusian coasts has been high enough to have a significant environmental impact, and other organizations—such as the Spanish Ecologists in Action (Ecologistas en Acción) with their description of "Black Flag beaches" or Greenpeace—have expressed the opposite sentiment. Still, Hotel chains such as Fuerte Hotels have ensured that sustainability within the tourism industry is one of their highest priorities.
  Together with "sand and sun" tourism, there has also been a strong increase in nature tourism in the interior, as well as cultural tourism, sport tourism, and conventions. One example of sport and nature tourism is the ski resort at Sierra Nevada National Park.
  As for cultural tourism, there are hundreds of cultural tourist destinations: cathedrals, castles, forts, monasteries, and historic city centers and a wide variety of museums.
  It can be highlighted that Spain has seven of its 42 cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Andalucia:
  Alhambra, Generalife and Albayzín, Granada (1984,1994)
  Antequera Dolmens Site (2016)
  10th Century Caliphate City of Medina Azahara (2018)
  Cathedral, Alcázar and Archivo de Indias in Seville (1987)
  Historic Centre of Cordoba (1984,1994)
  Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda and Baeza (2003)
  Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula (1998)
  Further, there are the Lugares colombinos, significant places in the life of Christopher Columbus: Palos de la Frontera, La Rábida Monastery, and Moguer) in the province of Huelva. There are also archeological sites of great interest: the Roman city of Italica, birthplace of Emperor Trajan and (most likely) Hadrian or Baelo Claudia near Tarifa.
  Andalusia was the birthplace of such great painters as Velázquez and Murillo (Seville) and, more recently, Picasso (Málaga); Picasso is memorialized by his native city at the Museo Picasso Málaga and Natal House Foundation; the Casa de Murillo was a house museum 1982–1998, but is now mostly offices for the Andalusian Council of Culture. The CAC Málaga (Museum of Modern Art) is the most visited museum of Andalusia and has offered exhibitions of artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Gerhard Richter, Anish Kapoor, Ron Mueck or Rodney Graham. Malaga is also located part of the private Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection at Carmen Thyssen Museum.
  There are numerous other significant museums around the region, both of paintings and of archeological artifacts such as gold jewelry, pottery and other ceramics, and other works that demonstrate the region's ar
caption: Royal Collegiate Church of Santa María la Mayor in Antequera.
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