Spain’s own travellers stopped being the engine of this coast a long time ago. Spanish residents filled 2,408,701 hotel places in the province of Málaga in 2008 and only 2,135,378 in 2025, which is fewer people than seventeen years earlier.
The province recorded 6,301,675 hotel guests in 2025, a figure Spain’s statistics office has tracked monthly since 1999, which makes 25 years of comparable series. Splitting it by residence turns a flat headline into two opposite stories: foreign arrivals climbed from 2.5 to 4.2 million while the domestic market shrank.
Where is the growth in Málaga tourism coming from? Entirely from abroad. Foreign guests rose from 2,509,095 in 2008 to 4,166,296 in 2025, while Spanish residents fell from 2,408,701 to 2,135,378 over the same span. Foreign visitors were 51 per cent of the total in 2008 and are about 66 per cent now.
A domestic market that has not grown in seventeen years
Splitting the series by residence turns a flat headline into two opposite stories, and only one of them is a growth story.
| Year | Spanish residents | Residents abroad | Foreign share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 2000 | 1,297,758 guests | 2,000,889 guests | 60.7 per cent |
| Year 2008 | 2,408,701 guests | 2,509,095 guests | 51.0 per cent |
| Year 2019 | 2,227,277 guests | 3,594,081 guests | 61.7 per cent |
| Year 2025 | 2,135,378 guests | 4,166,296 guests | 66.1 per cent |
The Spanish column peaks in 2008 and never returns to it. The foreign column adds roughly 1.66 million guests across the same seventeen years.
That 2008 reading is worth pausing on for another reason: it is the only point in the series where the two markets were nearly level, at 51 per cent foreign. Before and after, this is a majority-foreign destination.
And now the headline has stalled too
On the combined figure the province is at its record, and standing still. It logged 6,263,908 guests in 2023, 6,300,504 in 2024 and 6,301,675 in 2025.
That is 36,596 added in the first step and 1,171 in the second, against a base above six million. Three consecutive years now sit at effectively the same level.
This is not a decline, and it should not be read as one. What has gone is the growth, after a long run in which each year comfortably beat the last.
Two collapses the series shows clearly
The long view contains two drops, and neither needs interpreting.
The financial crisis is the first. The province came off 4,917,794 guests in 2008, fell to 4,137,986 in 2009 and 4,096,572 in 2010, and did not approach the old level again until 2013, at 4,575,703.
The pandemic is deeper and shorter. 2020 recorded 1,855,772 guests against 5,821,358 in 2019. 2021 reached 3,393,894 and 2022 managed 5,673,103, still short of 2019. It took until 2023, at 6,263,908, to pass the pre-pandemic mark.
What this survey counts, and what it misses
The hotel occupancy survey run by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística measures hotel establishments only. Tourist flats, registered apartments and stays with family are all outside it, and on this coast they carry real weight.
That matters when reading the three-year plateau. The series says hotels have stopped growing, not that tourism has, because whatever happens outside hotels does not appear here. The hotel-against-apartment split by resort is in holiday apartments against hotels.
It also cannot separate holidaymakers from business travellers, or count how often the same person returns. The month-by-month picture is in when Málaga is busiest and the resort ranking in which Costa del Sol resort gets the most visitors.
When this plateau stops being true
The figures come from the hotel occupancy survey of the Instituto Nacional de Estadística, provincial table, with a monthly series available from 1999 and complete years running to 2025.
The institute warns that, because of updates to its establishment directories, figures from different years are not directly comparable. The series is for reading shape, not for computing decimals.
The trigger for rewriting this is the close of 2026. If the total moves by less than fifty thousand again, a two-year plateau becomes a four-year trend and the article changes its tone. Arrivals by air, which follow a different calendar and a different unit, are in Málaga airport passenger numbers, and the bed stock behind these guests in Costa del Sol hotels. Moving between the province’s destinations is covered in getting around Málaga.
Frequently asked questions about Málaga tourism figures
Where is the growth in Málaga tourism coming from?
Entirely from abroad. Foreign hotel guests in the province rose from 2,509,095 in 2008 to 4,166,296 in 2025, while Spanish residents fell from 2,408,701 to 2,135,378 across the same period.
How many people stay in Málaga hotels each year?
6,301,675 guests stayed in hotels across the province in 2025, on figures from Spain’s national statistics office. In 2000 the total was 3,298,647, so it has roughly doubled in twenty-five years.
Is tourism in Málaga still growing?
The headline has flattened. The province added 36,596 guests between 2023 and 2024 and only 1,171 between 2024 and 2025, against a base above six million, so three consecutive years sit at the same level.
What share of Málaga hotel guests are foreign?
About 66 per cent in 2025, up from 60.7 per cent in 2000. The lowest point in the series was 2008, when Spanish and foreign guests were almost evenly matched at 51 per cent foreign.
Two markets, one headline. Only one of them has been growing for the last seventeen years.