THE COMPLEMENTARY TOURIST OFFER

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The success of a tourist area largely depends on the complementary offers it has. In times when the demands of tourism are changing and are much more demanding, the role played by the complementary offer is considered to be of extraordinary importance in areas such as the Costa del Sol, where the climate is the determining factor in the use and enjoyment of the open spaces and outdoors. But there are also other different motivations to the passive leisure, rest for rest’s sake, which induce and at the same time attract the tourist to start a journey, or they are conceived as a complement and alternative for the hours which are set aside from the vacacional routine.

Practising a sport, going shopping, visiting a museum, seeing a show, enjoying a good meal, having a few drinks, making an excursion, dancing till late, gambling on a roulette or, simply, sitting with friends and having a chat, are activities which require a good complementary offer like the one offered on practically all of the Malaga coast.

An offer which includes a fun fair and many recreational spaces for youngsters, three aquatic parks, a submarine park, two casinos, a zoo, 2.500 restaurants and about 8.000 cafeterias and bars, more than 200 discotheques, two night clubs, dozens of flamenco bars, nine bullrings, three theatres, more than a dozen art galleries and a similar number of cultural institutions, a score of libraries, a good number of museums, a scuba diving centre, a ski cable, seven bowling alleys, a horse show, more than a hundred car hire firms, four wheel drive vehicles and mopeds, etc., plus a very ample calendar of patron saints festivities and pilgrimages which are celebrated all over the provincial geography.

Maximum fun.- The following complementary offers are the most representative and singular. Most of them are situated on the coast or nearby, such as the fair ground, Tivoli World, which for over 20 years, has been amusing the almost million people every year who visit the installations and splendid gardens which is situated in the town of Arroyo de la Miel, in the municipality of Benalmádena.

The three aquatic parks also make up a good offer which go beyond the provincial limits: Aquapark Torremolinos, which was the first to be built in Spain and since a few years completes its offer with a minigolf unique in its genre; the one in Mijas-Costa, situated on the ringroad of Fuengirola, and Aquavelis, on the eastern coast, between Torre del Mar and Vélez-Málaga. The zoo of Fuengirola, in the town centre and with a good representation of fauna, and the bullfighting rings of Málaga and Ronda, both with their respective bullfighting museums and with a large history behind them, as with the ring in Antequera. Arenas less to do with bulls and more with tourism are Torremolinos, Benalmádena, Fuengirola, Marbella, Nueva Andalucía (Marbella), and Estepona.