Caution on Costa over troubles at Thomas Cook

The hotel sector on the Costa del Sol has reacted this week with measured concern over the financial troubles of leading tour operator Thomas Cook.

Thomas Cook saw its six-month losses to March rise to 1.9 billion euros compared to 283 million euros a year earlier.

The firm is currently trying to sell its airline business to help liquidity.

Unlike other areas of Spain, such as the Balearics or Canary Islands, not many hotels on the Costa del Sol rely on Thomas Cook for business, which means the local accommodation sector is not as worried as some.

President of the Costa hoteliers association, Luis Callejón Suñé, admitted that the industry is worried about what might happen but that companies locally were not overly concerned. Hotels working with Thomas Cook were all being paid on time, he said.

"Even so, all the problems of an operator like this affect us as they carry a lot of customers in Europe. However the younger generations already travel via other [booking] channels, so these big groups are being forced to speed up their transformation as tourism is changing in leaps and bounds," he explained.