Lloret de Mar‘s sports facilities are at full capacity over the Easter holidays. More than 13,000 sportspeople and their companions are in town to take part in and enjoy various events such as the MIC Football international grassroots football tournament with 5,800 people, including sportspeople, organisers and companions staying at different hotels in the town; the Sant Jaume football tournament with 1,980 participants; the Lloret Cup Handball tournament with 1,780 participants; and the Globasket tournament with 1,500 participants. Also noteworthy is the large number of sports stays, a total of 62, mainly in football and athletics, with a total of 1,950 people from international markets such as the Nordic countries, the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Israel in the case of football stays, and Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Holland, France, Iceland, Belgium and Sweden in the case of athletics stays.
For Ana Garcia Castany “These Easter figures show the full recovery of sports tourism that we have already seen at the beginning of the year”. In the first quarter of 2023, Lloret de Mar’s municipal sports facilities received 70% more international sportspeople than in the same period in 2022 and 9% more than in 2019. In total, from January to March, 6,029 athletes have passed through the sports facilities.
Today Lloret Turisme also organised the sports tourism round table, made up of the tourism promotion body and the various certified and affiliated private members, to present the 2023 action plan and the 2022 report. As for last year’s figures, 65,000 people (35,043 sportspeople and 30,106 accompanying persons) passed through the sports facilities, an increase of 6.4% compared to 2019, and Lloret de Mar hosted 323 activities. The high impact of sporting events also stands out, with 36,040 people attending, 55% of the total number of sports tourists.
The peak months were April (7,024 sportspeople) and June (7,003 sportspeople), with football, athletics, swimming, triathlon, cycling and basketball training camps being the most popular. France, Catalonia, Norway and Sweden are the most popular markets, although as Elizabeth Keegan, manager of Lloret Turisme, explains, “the nationalities also depend on the type of sport they normally practise, due to the sporting tradition of each of the countries of origin”. In this sense, for example, in the case of athletics, France stands out, followed by Catalonia and Germany; in the case of football, Nordic countries such as Sweden, Norway and Switzerland; for swimming, France, Norway and Germany; for triathlon, France; and for cycling, France, Belgium, Holland and Poland. In terms of the type of competition, sporting events account for 76% of the total number of sporting activities held in Lloret de Mar, followed by private tournaments with 15%.
In 2023 Lloret Turisme continues to focus on sports tourism and cycle tourism, with a presence at specialised European trade fairs such as Fahrrad&Wandereisen, the Copenhagen Bike Show and Sea Otter, as well as collaboration and logistical support for strategic sporting events and sports tour operators. As Elizabeth Keegan explains, “the combination of strategic public-private partnerships is one of our key strengths. For example, this spring TUI Sports is launching an operation in Lloret that will bring different sports groups to practice road cycling and paddle tennis both now and in the autumn, and we have closed a full sports calendar with different top-level events in modalities such as trail, cycling, handball, basketball and football”. There will also be collaborations with content creators, famtrips with different French federations through the sports media sport.fr and the design of swimming and triathlon publications.
Since 2006, Lloret de Mar has been certified as a Sports Tourism Destination for football, athletics, cycling, swimming, team sports and triathlon. The municipality currently has 12 accommodation companies and 2 incoming agencies certified in sports tourism by the Catalan Tourism Agency, as well as 17 establishments and 2 incoming agencies certified in cycle tourism.
