Super helpful member
Walking around Los Alcazares (and Los Narejos in particular) I am fearing for its survival as a resort. The restaurants hardly have any clients, and are closing for the winter earlier than I have known them do. Although great efforts have been made to disguise the affects of the Gota Fria floods the beach is in an awful state, and it looks like it will be many years before anyone will want to bathe in the Mar Menor.
A major cause of the lack of visitors must be the closure of San javier airport, and the virtual closure of Corvera from many destinations, forcing visitors to fly to Alicante adding time and costs to their holiday. More will be hiring cars to get from either airport, and use this to spend their days and evenings at more attractive resorts like La Zenia beach, Cabo de Palos and so on. Families with children have always been badly catered for and with no beach surely will look to spend their family holidays elsewhere - Majorca, Costa del Sol, Italy, wherever.
Couple the foregoing with the increased risk of muggings, especially around the Hotel 525 area - not helped by the total lack of CCTV and the very poor street lighting and many more will vote with their feet. Even the closure of the shoe and handbag shop next to the Cajamar ATM has left a large area with little light - perfect for muggers.
One restauranter that I was talking to was quite clear that to maintain his 6 or 7 staff he must serve 100 meals a day, and is doing nothing like that.
Most of the problems are only solvable with regional government steps and possibly national government money, or the local economy will revert to agriculture alone.