Over the course of the past few years, the Spanish property industry has been subjected to substantial negative publicity on the back of issues such as the global credit crunch and the Eurozone crisis. In keeping with many other traditional property destinations, this has resulted in a considerable fall in the prices of property in Alicante, with average decreases in the region of 25-35% throughout the region. Just recently however, speculation has surfaced amongst people debating whether these lower prices now represent the perfect time to buy a property in Alicante.

In order to full evaluate the opportunity, it's necessary to first fully appreciate the regions position and status within the Spanish tourism industry. Over the course of the past few years, we have seen a substantial growth in the number of low cost airlines offering cheap flights to destinations such as Alicante and Valencia. Today, flights into these two major airports are daily from a wide number of major European travel hubs including the UK, Germany, France and throughout the rest of Europe. The result of this boom in low cost flights to the region has seen the Alicante tourism industry hosting over 3 million visitors to the region every year, making it one of Europe's most popular destinations.

So what does this mean to Alicante as a region? The simple answer to this is in excess of?8 billion per annum in tourist revenue in 2011, with the average tourist spend per holiday just over?1,000.00. Putting these figures in the context of one of the most considerable economic downturns of the past fifty years goes some way to suggesting how robust the appeal of the Alicante tourism industry really is.

On the back of this growth, there has been considerable development in destinations such as Javea, Ciudad Quesada, Denia, Algorfa and Alicante city. From removed from the fishing villages and trading centres of yesterday, these locations are now major tourist resorts, with settled infrastructures designed to cope with the large annual influx of visitors into the region.

It would be remiss to ignore the continuing economic pressures of the Eurozone crisis, and whilst there remains uncertainty as to the outcome of this there will remain a downwards pressure on the prices of property in Alicante. However, it would be fair to say that this issue is a continuation of the global credit crunch which started the downward spiral of Spanish property prices towards the end of 2008, and as such that the market has already priced in these factors in the Alicante region.

With prices of property in Alicante at what many now see as bottoming out, it would be prudent to assume that the strength of the Spanish (and in particular Alicante) tourism industry will result in a resurgence in the near future. Whilst few doubt that we will see a return to pre-crisis prices, it would be fair to say that many properties for sale in Alicante at present offer the substantial capital appreciation in the years to come.