The first settlements in La Vila Joiosa date back from the Bronze Age. The hill where the Old Town is located nowasdays was an Iberian town, and there are well-founded reasons to identify Villajoyosa with the Alonis of the classic texts. The Department of Archeology has plenty of quotidian and militar material resulting from the archeological dig on the Poble Nou Necropolis (6th Century).

 

During the Roman era, the area reached its economic and cultural peak. This results on the identification of the city with Alonis. From this period, a lot of archaeological rests that you can see visiting the Archaeological Museum have been left by the romans to us. During the Middle Age the coast was uninhabited because of the constant pirate raids, and in the 8th century the Southeastern coastal regions, known as Levante, were islamized. In 1300, the Admiral of Jaume II, king of Aragón, Bernat d'en Sarriá, founds this town. La Vila Joiosa means "The Joyous Town", an attractive name for the new Christian settlers from the peninsular North East.

 

The town used to have a castle with towers on the corners for protection and surveillance. Today, we can see the walls of the castle, from the 16th century, wich are one of the best kept examples of the first military architecture of the Renaissance in Spain.

 

According to the tradition, the inhabitants of La Vila Joiosa asked for the intercession of the Saint of the day to reject an important Berber attack. Since that day, the 29th of July was declared as the day of Santa Marta, wich is part of the "Moros y Cristianos" (Moors and Christians) celebration, from 24th to the 31st July. This dates back as far as 1694, and reached the statement of International Tourist Interest.

 

NEWS

 

 The Tourist Info La Vila Joiosa offers a welcome and information service and for those who require it in the destination. Their function is the promotion of La Vila Joiosa with the help of the tourist businesses to consolidate it as a quality tourist place, focusing in its 4 pillars:

1. Sun and beach: With the Blue Flag Certificate (5 beaches, Centre, Varadero, Paraís, Bol Nou andla Caleta) and Qualitur and ISOS 14.000 y 9.000 at the 11 beaches of our town.
2. Culture: With the valorisation to the Archeological rests. The Stara of construction of the new archeologic museum, and collaboration with the MARQ to expose our archaelogical remains.
3. Festivities: With the consolidation of ours as Festival of International Tourist Interest, winner of a CICOP Award as Intangible Heritage of Humanity and approved unanimously by the Plenary as Property of Cultural Interest, after being proposed by the Valencian Culture Ministry. We met 6.224 for festivities in July.
4. Gastronomy: With the consolidation of the quality mark La Vila Gastronómica including: Xocolatísima, Concurso de Pebrereta and the 12th edition of the Semana de la Cuina Marinera, con G de Tapas,  as well as the creation of new gastronomic events (Setmana de l’arròs).

The aim of these four pillars is to go beyond seasonal tourism and to diversify our offer.

The hotel establishments in the city had a total of 117366  overnight stays in 2011.

Touris Info La Vila met 37441 visits in this period, 19650 of them were from nationals, and 17791 international.

The total amount of visitors at Tourist Info La Vilareached 28484; 15839 of whom were nationals. It is important to underline that 40 % of the visitors were local, showing that we are not offering just a service to the tourist, but also to the inhabitants of La Vila Joiosa, and a 20 % from Madrid. 41.3 % of the national visitors asked for local information.

12645 of the amount of visitors were from outsisde our borders (37% from France, 32% from UK, and an 13% from Scandinavia) 

Our promotion of 2011:

1. attendance at international tourism fair(FITUR)
2. Presentation of Comunitat Valenciana’s international tourism fair in our town.
3. Attendance at Comunitat Valenciana’s international tourism.
4. Reprinting brochueres of our town.
5. Collaboration in Expofiesta for the promotion of our Moors and Christians Festivity.
6. The  43º Comunitat Valenciana’s assembly of bands.
7. Not forgetting obtain a certificate of quality tourism (Q) at the Touirst Info.