Irish holidaymakers travelling to the south of Spain willencounter an increased security presence in response to the threat from the Basque nationalist group ETA.
The chief of Spain's national police has promised local tourism bosses that he will step up anti-terrorist measures on the Costa del Sol, following the discovery of a bomb at malaga Airport last week.
Director general Mr Juan Cotino said the resorts on the Mediterranean coast, which are visited by tens thousands of Irish holidaymakers each year, were still safe.
At a meeting with the hotel sector in Malaga yesterday, he pledged there would be special police operations throughout the summer, Spanish newspaper El Mundoreported.
Basque separatists ETA planted the car bomb a week ago at Malaga airport, the gateway to the Costa del Sol, which was defused just 15 minutes before it was due to explode.
Mr Cotino said: "If we have already increased the number of national police officers sent to the zone, now we will be intensifying security measures to stop the greater number of terrorist activities."
He added that many local police forces had already doubled or even trebled the number of policemen on duty in the threatened area over the past year.
Police intelligence had led to the successful prevention of a tragedy at Malaga airport and had thwarted a number of other terrorist schemes, he said.
But ETA was now targeting young recruits in its campaign to wreck the Spanish tourist industry, who operated only at weekends and during the holidays.
Worried representatives from about 200 hotels were at the meeting amid fears that their business could be badly hit by the ETA menace.
But the president of the Association of Hotel Business Managers of the Costa del Sol, Mr Miguel Sanchez, claimed the terrorists' bomb threats had produced "not one" negative effect on the Costa del Sol, El Mundo said.
Resort authorities would collaborate with police to share all information in a bid to prevent possible attacks on tourist targets. The information could well "save a life", Mr Cotino told the meeting.
PA