Spain’s hotels had a busy August
The number of overnight stays in Spain increased by 3.8% in August, when compared to the same month of 2015, to reach 46.4 million overnight stays.
Overnight stays by Spanish residents fell by 0.3%, while overnight stays by foreign residents increased by 6.3%, according to the latest data from the National Statistics Institute.
For the summer period (July and August) the number of overnight stays increased by 5.4% when compared to the same period last year. During this period, overnight stays by residents increased by 2.4%, while those by non-residents rose by 7.2%.
Cumulatively, for the first eight months of the year total overnight stays increased by 7.8% when compared to the same period in 2015.
Destinations
The most popular areas for travellers who are resident in Spain were Andalusia, Catalonia, Valencia and Galicia. Annual variations in those areas were -4.7%, 2.3%, -0.8% and 5.8%, respectively.
For non-residents the most popular area was the Balearic Islands which accounted for 34.6% of all overnight stays. On the islands, overnight stays by foreign residents increased by 3%, when compared to August 2015. Catalonia was next accounting for 21.4% of overnight stays, an increase of 4.3%. The Canary Islands took 19.8% of the total representing an increase of 10.7%.
Hotel Occupancy
In August, 78% of available rooms were occupied, an annual increase of 2.2%. For weekend occupancy by places, hoteliers recorded 80.4% occupancy, an increase of 4.2%.
By tourist-area, the island of Mallorca achieved the highest occupancy by places with 93%. The highest weekend occupancy was recorded in Ibiza where 93.7% of place were occupied. The Costa del Sol had the most overnight stays with 2.5 million.
Travellers Origin
Travellers from the UK accounted for the most non-resident overnight stays with 27.2% of the total. German tourists accounted for 21.1% of the total. The UK market grew by 9.4% while the German market showed growth of 1.4%.
Overnight stays by travellers from France, Italy and the Netherlands also increased with annual variations of 0.6%, 1.6% and 20.4%, respectively.
