Spain’s hotels were 54.4% full in April
April saw 23.3 million overnight stays registered in Spain’s hotels, representing a 1.3% increase over the same period in 2015. Cumulatively, for the first quarter of 2016 the number of overnight stays has increased by 9.3%, when compared to Q1 2015.
Spanish residents seemed to favour staying home, or in other types of accommodation, as they recorded a decrease in hotel stays of 13.3%, while non-resident stays increased by 11.5%.
The average length of a stay was 3.1 nights per traveller which is an increase of 1.2% when compared to April 2015, according to the data released by the National Institute of Statistics.
With Semana Santa (Easter) coming early this year it is interesting to note that the number of overnight stays recorded over March and April also increased, showing 8.6% more overnight hotel stays than in the same two months in 2015. For this period, non-resident stays increased by 12.8% while overnight stays in hotels by residents increased by 2.7%.
Destinations
The main destinations of travellers who are resident in Spain were Andalusia, Catalonia, Valencia and Madrid, although all saw annual falls in the number of stays. Andalusia saw a 7.8% decline, the smallest decline of the top four, while Madrid saw the largest annual fall with a 12.7% decrease.
For non-residents, the favourite destination was the Canary Islands which accounted for 31.9% of all overnight stays by non-resident travellers. This represents an increase of 14.8%, when compared to April 2015. Catalonia accounted for 17.7% of stays, an increase of 0.9%, while Andalusia increased by 17.5%, to account for 15.9% of the total.
Hotel Occupancy
Hoteliers recorded an occupancy rate of 54.4% of available places in April, representing an annual increase of 2.4%.
The Canary Islands also topped this chart claiming 75.6% occupancy in April, followed by the Balearic Islands with 67%, and Madrid, where 59.4% of available rooms were occupied. However, the island of Mallorca had the highest number of overnight stays with more than 2.4 million recorded in April, while the highest weekend occupancy rate was seen on the mainland, in Benidorm, with 83.6%.
Country of Origin
Travellers from the UK and Germany accounted for the majority of non-resident travellers with 23.8% and 21.5% of overnight stays, respectively. The UK market showed an annual increase of 18.1% while the number of German travellers increased by 4.8%.
Travellers from France, the Netherlands and Italy also showed significant increases with figures rising by 20.3%, 43.4% and 9.1%, respectively.
Hotel Prices
The annual rate of the Hotel Price Index (HPI) stood at 2.9% in April, 1.7 points below the previous month and the same as the rate in the same month in 2015.
In terms of autonomous communities, the Canary Islands, Catalonia and Andalusia saw the highest increases in costs through April with an annual increase of 3.7%, 6.4% and 1.9%, respectively. Meanwhile, in the Balearic Islands, prices fell by 1.1%.
The daily average turnover of hotels per occupied room was 73.5 euros in April, representing an increase of 3.3% over the same month in 2015. The average daily revenue by available room increased by 7.3% to 44.7 euros.
By hotel category, the average turnover was 171.4 euros for five-star accommodation, 77.3 euros for four-stars, and 55.7 for three-star hotels. Revenue per available room for the same categories was 113.5, 55.3 and 35.5 euros, respectively.
