A full Easter but with a turnover below 2019

Easter 2022 hangs the ‘everything complete’ sign. The interior, the north, the archipelagos and, of course, the coast have registered tourist occupations of between 80% and 100%, with a recovery of tourist reservations to the level prior to the pandemic. National tourism has worked very well, but so has international tourism, with Spain being “one of the four most sought-after countries in the world as a tourist destination,” the Prime Minister himself confirmed in an interview on Monday.

The arrival of British has exceeded the pre-pandemic figures by 12% for the same dates, but also the Danes (+42%), Swedes (36%), Germans (31%) and Colombians (29%) improved reservations compared to Holy Week 2019, with data from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism. “The data is frankly positive” despite the difficult situation that the country is going through due to the war and the rise in prices, which “reduces the purchasing power” of the citizens, assured Pedro Sánchez.

But this decrease is being noticed by the sector, which although it stresses that the occupation has reached “practically 100%”, there has been a drop in the average spending of tourists. From Hospitality of Spain they confirm to this newspaper that reservations have recovered figures from 2019, with full terraces, but where “containment in spending” by citizens has been noted. This, together with the skyrocketing costs of the electricity bill and raw materials, means that billing is still “approximately 20% below the pre-pandemic volume.”

The latest data from the INE confirm a rise in the price of oil of 32% in one year, 11% in the case of eggs and milk or 9% for coffee. The hoteliers assure that although the greatest expense is taken by electricity, they suffer from “shooting” prices in all their products that subtracts profit margin from their businesses. For this reason, for the summer they have good expectations, with a “total” recovery thanks to the definitive consolidation of international tourism, but they hope that the “misalignment” between the good numbers of tourist arrivals corresponds to the improvement in the turnover of their businesses.

Forecasts have been exceeded

From the Secretary of State for Tourism they confirm that, especially in destinations frequented by national tourists, hotel occupancy rates of “up to 100%” have been registered, both in destinations in the north and south, on the Mediterranean coast, the islands and inside the country. This is the case of Andalusia, where the vice president of the Board confirmed that “the entire community has been close to full”, with figures similar to those before the pandemic.

In this sense, Juan Marín confirms that the occupation “has widely exceeded forecasts”, which is “magnificent news” because tourism is “the economic engine that we needed to strengthen the recovery.”

Thus, both the tourism sector and the institutions trust to exceed the data of the historic 2019 at the end of the year, since the forecast of reservations for the entire year exceeds by 5% those of that pre-pandemic year that left more than 154,700 million euros of tourism GDP.