Hotels: Overnight Stays Rose By 2.9% In 2014 And Prices Rose By 1.4%

23 January 2015 – Expansión

Overnight stays at Spanish hotels amounted to 294.4 million in 2014, an increase of 2.9% compared with 2013, whilst prices rose by 1.4%, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

This increase in overnight stays was driven both by Spanish residents, whose overnight stays increased by 3.5%, to account for 50.8% of the total, as well as by overseas visitors, who accounted for 35.4% of the total and whose overnight stays rose by 2.6%. The year-on-year increase in overnight stays was 1 percentage point higher than last year (1.9%), and 67.6% of all overnight stays were concentrated in the May to October period.

These annual figures were calculated after Spanish hotels recorded 13.9 million overnight stays during the month of December, up 2.9% on the same month in 2013, with an increase of 6.2% in Spanish resident guests and a 0.6% increase in overseas visitors.

Andalucia (+4.8%), Valencia (+0.2%), Cataluña (+8.1%) and Madrid (+12.9%) were the main destinations for Spanish resident travellers in 2014. By contrast, the main destination chosen by visitors from overseas were the Canary Islands, which accounted for 28.9% of all overnight stays, an increase of 7.9% on the previous year. The next most popular destinations were the Balearic Islands (25.4% of the total) and Cataluña (18.9% of the total), however the number of overnight stays in these regions decreased by 3.3% and 0.9%, respectively.

During 2014, the average occupancy rate was 54.8%, an increase of 3.3% with respect to 2013; this figure increased to 60% on weekends, up by 3.4%.

The Balearic Islands recorded the highest occupancy rate during the year (74.2%), followed by the Canary Islands (73.7%) and Cataluña (56.2%). The main tourist areas, by number of overnight stays, were the islands of Majorca and Tenerife, with 40.4 million and 23.9 million overnight stays, respectively, and the area of Barcelona, with 18.3 million.

Visitors from the UK and Germany accounted for more than 94 million of the overnight hotel stays last year, which represents half of all of the overnight stays by overseas visitors.

The number of overnight stays by visitors from France, Russia and Italy (the next most important source countries) recorded year-on-year growth rates of 7.8%, -15% and 5.4%, respectively. The source countries with the highest growth rates in terms of overnight stays were Portugal, Finland, Poland, Greece and the Czech Republic, whilst the source countries that recorded the lowest growth rates were Russia, Luxembourg, Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands.

The annual Hotel Price Index (HPI) amounted to 1.4% in 2014, which was 1.7 points higher than in 2013, after prices rose by 0.7% in December, i.e. by 0.4 points less than in previous months, but by 0.6 points more than a year ago.

The autonomous regions that experienced the highest price increases last year were the Canary Islands (2.9%), Valencia (2.6) and Andalucía (2.2%). At the opposite end, Asturias (-2.3%) and Castilla-La Mancha (-1.4%) recorded the greatest price decreases.

Average daily revenue per occupied hotel room (ADR) was €74.50 and the average daily revenue per available room (RevPAR), which depends on the occupancy rates recorded in hotels, was €44.10.

By hotel category, the average daily revenue per room was €163.20 for 5-star hotels, €81.10 for 4-star hotels and €60 for 3-star hotels. Revenue per available room for these same categories amounted to €106.20, €55.50 and €38.50, respectively.

 Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake