Tag: Turespaña

The Chinese Overtake the Germans in Hotel Investments in Mallorca

21 March 2019 – El Cierre Digital

Since 2014, when a large Chinese company, Jiangsu GPRO, acquired the historical Valparaíso Palace hotel in Mallorca, interest from Chinese investors and tourists in the Balearic Island has soared.

Until then, some Chinese people had moved to live on the island but they had done so to create small businesses, above all in the Pere Grarau district, to form a small community of almost 4,500.

Since GPRO’s purchase of Valparaíso Palace, Chinese business people have been investing more in the island; the Balearic Government has been promoting different areas as backdrops for Chinese films; and now, plans are afoot for direct flights to begin between China and Palma de Mallorca with a layover in Barcelona or Valencia. The intention is to increase the holiday offering for Chinese tourists in the Balearic Islands.

Chinese companies are also interested in investing in the Par Bit technological park just north of Palma. They are committed to improving their image in the region and creating jobs.

Turespaña forecasts that by 2025, China will be the country with most tourists travelling the world, with around 220 million per year.

Original story: El Cierre Digital (by David González)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Spanish Government Fears a Slowdown in Tourism Due to Fall in Arrivals by Germans and British

31 August 2018

COMPETITION FROM GREECE, EGYPT AND TURKEY / “The symptoms of the slowdown we have observed are beginning to consolidate,” Turespaña expects the year to end with “very moderate, zero or negative growth.”

The Government of Pedro Sanchez has added its voice to the experts forecasting a turbulent year for tourism, believing that the sector could end the year with “very moderate, zero or negative growth.”

Successive falls in the main indicators (e.g. hotel occupancy rates, overnight stays, prices) and comments by representatives of the sector, such as Exceltur, sounded the alarm several months ago, warning that the sector was in the throes of a slowdown.

“The behaviour of our three major emitting markets, and that of Italy, the Netherlands and the US, can tilt the balance between very moderate growth and zero or negative growth,” the Spanish government warned through Turespaña in its Quarterly Prospective Report for International Tourism, published at the end of August.

“We must not forget that 2017 was an absolute record year across the board,” sources at the Ministry for Industry, Trade and Tourism said in statements to this newspaper. In 2017, Spain received almost 82 million tourists, a figure that made Spain a world leader in international arrivals, only behind France.

Even so, the forecast for arrivals for the period from July to October is positive, with an estimated increase of 2.4% in the number of tourists, for a total number of arrivals for this period nearing 38 million.

The report notes that “the symptoms of the slowdown we have observed are beginning to consolidate.” The problem is that Spain’s two principal emitting markets for tourists both began to opt for other destinations. The price of oil, the appreciation of the euro, the effects of Brexit and the insecurity generated by the independence movement in Catalonia are some of the proximate causes. In July, the number of German tourists who visited Spain fell by 11%, and the number of British arrivals fell by 6%. Between July and October, Turespaña expects British tourists to fall by 4.2%, and overnight stays by Germans will fall by 5.1%.

German tourists begin to replace Spain with Greece as a destination. “Although it is less well-known than Spain, it gets higher marks ​​in the minds of German tourists as a unique destination,” says another report by Turespaña. In the case of British tourists, Turkey and Egypt have recovered their shares of the reservations of tour operators, to the detriment of Spain, which registered a fall of 4% in reservations between July and October, losing a 3.6%-share.

Turespaña does expect that tourist spending will continue to increase at a good pace, with an expected increase of 5.3% between July and October. “We are working to attract tourists with greater purchasing power and to lengthen their stays to increase spending,” they explain.

Original Story: ProOrbyt Expansión – I. Benedito

Translation: Richard Turner

 

Ifema Wins the Concession to Operate Madrid’s Palacio de Congresos

18 January 2018 – Eje Prime

(…) Ifema has been awarded the concession to operate the ‘Palacio de Congresos‘ in Madrid for the next 50 years, according to confirmation provided on Thursday by the Mayor of the Spanish capital, Manuela Carmena, and the President of the Community of Madrid, Cristina Cifuentes. The public entity will invest more than €50 million to revive the property, which has a surface area of 40,000 m2, and which has been in disuse since 2011.

Coincidentally, the presentation of this agreement was made in one of Ifema’s existing conference spaces in Madrid, where the International Tourism Fair (‘Feria Internacional de Turismo’ or Fitur) was being held. The work that needs to be undertaken on the asset, which is located on Paseo de la Castellana, could take until 2019 when the management firm hopes to be able to restart activity at the venue.

Moreover, Ifema has already confirmed that the space will be occupied by the World Tourism Organisation (‘Organización Mundial del Turismo’ or OMT), as reported by Eje Prime. Ifema’s interest in the space goes way back, given that last summer it was holding negotiations to obtain the concession for its management with Turespaña, the public body responsible for the ‘Palacio de Congresos’.

In recent months, Ifema came up against a competitor in the bid that it had previously been set to win. Not in vain, although the French group GL Events, which manages the Barcelona Convention Centre, amongst others, offered €40 million for the conference space in Madrid, but Ifema, as a public consortium, was not required to participate in an open adjudication process to secure the concession.

Now, with the ‘Palacio de Congresos’ in its portfolio, Ifema now has a monopoly over the conference spaces in Madrid, since it already controls the ‘Palacio Municipal’ and the exhibition venue in the Spanish capital.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake