Hotel occupancy in 2024 achieves the best result for a first quarter
Review of occupancy data, profitability per available room and personnel employed in the first quarter of the year in hotels
- The national average occupancy rate exceeds 50% and approaches 60% on weekends.
- The number of overnight stays is approaching 60 million, an increase of more than 12% compared to last year.
- The average number of staff employed in the quarter exceeds 180,000 and tops figures from last year and from 2019 by about 10%
Hotels are the accommodation of choice in the market for more than 70% of tourist overnight stays in Spain. Tourist apartments are the second option on the market. They represent almost 20% of foreign tourists' overnight stays and just over 10% of domestic tourists' overnight stays. Among residents, overnight stays in campsites are only 2.5 percentage points lower than overnight stays in tourist apartments.
In the first quarter of 2024, domestic travellers accounted for 52% of those staying in hotels. However, the longer average stays of international tourists mean that they account for around 63% of overnight stays.
What has hotel occupancy been like in the first quarter of 2024?
For the first time in the first quarter of the year, the national occupancy rate exceeds 50% of all rooms, standing at almost 52%. The occupancy rate of rooms on weekends is above 57%, surpassing the record for a first quarter (56% in 2023).
The average occupancy rate at the beginning of this year is significantly higher in all months compared to last year (around 2%). The difference is most noticeable (around 3.5%) in March, which is when Easter occurred in 2024.
The Canary Islands is the region that most stands out in terms of occupancy, filling over 75% of rooms in both of its provinces. Seville (57%), Barcelona (55%), Valencia (53%), Alicante (53%) and Malaga (nearly 52%) are the other provinces that exceed the national average of occupancy for the quarter.
The INE Hotel Occupancy Survey provides data on municipalities considered tourism areas. Among them, all the Canary Islands exceed 70% average occupancy (or are close to it, like Santa Cruz de Tenerife with 67%). Malaga is the next province with the most concentrated number of municipalities with high occupancy (Malaga, Benalmádena and Torremolinos exceed 60%). Naut Aran, Seville, Valencia and Barcelona also exceed this rate.
How have hotel overnight stays performed in the first quarter of 2024?
The year 2024 has started with the best first quarter in terms of number of overnight stays for hotels. Last year's figures have been exceeded by around 12%, and 2019 figures by more than 10%. The improvement has been even more noticeable in terms of international tourists, whose overnight stays in this first quarter exceed those of 2023 by almost 16% and those of pre-pandemic year 2019 by 13%.
For the quarter, the main increase has been in the number of foreign travellers who have chosen hotels as their accommodation, which for the first time in these months has reached 10 million, almost 1.5 million more than in the first quarter of 2023.
The figures for hotel overnight stays have increased in all provinces compared to 2023 except in Guadalajara (7% lower) and Huesca, where the figures are practically the same as in 2023. There are three provinces with a very significant increase: Tarragona (a quarter with 60% improvement over 2023), the Balearic Islands (50% increase in overnight stays, mainly driven by a strong month of March) and Huelva (more than 44% increase in overnight stays). These are destinations with a marked summer season, so despite the increase in overnight stays, their numbers for the first quarter do not represent, in the best of cases, even 20% of the figures for their high season.
Where has the occupancy rate improved the most in the first quarter?
Up to six autonomous communities have improved their hotel occupancy rate by more than the national average of 2%. The region of Valencia stands out as the only one that improved by 5%, followed by the Basque Country, Asturias, Andalusia and the Canary Islands. Only the Balearic Islands and La Rioja have a minimally lower average occupancy rate than in the first quarter of 2023. The decline is just approaching 5% in La Rioja, relating to the weekend occupancy rate.
Among the provinces, the largest increase occurred in Huelva, with a rise of more than 7%. Meanwhile, Alicante and the Basque regions of Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia also improved their occupancy rate by more than 5% in the first quarter. The only significant decreases are related to weekend occupancy in the provinces of Tarragona and Huesca (7%) and Segovia (5%).
Among the tourism areas, Fuengirola, Teruel, Algeciras and Alicante stand out, which in 2024 have a hotel occupancy rate 10% higher than in 2023. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Lloret de Mar, with a drop of 10 percentage points in the occupancy rate due to an occupancy rate of only 35% in January.
Where does the weekend have the greatest effect?
Based on trends in hotel occupancy, it could be said that the northern regions of Spain are destinations mainly sought out for short weekend breaks. In fact, in the Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias, La Rioja and Castile and Leon, the occupancy rate during the weekend is up to 10 points higher than the general occupancy rate. The two archipelagos are where hotel occupancy is least dependent on the weekend. It remains below 5% in the Balearic Islands and is practically non-existent in the Canary Islands.
There are several tourism areas where the impact of the weekend on hotel occupancy stands out: Sigüenza and Logroño showed more than a 20% difference, reaching a weekend occupancy rate of around 60%. Other municipalities with a weekend occupancy rate more than 15 % above the general rate include Ávila, Toledo, Cáceres, Antequera, Valladolid, Donostia-San Sebastián and Albarracín.
Among the destinations with the highest occupancy rate on weekends, Seville stands out as the only non-Canarian destination to exceed 70%. Granada, Córdoba, Valencia and the towns of Naut Aran and Vielha e Mijaran in Lleida also come very close.
Where has there been the highest revenue per available hotel room and where has it grown the most compared to last year?
The national average of revenue per available room has been around 12% higher this first quarter than in 2023, exceeding €65. In the Canary Islands, this figure has practically doubled, with more than €123 earned in revenue per available room (nearly 14% more than that of the first quarter of last year). It should be noted that the average year-on-year change in the hotel price index for this quarter has been close to 10%.
The extreme figures for the provinces of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas mean that only the provinces of Barcelona (€88.80), Madrid (€70.57) and Seville (€68.59) also exceed the national average of revenue per available room.
As for revenue performance between 2024 and 2023, there were significant increases in Huelva (more than 40%), Zamora (close to 35%), Asturias, Ourense and Bizkaia (close to 30%) and Alicante, Teruel, Gipuzkoa, Cadiz, Lleida and Toledo (around 20%). In general, except for the increases in the Basque Country and the region of Valencia, the main increases do not place these provinces among those with the highest revenue per available room.
How has the number of hotel employees performed?
The increase in hotel staff is very similar to the increase in hotel overnight stays. Nationally, figures exceeded the average for the first quarter of 2023 by 11%, even surpassing the 200,000 employees in March. In terms of overnight stays, the first quarter of 2024 improved on the figures from the previous year by 12%. The relationship is observed regularly over the years.
The three provinces with the highest growth are those with the highest increase in overnight stays (Balearic Islands, with up to 50% more hotel employment; Tarragona and Huelva, with figures 30% higher than in 2023). The graph shows that this is a common pattern (only two of the provinces that have increased their employees the most do not exceed the national average in terms of the increase in overnight stays).
The province of Las Palmas accounts for more than 18% of staff employed in hotels, ahead of any other autonomous community. The Canary Islands together account for more than 30% of hotel staff; Andalusia 16%; Catalonia 14% and the regions of Madrid and Valencia around 8% each.
Only the provinces of Lleida and Badajoz have an average number of hotel employees in this first quarter that is lower than last year, although the decrease is very small.
You can consult the details and analyse the data from the Hotel Occupancy Survey on your Dataestur dashboard.