Málaga, (EFE).- Hotel establishments in Andalusia will register 7.6 million stays between January and March of this year, 18.1 percent more than in the first quarter of 2022, according to the forecasts of the Ministry of Tourism of the Board.
It is expected that the hotels in the community will gain more than 1,168,000 stays in these three months in relation to the same period last year, in which 6,449,607 nights were reached and which was marked by the impact of the omicron variant of the covid-19.
The latest report from the Andalusian Tourism Analysis and Statistics System (SAETA) indicates that Andalusian hotels will register 7,618,000 stays in the first quarter of 2023, of which 1,974,000 correspond to January (+34.5%) , 2,447,000 in February (+14.7%) and 3,198,000 in March (+12.3%).
Stays at 2017 levels
From the comparison with previous years made by EFE, it can be deduced that the number of stays will still be one million nights below the reference tourist year, 2019, in which 8,653,956 hotel overnight stays were recorded.
If these predictions are confirmed, the result will be close to the balance of the first quarter of 2017, which closed with 7,797,559 nights.
The forecasts contained in the latest tourist situation report, prepared by SAETA based on data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), suggest that the average occupancy of hotels will rise 3.9 points in relation to the first quarter of 2022, up to reach 42% of the places offered.
By provinces, all will end the quarter with growth in hotel overnight stays compared to last year. Malaga stands out, with 2,982,000 (+22.8%), which will account for 39.1% of the regional total and will experience the largest year-on-year increase.
It will be followed by Seville, with 1,569,000 nights until March (+21.5%); Grenada, with 1,086,000 (+11.7%); Cádiz, with 799,000 (+17.6%); Córdoba, with 392,000 (+11.1%); Almería, with 356,000 (+6%), Huelva, with 254,000 (18.2%) and Jaén, with 179,000 (+3.9%).
Occupancy is close to that of 2019
In terms of occupancy, the outlook for the Ministry of Tourism is also positive, with an average of 42% of the beds offered (+3.9 points compared to 2022) by Andalusian hotels in the first quarter. Thus, they would be close to the 44.8% average reached in the same period of 2019, before the pandemic.
The expected Andalusian average will be exceeded in the provinces of Seville, with 53% (+7.5) and Malaga, with 48% (+6.7), and will equal Granada, with 42% (+2.9 points ).
The rest will oscillate between 39% of the hotels in Córdoba (+3 points) and the 25% forecast by the Board for the establishments in Almería, which would lead the only decrease in relation to the first quarter of last year, of 4.3 points. .
After closing 2022 with 30.8 million tourists received, the Board expects that 2023 will be a record year for visitors in Andalusia, with a range of between 32.7 and more than 33 million tourists, forecasts that exceed the historical result of 32 .5 million reached in 2019.
The balance of the hotel movement in 2022 ended with 18.2 million travelers who made 50.1 million overnight stays, only 8.2 and 8.7 percent below the data for 2019, respectively.
Andalusia occupies the fourth position in the hotel movement in Spain, with a weight last year of 15.6% in the total number of stays, behind the Canary Islands (20.1%), the Balearic Islands (17.5%) and Catalonia ( 16.6%).
This community remained the favorite destination for Spaniards, with 25.7 million hotel nights and a share of 21.5%, while in the foreign market it was fourth, with 24.3 million overnight stays and a weight of 12.1%. EFE