Madrid (EFE).- The Spanish tourism sector maintains its good prospects for the summer despite a slowdown in the rate of reservations, which has led some companies, such as RIU, to lower their optimism regarding the summer season to ” moderate” and not being able to speak, for the moment, of a record year.
Although demand has slowed down a bit, its trajectory well above expectations (for example, Meliá Hotels Internacional’s book reservations for the summer stood at 30% above the 2019 level at the end of May) allows us to hope a better summer season in billing than last year, according to the Executive Vice President of Exceltur, José Luis Zoreda.
In his opinion, it will probably be a “record” summer of income, notwithstanding taking into account that part is due to price inflation, but, nevertheless, not of results, because costs are still rising a lot and, therefore, Therefore, business margins are still not what they were before the pandemic in general terms.
In his opinion, the profitability of 2019 on average will not yet be reached, since, in many of the tourism players, the rise in costs continues to have a very important weight, he told EFE.
Investments after the pandemic
Billing increases in the hotel sector, in addition to price inflation, are due to the fact that the product is not the same as in 2019, after some companies made very notable investments in the substantial improvement of their facilities.
In short, although demand may be slowing down, with the gains in reservations compared to last year, it is expected that the summer will be very good in billing and less good in results, because there will be a rise in costs, while the The increases in income are due in part to inflation and the improvement of the product, he has summarized.
Is accumulated savings running out?
In the case of RIU, for the moment, sales are below what was registered on the same dates in 2022, which is why the hotel group believes that “perhaps the accumulated savings and the ‘champagne’ effect that we experienced last summer are running out” .
For this reason, the chain prefers to wait to see how this summer season and the end of 2023 evolve, to “check if what is happening is a more short-term reservation than the one we have already been registering or, if it is of certain fatigue of the demand in general”.
RIU’s occupancy forecast in Spain for the summer season, from last May to October, is now around 70%, the Mallorcan company has detailed to EFE.
If the first months of this year are compared with 2022, better occupancy and average rate figures are seen, due to the impact of omicron that affected demand at the beginning of last year.
However, RIU ensures that this positive trend has slowed down and, comparing the data for this summer with those for 2022 on these same dates, a lower average occupancy and a slowdown in demand can be seen from practically all source markets.
Andalusia is the RIU destination with the best occupancy forecast for this summer season, with a significant share of the national market, which is ahead of the German and British markets.
The following destinations are the Balearic Islands, where the presence of the German, Spanish and Belgian markets stands out, and the Canary Islands, also with Germany in the lead, but, in this case, followed by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
The strength of demand has allowed RIU to increase rates -whose increase currently stands at an average of 10%- and thus alleviate the exponential rise in costs.
Travel agencies also observe that “the excessive rate of reservations that occurred during the previous weeks has slowed down a bit, but we continue at rates above 2019,” the president of the Ceav employers’ association, Carlos Garrido, told EFE.
Among the main destinations for Spaniards, he has highlighted coasts and islands, within Spain, as well as European capitals and also Egypt, Jordan or Greece, among those in the middle distance.
The Caribbean and the United States are also “working very well”, in addition to the fact that a lot of demand is concentrating on other long-distance destinations, to which it has not been possible to travel for a long time due to covid restrictions such as Japan, the Maldives or Thailand. .
After the summer
While Exceltur does not see a concern for the summer due to the reserve position at this time, there are grounds to think that, after the high season, consumption could slow down, according to Zoreda.
“Does this mean that because the fourth quarter slows down, 2023 will be a bad year, no,” he stressed.
Zoreda does not rule out that demand could be reduced in the last part of 2023, but, for the moment, “there are no obvious signs that this would imply a catastrophe in the results for the year as a whole because the first three quarters will have been very good, especially the summer one.