Ibiza and Formentera will have an occupancy rate of between 60% and 70% this Easter, a percentage that the manager of the Hotel Federation, Manuel Sendino, considers good and together with which Alicia Reina, president in the Balearic Islands of the Spanish Association of Hotel Managers (AEDH), is delighted given the circumstances: “After what we have gone through with the pandemic, any figure is positive,” he says. Sendino details that “the occupation will be higher on Holy Thursday and Good Friday”, to then drop progressively from Saturday. The opening of the nightclubs at the end of the month will be the definitive relaunching of the season.
“Hotels are opening continuously, almost every day on Ibiza”, says Sendino, who calculates that at the end of this month 10% of the hotel vacancies will be available, around 10,000 tourist places. There are already travelers from almost all markets touring the islands, especially Spanish and British. And flights are already arriving at the airport from Portugal, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, the Netherlands and France.
This year, the Pitiusas have started the season earlier than ever, for several reasons: to make up for the two previous bad seasons; to give the feeling that the destination is safe and is already open, and, above all, to retain staff, given the shortage of labor, one of the handicaps of this season and is causing the ‘theft’ of workers (either with better wages, or with more advantageous working conditions) between companies.
Customers “less wary” while travelling on Ibiza
Precisely, the president of AEDH explains that many entrepreneurs decided to open in April because, although the numbers are not favorable, they ran the risk of running out of staff: “Many go to other companies that open longer”, which compensates them economically. In addition, starting earlier serves “to get into a rhythm of work”. Reina puts the opening of the hotel establishments at 70%, at least among the members of her association.
Regarding the expected occupancy rate, Reina believes that “after what has happened with the pandemic, anything is good. It is positive to start working with some normality”. After the experience of the first days of the season, Reina indicates that “clients are no longer as wary of health security” as in the two previous years.
The director of Tourism on Ibiza, Juan Miguel Costa, says that “the volume of reservations is above the figure for 2019” and that several hoteliers in the Sant Antoni area on Ibiza have told him that for this week they are “full, there is not a single room left, they are bursting at the seams”. In that sense, it is a good sign, in his opinion, that the level of flight connections is already “quite strong” in this period of the year, with flights (only between yesterday and today) from Porto, Manchester, London, Bristol, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Milan, Naples, Bari, Bologna, Pisa, Rome, Venice, Basel, Geneva, Zurich, Dublin, Brussels, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and Cologne.
Flights are now available from Porto, Manchester, London, Bristol, Edinburgh, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Milan, Naples, Bari, Bologna, Pisa, Rome, Venice, Basel, Geneva, Zurich, Dublin, Brussels, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and Cologne
15% increase every week
From the booking engine Neobookings, its CEO, José MarÃa Ramón, confirms that many hotels will be “at 100%” in the coming days, only to later register “a drop”. Most of the sales are “last minute”, a trend “that will continue” this year after its boom during the pandemic: “People rush to book”. Until Monday, most of them were only for April, the month that purchases had be concentrated in: “But since Monday, customers started to look at May”. A relevant fact is that as we approach the high season “bookings increase by 15% every week”.
Regarding holiday homes, 60% are open, calculates Roberto San Esteban, president of an association that encompasses 62.5% of the 19,000 places in the Pitiusas. San Esteban considers that this week “between 40% and 50%” of the total number of places available will be occupied: “This percentage is very good, because we must take into account that April did not count a few years ago, so these are good numbers”.
He also points out that many homes “have not been able to open due to lack of supplies to finish some work or because there have been three weeks of very bad weather and they have not been able to paint, so they are not yet ready to operate”.
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