Ibiza and Sant Josep lead Spanish tourism industry in 2022 with record-breaking profitability

Santa Eulària and Sant Antoni are the sixth and seventh most profitable holiday destinations, with 122 and 119 euros average revenue per room, respectively.

Exceltur assures that tourism demand in Spain was driven last year from spring onwards by the desire to travel and the savings accumulated during the pandemic, which neutralized the poor start to the year resulting from the latest variant of the coronavirus in Europe and the impact of the various geopolitical and macroeconomic factors (war in Ukraine, rising energy, supply and labor costs, generalized price increases and rising interest rates).

Rise in revenue per room

As a result of all this in 2022 as a whole, tourism revenues calculated through hotel RevPAR (revenue per available room) experienced strong growth of 10.8% compared to 2019.

The increase in revenues was not homogeneous for the different types of companies and destinations. Thus last year the vacation destinations recorded the best results in their accounts with an increase in their revenue per available room by 12.8% compared to 2019, a figure higher than the 2% recorded in urban destinations.

This was possible thanks to a greater recovery in rates (17.7% in the case of holiday and 10.2% in the case of urban) and occupancy closer to pre-pandemic (-4.2% in holiday and -7.4% in urban), due to the more intense reactivation of leisure travel, as opposed to business travel, which accumulated a greater delay in its recovery.

According to Exceltur, this improvement in invoiced revenues has not been proportionally transferred to an improvement in results, due to the strong increase in both energy and supply costs and, to a lesser extent, labor costs.

In fact, the increase in regulated lodging prices (14.8% with respect to 2019) is below the increase in their average operating costs (according to the survey conducted by Exceltur, energy costs have increased by 28.9%, other supplies by 17.1% and labor costs by 8.9%).

Investments in improvements

According to the tourism employersthe price growth experienced in 2022 not only responds to the need to partially pass on the increase in costs, “but is also the result of the significant investment effort in improving their establishments that many companies and operators have made in the destinations”.

According to Exceltur this improvement has made it possible to raise the differential positioning of some destinations, underlining the transcendence of continuing to bet on the renovation and repositioning of products and services.

According to Exceltur data 86 of the 105 destinations analyzed recorded in 2022 an average revenue per available room higher than in 2019 (49 10% above, 37 between 10% and 0%) and the remaining 19 decreases.

Holiday destinations on the Andalusian coast and those in the Balearic Islands with the most differentiated tourism offer recorded the best results in average revenue per available room and experienced intense growth compared to 2019.

Five destinations with the highest revenues

Thus, in 2022 the five destinations with the highest revenues were located on the island of Ibiza and the Andalusian coast. Among them, the following stand out Sant Josepwhich leads the income with 194 euros, followed by Ibiza 163 euros, Estepona 152 euros, Marbella 140 euros and Chiclana 135 euros.

For their part, the durban estinos ended 2022 with somewhat lower revenue growth than vacationers, due to the contraction of activity in the business, events and congress tourism segment, the consolidation of teleworking, videoconferencing, on-line training, added to the absence of long-distance Asian tourism.

According to Exceltur data, the five cities that achieved the highest revenues last year in urban destinations were, Barcelona with 109 euros of revenue per seat, followed by San Sebastian 104 euros, Palma 100 euros, Málaga 88 euros and Madrid 79 euros.

For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.