The month of August has started with a good outlook for tourism. In just three days, from 1st to 3rd August, 45% more bookings were registered than in the whole of August 2020, according to data from Neobookings, a booking engine for accommodation that handles more than 60% of Ibiza’s beds. According to the same source, July saw 72% of bookings for the same month in 2019. “There is still a long way to go to reach the levels of the pre-pandemic era, but the open hotels have work,” explains Jose MarÃa Ramón, CEO of Neobookings.
These are the same feelings conveyed by hoteliers on Ibiza and Formentera, who are keeping their fingers crossed because they depend on last-minute bookings and a single piece of bad news can reverse the trend: “It looks like August is going to be good, but everything is so volatile that it’s impossible to be sure what will happen next week,” confesses Ana Gordillo, president of the Hotel Business Federation of Ibiza and Formentera (Fehif).
After the storm
The week of 11th July, in the midst of the explosion of new infections and with an image crisis for the Balearic Islands provoked by the media coverage of the students confined to Mallorca, cancellations shot up to 52% and threatened the season. This peak in cancellations has passed and has now dropped to 36%, this does not mean that travellers have lowered their guard, but rather that uncertainty is still present: “Markets such as the French, Italian and Dutch make reservations a week in advance and are rushing to buy tickets because they are not sure what measures their governments will take,” says José MarÃa Ramón.
36% of booking cancelled at the beginning of August
The maximum level was 52% and was reached when Britain placed the Balearic Islands in the amber traffic light.
24% nights booked by Spanish tourists
The domestic market is the main source of tourists, followed by the British, Italian and Dutch.
65% hotel occupancy during the first fortnight of July
Forecasts predict that the figures for August will be better.
Bookings in this first week of August exceed the level of July, although they do not reach the peak of the last week of June, when there was a flood of bookings from the British market. “In the month of July, during the weekends the hotels have been full, but from Monday to Wednesday the bookings were weak. August has started better,” summarizes the CEO of Neobookings, which provides another fact: “The average stay of tourists in August is high, 5.2 days, while in August 2019 was 4.5 days.”
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.