Spain faces a historic summer in full tourism boom. The skyrocketing demand from domestic and foreign travelers and the rise in prices anticipate record levels of activity and income for the sector. A reactivation in style, after the total collapse caused by the pandemic, which will also be noticeable in the great business of tourist apartments.
The supply of homes for tourist use faces the summer still slightly below the record levels of before the pandemic, but the business is also advancing towards a summer of expansion with many more reservations and with much higher pricesaccording to data from the specialized consultancy AirDNAwhich permanently analyzes the evolution of the giants’ advertisements Airbnb and Vrbo/Expedia throughout the world, the occupation of the flats and their prices.
The number of tourist apartments advertised on the large online platforms throughout Spain and which are effectively active in June, even before the strongest months of summer, exceeded the 331,700 homes for rent, 6% more than in the same month last year (with 19,200 more floors) but still 3% below the levels of the 2019 pre-pandemic (with 11,800 fewer floors), according to the AirDNA statistical series to which it has had access EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA, from the Prensa Ibérica group.
Price increase
There are fewer apartments than before the pandemic, but they are more expensive and more crowded. And it is that the reserves actually executed exceed 11% the levels of 2019 precovid and the occupation has touched 57% of the total number of places, seven points higher than in the last year prior to the pandemic. And, furthermore, the boom in demand and the rise in general inflation registered in the last year pushes the rates of tourist apartments to record levels, with an average of almost 197 euros per night, 10% more than a year and a half ago. 24% more than in the same month of 2019.
Those almost 332,000 properties that make up the main rental offer this June are complete homes marketed in Spain, but to these complete floors we must also add the private rooms put up for tourist rental in June (a total of 44,100) and also the shared rooms (another 1,400 more). The total offer, with 377,200 commercialized locations, is still 4% of the volumes before the covid.
The pressure of the great tourism
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Large companies in the Spanish tourism sector have been warning that the new Housing Law was going to cause a massive conversion of flats now for rent to the tourist business due to the ceiling on traditional rental price increases in areas that they consider to be under stress. A transfer that is not taking place at the moment. Exceltur, the lobby that brings together some thirty of the largest companies in the sector (among them, large hotels such as Meliá, NH, Riu, Iberostar or Palladium), has been pressing for the Government to take advantage of the Housing Law to curb the proliferation of illegal offers of tourist flats.
The supply of flats is not the same every month of the year, and it changes depending on the demand depending on whether it is high season or not. Traditionally, the highest volumes of tourist apartments offered are reached in the months of July and August. The AirDNA statistical series shows that it was in August 2019 when there was a greater supply of tourist apartments, with a total of 357,700 complete homes sold.