Hotel prices go up by two percent

23 January 2004

MADRID – The price of staying in hotels rose by just over 2 percent in 2003, according to a report published Friday.

Meanwhile, the money made by hoteliers increased by nearly three percent compared with the year before, said the study by the National Institute of Statistics.

In a detailed report on tourism in Spain, the NIS reported visitor numbers had increased along with prices.

The British were the biggest group of visitors for the second year running and the Germans were the second largest group.

The index of Hotel Prices found prices rose in all parts of Spain by two percent on average.

The exceptions were in the Canary Islands where prices only went up by 1.1 percent and in the Balearic Islands, where there was a fall of 0.7 percent.

But the biggest price hikes were seen in Rioja (4.5percent), Murcia (4.2 percent) and Aragon (4.3 percent).

In all parts of Spain, apart from the Balearic Islands, hoteliers reported that they had made more money than the previous year.

The highest rise in takings came in Navarra (5.5 percent ), Catalonia (5.2 percent), Castilla and Leon (five percent), and Galicia (4.8 percent).

The earnings in Canary Islands, the Basque Country, Madrid did not rise more than 2 two percent.

The number of visitors to Spain also rose by 2.2 percent in 2003 to 227 million.

Of these, 91 million were Spaniards – only five per cent more than the year before.

There were 136 million foreign visitors.

The biggest group of foreigners, for the second year running, were the British, who made up 32.6 percent of all tourists.

Germans were the second biggest group and made up 27.8 percent of visitors.

France and Belgium, which after Britain and Germany have the biggest groups of visitors to Spain, saw rises in the number of visitors by 1.6 and 1.3 percent respectively.

The number of Italian visitors, meanwhile, fell by 2.5 percent.

The total number of people who stayed in Spanish hotels was 62.5 million – a 3.7 percent rise in comparison with 2002.

Of these 35 million were Spanish, 21 million from European Union countries and 6 million from the rest of the world.

Nearly half of all tourists came to Spain between June and September, when there was a rise of 1.5 percent compared with the year before.

[copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news