The Benidorm hotel industry is expressing concern that the town may be losing it’s British client base, after a cumulative loss of around half a million overnight stays by Brits by the end of the year.
The hotel association, Hosbec, has revealed its concerns following an other drop in visits in September, when occupancy fell by 2.1 percent compared to 2017 and stood at 91,5.
Hosbec indicated in a statement that the British market “is losing steam” and that since the beginning of 2018 there has been a “continuous descent” of overnight stays which has led in the first nine months of 2018 have resulted in 420,000 fewer than in the same period last year.
The causes that have led to this situation are not new, just perhaps ignored or not realised by the hoteliers and tourist bosses in the town. On the one hand, the choice of new tourist destinations is affecting the traditional bases, and on the other, the decrease in air capacity. Add to both those factors the limits in the choice of apartment accommodation, it collectively indicates that Benidorm itself is failing to move with the trends.
For parties, Hosbec has found that tour packages to competing destinations has grown significantly. Turkey has made 69%, Tunisia 41% and Egypt 58%.
Noteworthy is the case of the province of Antalya (Turkey), which exceeds 60,000 Benidorm summer packages this year.
As for air capacity, now a year since Monarch lost its crown, there has been a reduction of 26,210 seats for Alicante-Elche airport.
There is some good news, in that as the Brits decline, the Spanish increase. Whilst the decline in British tourists is at 3.7%, the increase in Spanish domestic tourism stands at 3.3%, according to Hosbec.
The forecast for the first half of October is 88.6%. Despite harvested figures, the president of the hoteliers, Toni Mayor, considered it to be “positive data” and that “we should not be disappointed” since “probably” Benidorm tops overnight stays along with other destinations. However, Mayor believes that the solution is to “keep working and seducing different markets to come to Benidorm”.
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