The summer of 2024 has consolidated three tourism trends. The first is that more and more people, whether living inside or outside the country, are tourism in Spain. The second, that during the nights of last summer there were, on average, more tourists than available beds in regulated accommodation. Finally, that tourists are staying less and less in these types of establishments and more in unregulated accommodation, among which illegal or unregistered tourist homes stand out.
These are some of the conclusions of the analysis carried out by Public from the data of the Hotel and non-hotel occupancy surveys and of the Experimental statistics of tourist movements of the National Institute of Statistics (INE) relating to June, July and August 2024. During those summer months, only 34% of the times that a tourist spent the night in Spain they stayed in regulated tourist accommodation. That is, only on one out of every three occasions did he sleep in a hotel, hostel, campsite, regulated tourist apartment or in rural accommodation.
Where did they stay the remaining 66% of the time? In some cases, at the homes of family and friends, or in second homes. In others, in unregulated tourist accommodationwhen not directly illegal. How many overnight stays of that 66% took place in off-market accommodation – such as relatives’ houses or second homes – or how many were in illegal vacation rentals, is the question that no statistics answers at the moment.
However, there is other data that indicates that the tendency to stay in unregulated accommodation could be increasing. To begin with, an indication is the fact that tourism has reached record numbers this summer at the same time that occupancy in regulated establishments has decreased.
This year the number of tourists who have spent the night in Spain has increased, but there have been fewer registrations in regulated places
The tourist figures for 2024 have surpassed those of 2019a year that until now marked the record for tourists and overnight stays ever recorded in Spain. In August of that year, 33.6 million tourists visited Spain. Of them, 31% were international tourists residing abroad, while the remaining 68% were people living in Spain and traveling to another province. In its calculations, the INE does not include those who move within the province in which they reside.
The sum of overnight stays – the total number of nights enjoyed by all tourists – in August 2019 reached 220.3 million. Of them, only a third took place in regulated accommodation. That is, in hotels, hostels, campsites, licensed tourist apartments or rural accommodation. Again, Those made by intra-provincial tourists are not counted in the total number of overnight stays.. But if it were done, this would only decrease the percentage of nights that tourists spent in regulated establishments.
The following year, 2020, the covid-19 pandemic paralyzed mobility and the global economy. The tourism sector received a blow from which it has taken four years to recover. But this August, tourist activity in Spain has not only recovered but has broken a new record: 34.2 million tourists visited Spain, which represents an increase of almost one million compared to 2019. Total overnight stays recorded this August have also grown by 20 million.
For every 100 tourist places regulated in the summer of 2024, 170 tourists stayed overnight
In this bullish whirlwind, the percentage of overnight stays that tourists make in regulated accommodation should also have grown. On the other hand, according to the calculations of this newspaper, not only has this not been the case, but it has decreased three percentage points compared to five years agostanding at 30%. In summary, while tourism has increased since 2019, the use made of hotels, hostels, campsites and other regulated accommodation has decreased. Not only that: The places that these accommodations had available this summer have not even been filled completely.
Are more hotels needed?
According to experimental statistics from the INE, between June and August 2024, international and national tourists spent an average of six nights in Spain. During the same period, Spain had 323.9 places – that is, the sum of the fixed places available each summer day in Spain – in hotels, campsites, hostels, tourist apartments and other regulated accommodation. A simple operation allows you to verify that, throughout the summer, There were more tourists who spent the night in Spain than permanent usable places. The daily average gives that For every 100 regulated tourist places in the summer of 2024, there were 170 tourists.
In other words, The number of tourists was well above the beds offered. Of course, there are differences between territories and seasons, since summer is not the same as the beginning of the year; a weekend, where tourist demand skyrockets, than the initial days of the week. However, the general photograph already presented above allows us to dimension the brutal growth of tourism in Spain. And, at the same time, Although there are fewer regulated beds than tourists who demand them, those that exist are not fully occupied either.
So, if occupancy at hotels, campsites and other regulated establishments decreased over five years, Where did the growing number of tourists who came to Spain spend the night this summer? As already noted, a portion could have stayed in off-market housing, such as the homes of family and friends, or in second homes. However, the data suggest that another important part of the overnight stays have been absorbed by unregulated or illegal tourist rentals.
Growth without limits
Homes whose owners have put them up for vacation rentals without declaring them as such are considered illegal. Or those that, due to a change to non-residential use, fail to comply with the urban planning regulations of each municipality. In this way, they escape fiscal control and the quality and technical demands of other tourist establishmentsas is the case with tourist apartments, whose regulation is in accordance with the urban legal system. Differentiating one type of accommodation from another is easy: the latter usually have an indicative sign on their façade that reads “Tourist Apartment” (AT). Both types, in any case, are widely offered on digital platforms such as Airbnb either Booking.
He Malaga Tenants’ Union considers it “evident” that the increase in tourist offer on these websites is related to the increase in overnight stays in unregulated establishments. An example: Currently on Airbnb there are 65,034 vacation rental ads only between the cities of Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia and Malaga. This figure is 24.5% higher than the ads recorded by AirDNA –a company that analyzes the rental market– at the beginning of 2023, as cited Five Days in May of that year. Virtually all of these rentals are for a short stay. That is, for vacation rentals.
Fernando de los Santosspokesperson for Madrid Tenants Union, He assures that in Madrid there is no control or sanctions that put a stop to the growth of this business, which only benefits “those who want to do business with housing.” Nor does he believe that the proliferation of new hotel spaces will alleviate tourist pressure. “What determines the level of tourism that we can accept as a city should not be the market, but the needs of the people who live in it and inhabit it.”
However, the realpolitik It places them behind the profit of the owners of the tourist apartments and behind the tourist strategies of the most visited municipalities. That is why this summer has also been the one of social protests for the right to housing, which in Málaga, Cádiz, Gijón, Gran Canaria or La Palma have forced us to focus on the inaction of public administrations in the face of an increasingly pressing problem: the impossibility of inhabiting the city with dignity.
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