Spanish hotels enjoy bumper April… and things only set to get better

Despite the fact that Easter fell in March this year, hotels in Spain are counting the windfall from a bumper April in which occupancy rate records were smashed – largely thanks to British holidaymakers.

Data from Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE) has revealed that the number of overnight stays recorded across the country in April reached 23.4 million, which was a 1.3% increase on last year…

Given that the traditionally busy Easter weekend gave April the swerve this year, those figures are even more impressive and serve to confirm what many travel agents have been telling us all year – that Spain’s tourism industry is on course for a record-breaking 2016.

Terrorism fears in rival markets are set to fuel an influx of sunworshippers this summer, while domestic tourism is also set to be strong following the ongoing recovery of Spain’s economy.

However, when just foreign tourist numbers are taken into account, the data reveals that Spain’s hotels saw an 11.5% increase in non-Spanish guests in April, with 3.95 million foreigners spending at least one night in the country that month.

And holidaymakers are also staying in Spain longer, the data showed, with the average stay in April rising 1.2% to 3.1 nights per person, despite the average price per night rising to €73.50 – some 3.3% more than in April 2015.

As ever, the UK provided the most foreign tourists, with 692,000 Brits chalking up 3.6 million overnight stays, followed by 595,000 Germans (3.26 million overnight stays), 570,000 French (1.85 million overnight stays) and 225,000 Italians (623,000 overnight stays).

The number of German visitors in April rose 4.8% compared to last year, but once again it was the British tourists that broke the mould, growing in number by 18.1% over the space of a year.

Given that April can still be a little chilly in some parts of Spain, unsurprisingly the year-round destinations of the Canary Islands were the most popular, accounting for 31.2% of all overnight stays. Andalucía vied with Catalonia for next most popular region, attracting approximately 18% of all visitors for the month – although that percentage will rise steadily as the summer months arrive.