Press Release 22/06/2021

SURVEY ON TOURIST ESTABLISHMENTS. Hotels. MAY 2021

The number of visitors and overnight stays at hotel establishments in the Basque Country continued to increase during May 2021

The percentage of hotel establishments without business on any day fell to 24.7% in May 2021

In May 2021, the number of visitors and overnight stays recorded at hotel establishments in the Basque Country rose to 119,312 and 209,506, respectively, according to Eustat data. Visitor numbers had therefore recovered by 27.1% and overnight stays by 19.9% since April 2021.

Movement restrictions have been variable after the state of emergency was decreed on 14 March 2020 to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. In any case, May 2020 was the second month where the measures had the largest impact on the tourism sector. Because hotel activity was reduced to healthcare and other essential staff, most series were not published due to statistical secrecy safeguards and statistical quality criteria, meaning that no year-on-year comparisons can be drawn with May 2020. As a result, figures are compared with the previous month, April 2021.

In May 2021, Álava recorded 19,931 visitors and 35,596 overnight stays, 27.5% and 9.9% more than the previous month. In Bizkaia, visitor numbers increased by 26.5% and overnight stays were up 24.8% in May 2021, standing at 50,607 and 92,731, respectively. Lastly, in Gipuzkoa, visitor numbers and overnight stays stood at 48,774 and 81,179 in May 2021, following a month-on-month rise of 27.7% in visitor numbers and of 19.2% in overnight stays.

In May 2021, visitors from abroad accounted for 22.9% of all visitors, hence the proportion of visitors from the rest of Spain was 77.1%. Overnight stays showed a similar distribution, with people residing abroad accounting for 21.8% of overnight stays and people from the rest of Spain accounting for 78.2%. Both the number of visitors and overnight stays of people from abroad increased considerably compared to April, 107.1% in the case of visitor numbers and 68.2% in overnight stays.

Differences were observed between the Provinces. In Álava, the number of visitors and overnight stays of people from abroad increased by 48.0% and 13.6%, respectively. The number of visitors rose by 90.9% and the number of overnight stays was up 50.3% in Bizkaia. Lastly, there were sharper increases compared to the previous month in Gipuzkoa: 136.6% in the number of visitors from abroad and 105.2% in the number of overnight stays of people from abroad.

The average length of stay in the Basque Country during May was 1.76 days (it was 1.86 days in April). The average length of stay did not vary significantly depending on the peoples’ original place of residence: 1.67 days in the case of foreigners and 1.78 days in the case of people from the rest of Spain.

Bed and room occupancy rates of hotel establishments with business in May 2021 were higher than those observed in the previous month, going from 23.6% in April 2021 to 26.2% in May in the case of bed occupancy, and from 30.8% to 34.0% in the case of room occupancy.

The bed occupancy rate stood at 28.1% in Álava, 27.5% in Gipuzkoa and 24.5% in Bizkaia. The room occupancy rate was 37.0% in Álava, 33.7% in Gipuzkoa and 33.4% in Bizkaia.

The provincial capital with the highest bed occupancy rate was San Sebastián (30.3%), closely followed by Vitoria-Gasteiz (30.1%), while Bilbao had the lowest occupancy rate (24.6%). There was a similar trend in the room occupancy rate.

Profitability indicators of the sector showed a downward trend. The average daily rate (ADR) was 68.43 euros in May, which was 11.3% less than the 77.18 euros observed in April. All provinces saw a decrease, standing at 78.03 euros in Gipuzkoa (93.62 euros in San Sebastián), 63.16 euros in Bizkaia (67.70 euros in Bilbao) and 62.08 euros in Álava (57.02 euros in Vitoria-Gasteiz).

Revenue per available room (RevPAR) was down 2.0%, going from 23.77 euros in April to 23.29 euros in May 2021 in the Basque Country.

The variation in the percentage of hotel establishments closed every day of the month shows that the impact on the hotel sector of the restrictions adopted to tackle COVID-19, while still high, continues to improve. In May 2021, 24.7% of hotel establishments remained closed every day of the month, 3.4 percentage points less than in April 2021. In Gipuzkoa, 28.6% of establishments had no business at all in May 2021, while in Álava it was 22.4% and in Bizkaia, 20.4%.

Note. The coverage of the ETR for Hotels in May was 95.5%. Eustat would like to thank all establishments that participated in this survey for their effort.

For further information:

Eustat - Euskal Estatistika Erakundea / Basque Statistics Institute C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz Press Service: servicioprensa@eustat.es Tel: 945 01 75 62