Press Release 23/05/2023

SURVEY ON TOURIST ESTABLISHMENTS. Except hotels. April 2023

Overnight stays rose by 6.0% in rural accommodation and 28.4% in tourist apartments in the Basque Country in April 2023

Tourist hostels also recorded an increase of 29.4% in overnight stays

In rural accommodation in the Basque Country in April 2023, visitor numbers rose by 2.9% compared to the same month of the previous year, and overnight stays increased by 6.0%. With this year-on-year growth, in April 2023 the number of visitors reached 15,526 and the total number of overnight stays stood at 38,659.

After rising by 58.1% in relation to April of the previous year, visitors from abroad accounted for 21.2% of the total number of visitors in April 2023 in rural accommodation in the Basque Country. In the case of overnight stays, those by visitors from abroad represented 16.7% of the total, with an increase of 29.2% compared to April 2022.

By province, the year-on-year increases in visitor numbers in April 2023 reached 6.7% in Bizkaia, 2.3% in Álava and 1.1% in Gipuzkoa. As regards overnight stays, Álava and Bizkaia saw growth of 15.9% and 18.0%, respectively, whereas they fell by 2.2% in Gipuzkoa.

The average length of stay in this type of establishment in the Basque Country was 2.49 days in April, a figure higher than the 2.42 days of average length of stay observed in the same month of 2022. The average length of stay refers to the number of days that, on average, travellers remain in each of the establishments where they stay overnight, and not the total length of their stay in the Basque Country.

Bed and room occupancy rates experienced a year-on-year increase of 2.1 and 1.7 percentage points respectively, the bed occupancy rate standing at 29.4% and that of rooms at 32.9%.

In relation to tourist apartments, during April 2023 there was a total of 16,404 visitors, giving rise to 54,794 overnight stays. Compared to April of the previous year, the increases were 43.5% in the case of visitor numbers and 28.4% in that of overnight stays.

Each of the accommodation units offered under a business operating unit, managed under the block or combined mode, is referred to as a tourist apartment. Private dwellings offered, marketed or temporarily relinquished for reasons of tourism are not included under the heading of dwellings for tourism use.

Visitors from abroad accounted for 32.5% of the total number of visitors and 34.4% of the total number of overnight stays in tourist apartments in the Basque Country, after registering year-on-year increases of 64.7% and 42.9%, respectively, during April 2023.

The average length of stay in tourist apartments was 3.34 days in April 2023, below that obtained in April 2022, which stood at 3.74 days for the Basque Country as a whole. The average length of stay in this type of establishment was 5.27 days Gipuzkoa, 4.40 days in Álava and 2.36 days in Bizkaia.

The bed occupancy rate at the Basque Country level reached 40.2%, following an increase of 3.1 percentage points in relation to April 2022. In contrast, the apartment occupancy rate dropped by 4.7 percentage points to stand at 64.5%.

In respect of tourist hostels in the Basque Country, in April 2023 there was a year-on-year increase of 35.8% in visitor numbers, reaching a total of 23,639 visitors who generated a total of 40,245 overnight stays. 23,418 overnight stays were registered in Bizkaia, 15,701 in Gipuzkoa and lastly the number of overnight stays in Álava was 1,127.

The average length of stay in this type of accommodation in April 2023 was 1.70 days in the Basque Country as a whole and the bed occupancy rate, after a year-on-year increase of 6 percentage points, reached 40.5%.

Balance for Easter 2023

In rural accommodation over the Easter period, from Thursday to Sunday (4 nights), visitor numbers fell by 9.6% and overnight stays were down 3.6%, in the Basque Country as a whole.

At provincial level, Álava registered a decline in both the number of visitors and the number of overnights stays, standing at 49.5% and 11.7%, respectively; in Bizkaia visitor numbers fell by 17.2% in comparison with Easter 2022, but overnight stays increased by 5.6%; finally, in Gipuzkoa, visitor numbers rose by 18.2% while overnight stays were down 4.8%.

The bed occupancy rate stood at 65.3% and that of rooms at 66.5% in the Basque Country in Easter 2023. These figures are, respectively, 0.7 and 3.1 percentage points lower than those of the previous year.

In the case of tourist apartments, the year-on-year variations in respect of Easter 2022, were positive in both cases: 34.3% and 25.0% more visitors and overnight stays, respectively.

As regards the provinces, visitor numbers rose by 32.3% in Álava, 34.5% in Bizkaia and 34.9% in Gipuzkoa, all in comparison with Easter 2022. For overnight stays, increases of 9.9%, 33% and 23.2% were registered for, in this order, Álava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa.

Occupancy rates rose by 58.3% in the case of beds and 79.3% in that of apartments. In terms of percentage points, this represented an increase of 3.3 points in the bed occupancy rate and a decrease of 5.3 points in the apartment occupancy rate, in respect of Easter 2022.

Informative note

The response rate for the Survey on Tourist Establishments this month was 95.4% for Rural Accommodation, 80.7% for Tourist Apartments and 81.9% for Tourist Hostels. 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: Tel.: 945 01 75 62