The city of Marbella has closed last July with a hotel occupancy close to 80 percent thanks to the rebound in international tourism and has become the first national destination with the highest average price and highest income per occupied room in Spain, according to what the general director of the branch, Laura de Arce, advanced this Thursday.
The municipal official has highlighted that, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), the municipality has located at similar levels prior to the pandemic and added that the data confirms that a increase in average spending by visitors, “which represents the equation desired by any tourist destination.”
Specifically, the locality counted a total of 86,204 tourists staying last month, of which 63,421 came from abroad and 22,783 from Spain. This represents 79.76 percent, only 1.2 percent less than in 2019, before the health crisis.
“It must also be taken into account that in the current period the city has 81 open hotels compared to 74 in the year prior to the pandemic”, specified De Arce, who also detailed “the scope of the new complexes such as the Club Med Magna Marbella, with 485 rooms, or the Hard Rockwith another 281 authorized this season”.
“However, the great qualitative leap has occurred in terms of type of tourists who visit us and that is reflected in the average price of hotel establishments, which has grown by almost 50 percent, going from 200.08 euros in 2019 at 290.43 this year”, specified the municipal manager, noting that “in this way we have positioned ourselves in this aspect as the first Spanish destination”. “Like revenue per occupied room, where we are also national leaders, with growth that has gone from 164.17 euros in 2019 compared to 232.76 euros in this period”, she pointed out.
Refering to average stayhas also been increased, standing at 3.95 days compared to 3.82 in previous years and, with regard to nationalities, the British client has reached levels similar to 2018, even surpassing the data from before the pandemic, followed by French and Dutch visitors and a certain drop in Germans. “The rest of the countries, which are included in a joint figure, have also increased considerably compared to the last two years, although without reaching figures for 2019,” De Arce pointed out.