August is the tourist month par excellence and this year, after the pandemic, was the most desired by the entire industry, which arrived with very positive forecasts. So much so that many destinations have hung the ‘full’ sign. But the joy of the sector contrasts with totally crazy prices that suffocate citizens in the so-called vacations of tranquility.
Specifically, prices are 19% higher than in 2019, the year before the pandemic. This means that the average price per night and person in Spain is now 49 euros, while in 2019 it was 41 euros, according to data provided by Destinia.
But if we look at the large hotel chains in the country, the increase in rates is greater than the previously mentioned. For example, the average daily rate or average revenue of a room (ADR) of NH Hotels was 131.5 euros on average in the second quarter of the year. If we compare it with the same period of the previous year, we are talking about 54 euros more.
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And that translated into an increase in revenue per available room (RevPar) of NH Hotels of 102.1 euros in the second quarter of this year compared to 26.6 euros in 2021.
In the case of Meliá, taking the first half of this year as a reference, the average rate was 137.54 euros (compared to 97.2 euros in the same period of the previous year). We are talking about 40 euros more than a year ago. Its RevPar was 76.72 euros until June 2022 (27.34 euros in the first half).
Plane tickets
As for the airlines, the situation is very similar. Air tickets have become 45% more expensive this July compared to the same month of 2021 due to the increase in the price of fuel, inflation and the greater demand for travel, according to data from Kiwi.com.
In August, tickets will rise an additional 13% compared to the average registered in July, while in September and October, at the end of the summer season, they will fall by 27.5%.
These rises have a protagonist: Ryanair. The low cost has confirmed that it will raise its average rate by 20 euros, which is currently 37 euros. That means that on average an Irish ticket will cost about 60 euros.
A Ryanair plane at the Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández airport.
To all this we must add that citizens also bear inflation when shopping, dining in a restaurant or paying electricity bills. You just have to see that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) its year-on-year rate shot up six tenths, to 10.8%, its highest level since September 1984 due to the rise in the prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages and electricity.
Despite this, national tourists are traveling through Spain. And on the international level, international travelers are also arriving. Specifically, in June there were 7.5 million who arrived in our country, a figure that is already very close to the 8.8 million in 2019, the year before Covid.
These tourists made a expenditure in our country that reached 8,993 million euros. It is also close to pre-pandemic levels: in 2019, it obtained revenues of 9,696 million euros. The average expenditure per tourist stands at 1,205 euros, with an annual increase of 10.3%. Here the figure is higher than that of 2019: 1,098 euros, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
Price adjustment?
However, for some, the high prices in the tourism sector will not last beyond the summer. For Ricardo Fernández, CEO of Destinia, there will be an adjustment at the end of the year.
“With the rise in rates, it seems that the savings bag that consumers had is coming to an end and at some point it has to be adjusted because the consumer is not going to put up with being sold 19% more expensive,” he points out. In the end, the objective is to maintain active demand after the summer in full low season (except in the Canary Islands).
In fact, in early July the president of the Spanish Confederation of Hoteliers and Tourist Accommodation (Cehat), Jorge Marichal, He recognized the uncertainty after the summer due to the “threatening macroeconomic environment” that could complicate the final stretch of the year.
On the other hand, it seems that the flights will not stop rising in price. Willie Walsh, CEO of the International Air Transport Association (IATA)warned tourists that flying “will be more expensive” since “the high price of oil will be reflected in higher bills.”