Non-hotel overnight stays: April 2022 figures
On 31 May 2022, Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE) published provisional occupancy figures for non-hotel tourist accommodation for April 2022.
This accommodation category includes everything from apartments to campsites and hostels. The INE study showed very encouraging figures for the tourism sector.
Non-hotel accommodation recorded around 9.3 million overnight stays, up 238.7% on April 2021. This compares with a period affected by the pandemic and should not be interpreted as an ordinary growth rate.
THE CASE OF TOURIST APARTMENTS
The study and general figures above cover the whole non-hotel tourism sector. However, Alehost primarily manages tourist apartments, so we will focus on that category.
In tourist apartments, overnight stays rose by 349.1% compared with April 2021. The average stay was 4.6 nights per traveller. These indicators measure different things and do not equate to owner income.
Apartment bed occupancy was 32.4%. An available bed and an available apartment are not the same unit: keep the definition consistent when comparing areas or periods.
Non-residents accounted for 66.5% of apartment overnight stays. The report identified the United Kingdom as the main source market in this category, with more than one million overnight stays; that figure is not a count of guests.
The Canary Islands stood out for the volume of apartment overnight stays that month. The number of nights and the occupancy percentage answer different questions: a destination can lead one without leading the other.
Madrid recorded occupancy of 59.2% by apartment. This should not be presented as a percentage of occupied beds or applied directly to the occupancy of any property in the region.
April was a very good month for tourism, particularly tourist apartments. They led the number of overnight stays within the category, ahead of campsites and rural accommodation, as well as experiencing significant growth.
The report reflected the situation ahead of summer 2022. For a decision today, consult recent destination data and compare it with your accommodation’s demand, prices and costs.
What these figures teach us
A useful comparison identifies the period, area, accommodation type and unit of measurement. Overnight stays, travellers, occupancy and revenue are not interchangeable. Before applying a trend to your project, check whether it genuinely describes the market in which you will operate.
