The strategy of diversifying the markets made by the destination of Lloret de Mar this 2022 has counteract the consequences negative for not having had visitors from Eastern Europe. The municipality has opted for the Dutch and Belgian public and the market has responded positively. In addition, it has kept the domestic visitors who came in the wake of the pandemic and this has made possible a good summer season. Despite everything, Lloret still has to finish recovering the international tourists who were there outside the high season in 2019. This 2022 has had 710,158 foreign tourists, 26% less than there were in the summer before the pandemic. On the contrary, the national audience has grown by 13% compared to 2019.
This Friday Lloret Turimse and Mabrian Technologies presented the results of the 2022 tourism analysis and the prospects for the pre-season of 2023. This data has been extracted thanks to a tourist intelligence tool and ‘big data’ of the destination. In the presentation of the results, the president of Lloret Turisme, Elizabeth Keegan, highlighted that during the summer months the municipality has recovered the volume of visitors international that I had in 2019.
This good response is due to the diversification of markets that the municipality has made for this summer, with the aim of counteracting the absence of the Russian market and other Eastern countries. Keegan highlighted the good rate of bookings from the Belgian and Dutch public, together with the loyalty of Catalan tourism following the pandemic.
The pending subject for the destination, however, is to recapture the volume of tourists that was there during the off-season. At the moment, the global count of international visitors is 710,158 people, which represents 26% less than in 2019. Lloret Turisme has set the challenge to entrepreneurs in the tourism sector of improve these figures between May and June of this 2023 to significantly improve last year’s data.
Attract more French market
One of the ways to achieve this is to attract more French visitors. In fact, the study points out that this is one strategic market since it usually comes by car and they can easily become loyal with a good experience. One of the needs highlighted by the study is the positive assessment made by the French of the activities on the beach and the cultural offer.
This strategic sector should recover the small difference that will remain with regard to British visitors. The flight schedule of Girona airport in the summer of 2022 had not yet recovered all connections with the United Kingdom and this has meant that this market has not been fully reactivated.
Looking ahead to this spring, it is expected that the flights offered from Girona to the islands will still be 22% below those in 2019. In addition, from El Prat airport there will be a 15.6 % less seats in the United Kingdom, mainly due to the reduction in the offer of the company Easy Jet.
On the other hand, the study also highlights the increase in prices that Lloret de Mar hotels have had, especially the 4-star ones. This upward trend is comparable to the rest of the establishments. In addition, the municipality scores 87 points out of 100 for visitor satisfaction, in the same line as Salou, Calvià or Benidorm.