2023-05-08 13:51:34
The recovery of turismo After the collapse caused by the pandemic, it is already total and now the sector is heading towards new records of demand, activity and also prices in Spain. A post-covid boom to which the great rental business tourist housingwhich already registers apartment supply levels above the pre-pandemic records so far this year.
In the first months of this year the tourist apartment park advertised on large online platforms throughout Spain has already exceeded the volume that was in 2019with almost 259,400 homes for rent in January, more than 246,100 in February and 269,600 in March, according to data from the specialized consultancy ‘AirDNA’, which permanently analyzes the evolution of the advertisements of the giants Airbnb and Vrbo/Expedia in everyone, the occupation of the flats and their prices.
In March, still a month of tourist low seasonthere are already close to 270,000 tourist apartments, after adding 27,300 in relation to the same month last year (an additional 75 each day) and slightly exceeding the data for 2019, with barely 400 tourist homes (VUT) more than then.
The supply of flats is not the same every month of the year, it changes depending on the demand depending on whether it is high season or not. Traditionally, the highest volumes of tourist apartments offered are reached in the months of July and August.
The AirDNA statistical series on the offer of VUT throughout Spain, to which El Periódico de España, from the Prensa Ibérica group, has had access, shows that it was in August 2019 when there was a greater offer of tourist apartments, with a total of 357,700. If the trend of the first months of the year continues, this summer it will foreseeably exceed that historical record.
Return to tourist rental after the covid
During the stoppage of activity caused by the pandemic, a part of the supply of properties abandoned vacation rentals to switch to seasonal rentals (less than a year) or, to a lesser extent, long-term rental. “Tourist housing supply is much more flexible than hotels, as owners can choose to take their property offline for a month for personal use or longer-term rentals, and then return to short-term rental when the market is more profitable, for example in high season”, explain AirDNA sources.
From the tourist rental sector it is recognized that the reactivation of travel demand after the covid is causing a part of those who left to return to the activity and is also attracting new owners.
“There are homes that came out of the vacation rental with the pandemic and that are now coming back. It is not that they are growing like mushrooms”, says Miguel Ángel Sotillos, president of the Spanish Federation of Tourist Housing and Apartment Associations (Fevitur), which brings together the regional employers of the owners of tourist apartments from all over the country. Tourist flats account for just over 1% of the total number of homes in the Spanish market, so “it does not seem reasonable to accuse the houses for tourist use of the total lack of housing and of the increase in the average prices of the rent”, responds to the criticisms aroused by the proliferation of VUT in some areas.
According to AirDNA data for March, Malaga It is the province with the largest number of tourist apartments, with 33,130 homes, 17% more than before the pandemic. The following provinces with a greater offer of tourist apartments have not yet fully recovered the volume prior to the pandemic: Alicante, with 25,772 VUT, still 8% less than pre-covid levels; Las Palmas, with almost 21,000, 2% less than in 2019; Santa Cruz de Tenerife, with 18,165, 1% less; and the Balearic Islands, with 18,300 homes, 25% less due to the new, more restrictive regulations.
Los large coastal and island tourist destinations exceed the offer of large cities Spanish. In the province of Barcelona there were 13,100 active VUT ads in March, 30% less than before the covid, and in Madrid slightly less than 12,800 apartments were offered for tourist rental, tying with the pre-pandemic data. The destinations that have increased their housing stock for tourist use the most have been those provinces that became popular during the pandemic: Lugo (+90%), Pontevedra (+68%), Ourense (+67%) and Vizcaya (+67% ) and A Coruña (+40%).
The tourism lobby and the Housing Law
The large Spanish tourist companies have spent months putting pressure to Government to activate a real regulation against the proliferation of the offer of illegal tourist flats. In successive contacts with the Executive, they have been demanding a state legislation that serves to enforce the regulations of autonomous communities and town halls that de facto are not complied with to put a stop to the new VUT boom. Exceltur, the lobby that brings together some thirty of the largest companies in the sector (among them, large hoteliers such as Meliá, NH, Riu, Iberostar or Palladium), has been pressing for the Government to take advantage of the Housing Law to stop the proliferation of illegal offer.
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The greats of tourism warn that the proposal of agreed regulations by the partners of the coalition Executive (PSOE and Unidas Podemos) with ERC and EH Bildu does not make any mention of tourist rental, and warns of the consequences of the text going ahead like this. From the lobby of the big ones in the tourism sector, it is warned that the future Housing Law may mean a massive conversion of flats now for rent towards the tourist business due to the ceiling on traditional rental price increases that the housing regulations intend to establish in areas that they consider stressed.
From Fevitur, the warnings of the lobby of the greats of the tourism sector are rejected. “You cannot produce a massive transfer, there are municipal regulations that must be complied with and that prevent it,” says the president of the association of associations, Miguel Ángel Sotillos, about the supply limits that are imposed by many municipalities to put an end to the expansion of tourist apartments.
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