2023-10-14 10:30:13
Spanish tourism is preparing for a historic year. After recording a record summer in the midst of a boom in foreign and national travelers and driven by the sharp rise in prices, the sector anticipates that business growth rates will be even greater in the remainder of the year. The forecast of the largest tourist companies in the Spanish market, grouped in the lobby He is exaltedis that the GDP of the sector will set historical highs in the whole of 2023 and will shatter the previous record, standing 16% above the levels prior to the Covid pandemic.
Amid so much good news, so much data and such good progress of the business as a whole, the large tourist groups warn that the sector has not yet managed to exceed the figures that would have been achieved without the total stoppage of activity and the collapse almost absolute business during the pandemic due to the mobility restrictions applied to control infections.
Despite the current historical boom, without the pandemic and with the growth path that the sector had been maintaining, the tourism GDP would now be well above the levels at which this year will close. Specifically, the estimates from Exceltur – the lobby that brings together around thirty of the largest companies in the sector, including Meliá, NH, Iberia, Globalia, Riu o Amadeus– based on the Tourism Satellite Account prepared by the INE, they indicate that the sector has suffered a hole of 222,000 million euros since 2020 compared to the estimated scenario if the pandemic had not occurred.
“Despite the evidenced capacity for reactivation, tourism activation in Spain is still below what it would have achieved without the impact suffered during the years of the pandemic, failing to earn 222,000 million euros between 2020 and 2023 compared to “what would have been the potential generation of economic activity linked to tourism in that same period of time, according to the trend observed in the historical series,” Exceltur states in its latest quarterly report on tourism perspectives.
Boom after the crash
The business association predicts that tourism not only does not slow down, but that it will continue to grow at a greater rate until the end of the year. He Tourism GDP will climb throughout the year to a record of 183,078 million euros, with a growth of more than 14.7% compared to last year and 16.3% more compared to pre-covid 2019 levels, according to its new upwardly revised estimates. Without the impact of Covid, Exceltur’s calculations are that this year the sectoral GDP would be exceeding 190,000 million and in previous years it would have continued to grow without the collapse suffered during the epidemic.
The tourism sector had been accumulating record figures of income and demand in the years prior to the pandemic. Tourism managed to close 2019 with a sectoral GDP that amounted to 157,355 million euros. The total stoppage of activity during the black 2020 sank the GDP by almost 60%, until remaining at the levels of the late nineties, with only 64,573 million euros. The reactivation started timidly in 2021, reaching 97,127 million in activity, 45% more than the previous year, but still 38% below the pre-covid level. In 2022, the sector achieved full recovery and exceeded pre-pandemic levels, with 159,490 million tourism GDP, 64% more in one year and 1.3% compared to 2019.
All this loss of activity since 2020 and until this year, in relation to what tourism could have achieved in a scenario in which the growth trend registered before the pandemic had been maintained, is what Exceltur estimates at 222,000 million euros and to which the large companies in the sector cling to to emphasize that iEven in the midst of a boom, the sector still suffers the consequences of Covid.
If the strong growth in activity estimated for this year is confirmed, to exceed 183,000 million, tourism will consolidate as a national economic engine, contributing more than a fifth of all the growth of the Spanish economy and raising su contribution of up to 12.6% of the entire Spanish GDP, equaling the weight I had before Covid.
Price increases
The strong growth in tourist activity throughout the year has been boosted in large part by the increase in rates that companies are applying across the board. Tourism companies confirm significant increases in their turnover thanks to the rebound in activity and also to the rise in prices that started in the middle of the inflationary wave but has continued until now, and which places rates well above 2019 levels with an average of 18% more in all tourism subsectors.
For the tourist lobby, the price increase responds to the increase in demandto the need to respond to the increase in costs due to inflation and also to the fact that higher quality products with more added value are now being marketed after heavy investments to reposition them in higher ranges, while companies also need to pay of the debt accumulated during the pandemic.
Despite the improvement in sales and the fact that demand continues to grow despite the rise in prices, Exceltur warns that this boom is not translating into increases in profitability for many companies due to the sharp rise in operating costs caused by the rise in inflation during the last year since they cannot fully pass on these increases to prices. According to estimates by the sector lobby, the costs of energy and other supplies borne by tourism companies have still risen by more than 26% in the last two years, salary costs have increased by almost 20%, and financial costs have increased. have risen 11% in the last year.
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