Intermoney: The INE published on Friday the hotel business activity data for the month of February. Highlights:
- Overnight stays: Hotel overnight stays in February exceeded 18.5mn, exceeding those of 2023 by +10% and those of 2019 by +12%.
- Occupancy: Average occupancy stood at 53.1% (+3% year-on-year).
- Average revenue per occupied room (ARR): €106.7/room (+7% year-on-year and +28% against 2019)
- Average revenue per available room (RevPAR): €50/room (+14% year-on-year and +36% against 2019).
Overnight hotel stays in Spain (mns)
ARR, Occupancy, and RevPAR in Spanish Hotel Sector (2019, 2022, 2023)
Assessment: The tourism sector continues to show great strength at the beginning of the year, improving on data from 2023, a year in which it has broken records in both inflow and expenditure, as well as increasing its contribution to GDP to record highs, being responsible for more than 70% of the growth of the Spanish economy in 2023. The sector continues to show great resilience and the crisis we thought was coming never arrived. It seems that the importance of travel in consumer preferences has prevailed over other goods, despite having already exhausted the effects of pent-up demand and savings accumulated during the pandemic, in a context of rising wage incomes and relatively strong employment. The gap we have seen between tourism spending indicators and consumer confidence is expected to remain open for at least the first few months of 2024. The recovery in Asian markets that we will see this year should improve the 2023 data. IAG (Buy, P.O €2.6), Meliá (Hold P.O €7).
