Spanish touristic destinations Barometer, elaborated by Exeltur, indicates mild recovery of 1,2% in revenues per available room for the entire Spanish tourist destination sin the first five months of this year.

Days ago, Exceltur’s Studies and Research Area released the second edition of Profitability of Spanish Tourist Destinations Barometer.

We take this opportunity to congratulate this institution given that the statistical information, timely, consistent and with hi added-value, contributes to generate indicators of seriousness and maturity in the economy, while providing useful information to the public and private sector.

We reproduce the main conclusions of the document:

• At the beginning of 2010 it shows a slight increase (1.2%) in revenue per available room (RevPAR) of the Spanish hotels of five, four and three stars. In the accumulated from January to May, this hotel offer RevPAR stood at € 38.8 average compared with €38.4 in the same period of 2009, still far below the levels reached in 2008 (around the € 46), according to data from the Hotel Occupancy Survey from INE (National Statistics Institute)

• The slight recovery in the level of RevPAR registered in the beginning of this year is related to an improvement in occupancy rates of 3.3%, at the expense of further declines in prices of 2.2% in the ADR (average daily rate),facing a market that continues to show a high volatility due to the latent economic and financial uncertainty that affects consume propensity.

• As the year advanced, hotel RevPAR has shown signs of improvement until finishing in an encouraging month of May, with an increase of 4.1%, after overcoming the effects of airports closure because of the volcanic cloud in April , effects shown particularly in Spanish holiday destinations.

• Five-star hotels show a better performance with a RevPAR increase of 6.2% in the first five months of the year to reach € 71.3 in revenue per available room. The biggest adjustment in prices (-4.5%) and consumption recovery symptoms in higher-income sector and business travel have increased employment in these establishments by 11.2% from January to May. Four-star hotels remain on last year income levels and three stars even have relapsed (0.5%) compared to the sharp drop of 2009.

• Urban destinations explain the slight improvement in the RevPAR in Spain until May, while the holiday season has not yet recovered. In this period, the revival of business tourism, revitalization of cultural getaway weekends and the celebration of sporting events have allowed urban destinations experience a 1.5% growth in RevPAR (50.3 € on average), although still far from reaching 2008 levels (around 63 € on average).

• Also, the slight trend of improvement of Spanish holiday destinations results has been truncated in March and April for the great economic upheaval and main European market adjustment measures, as well as airspace block caused by Eyjafjall volcano ashes, which have conditioned the influx of travelers, limiting the recovery of hotel profitability main indicators. Specifically, five, four and three stars hotels’ RevPAR of the major holiday destinations in mainland coast, Balearic and Canary Islands remains at the same levels as in 2009 (RevPAR 0.0% on average), particularly a low € 37.3 average revenue per available room.

More information and the full report of Spanish Tourist Destinations Profitability Barometer can be found at www.exceltur.org.

Pablo Urani - C4T