Madrid and Barcelona have recovered the tourist activity. According to data published last week by the World Hotel Index of SiteMinder, the open platform of the global hotel trade, hotel bookings have exceeded the levels recorded before the pandemic in these two cities.
Specifically, since the beginning of the year and until October 24, the demand in hotel establishments in the Spanish capital has increased by 102% compared to the same period of 2019, before the pandemic broke out.
According to the data consolidation of the hotel recovery in Spain beyond the coastal cities of sun and beach, which have registered a large influx in summer, and coincide with the reopening of the offer of urban activities throughout the country. In this sense, the growth of hotel bookings in Madrid and Barcelona is also higher than in other major European capitals such as Paris, with 93.4% more reservations compared to 2019, London (91.9%), Amsterdam (81.4%) and Berlin (74.3%).
The figures also indicate that Spain is one of the main drivers of travel recovery across Europe after the pandemic, as it exceeded by 111% the hotel bookings of summer 2019, while the world average for the same category is 80.9%. In addition, SiteMinder ensures that international tourism also continues its recovery after surpassing, during the last month, domestic tourism for the first time since the pandemic began.
Germany Also Recovering
Another destination that has been clearly recovering is Germany. Thedata reveals that across 400 hotel booking channels worldwide, the proportion of bookings for German hotels made in October 2021 was 30.8 percent. For Germany, this proportion has reached the pre-pandemic level.
Air Travel Stagnates
Global passenger demand in September was 53% lower than over the same month of the last year before the pandemic (2019), although the decline was smaller than in August, thanks to the recovery in domestic markets such as China, as reported by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) last week. During the eighth month of the year, the demand had been 56% lower compared to the same month of the last financial year without Covid-19.
In domestic markets, the effect of the pandemic weakened: the demand in September was 24.3% lower than in the same month of 2019, while in August the decline had been 32.6%. As an example, the demand in Russia was considerably higher than in September 2019 (up 29.3%), although in other major markets it remains below pre-pandemic levels. On a regional basis, the demand was 69% lower in Asia-Pacific compared to the same month in 2019, while in Europe the decrease was 50.3%, in North America 30% and in Latin America 39%.
