Yzabelle Bostyn
THE NUMBER of tourist lodgings in Spain fell by 7.2% between August to November 2024.
According to the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE), this equates to 28,588 lost, bringing the total to 368,295.
This is the first time numbers have fallen since the start of 2023, though the volume of holiday accommodations is still the second highest on record.
Despite the fall, the amount of tourist lodgings has still gone up 4.8% from February last year, with an extra 16.906 units.
In November, Spain’s accommodation offered 1,857,710 spaces, some 6.9% less than August 2024 but 6.1% more than in February of the same year.
Each available lodging had an average of five spaces, a very similar amount to those offered in August and February.
The data also showed that the proportion of properties used as holiday accommodation has gone down between August and November from 1.5 % to 1.38%.
Alicante leads the way with the highest number of tourist lodgings, 41,179, it is closely followed by Malaga with 41,039.
In third place was Las Palmas, with 27,217 holiday properties, the Balearic Islands (24,190), Tenerife (24,069), Madrid (20,760) and Barcelona (18,157).
By municipality, the areas with the most tourist flats registered were Madrid (17,274), Barcelona (9,750), Malaga (7,496), Valencia (7,290) and Marbella (6,881).
To obtain this data, the INE used the ‘web scraping’ technique where software programs analyse the top three accommodation platforms.
Previously the statistics institute only published data once every six months, though this has now increased to three.
It will be interesting to see if this is a trend or just a seasonal reduction in tourist lodgings as owners remove their properties from the web/agencies.
If the later, then the numbers should increase again ahead of the prime vacation season this year.