The first Easter Week without any type of restriction due to the pandemic – a year ago it was still compulsory to wear a mask indoors – will end, weather permitting, with occupations equal to or greater than those of 2019. With a ski season to forget and between 70% and 90% of the hotels on the coast are already open depending on the area, the tourist forecasts in the Costa Brava, the Costa Durada and the Maresme are very encouraging and point to record records. To give an example, in the Baix Empordà region, in the heart of the Costa Brava, occupations fluctuated yesterday between 85% and 90% for strictly festive days. “With last-minute reservations, we hope to reach 95%,” said the manager of the Costa Brava Center group, Judit Lloberol.
The same will happen on the Costa Daurada and in the tourist accommodation in the interior of Tarragona and Terres de l’Ebre, which also expect an almost absolute full house between Holy Thursday and Saturday. “Right now we will be around 80% on average; If the weather is favourable, a high and perhaps record occupancy is expected along the entire coast, but also inland”, explains Berta Cabré, president of the Tarragona Province Hospitality and Tourism Business Federation (FEHT).
Time will be the one that ends up catapulting or lowering the expectations of a Holy Week that, as usual, is mainly nourished by Catalan family tourism and the rest of Spain and French, who travel mostly by car. Also thousands of young athletes from European countries who, after the pandemic, once again cheer on destinations such as Lloret de Mar or Salou, which for years have been certified as a sports tourism destination. Between Salou and Cambrils, the arrival of 30,000 national and international athletes is expected, which, added to the companions, will generate some 120,000 overnight stays in hotels, campsites or apartments. In Lloret de Mar alone during this Holy Week, more than 13,000 people linked to the celebration of a sporting event will be staying. The star competition will once again be the MIC international youth soccer tournament, which will feature the participation of 360 teams from 34 countries. There will be more than 7,000 participants, including players and members of the coaching staff, who will play their matches in 35 municipalities in Girona, of which more than 5,000 will stay in hotels in Lloret, which will already have 80% of the offer open these days hotel available.
According to data from the Girona Hospitality Federation, the establishments in the south of the Costa Brava that work with sports audiences are already at 90% occupancy; the others are around 82% or 83%, a figure that they hope will increase with last-minute reservations. “We will recover the figures for 2019; a year ago we were still suffering from restrictions”, admits Elizabeth Keegan, manager of Lloret Turisme, who highlights some symptoms of the first quarter that make them optimistic. “In the first quarter, with close to a third of the hotels open, we have registered more sports tourists than in 2019,” she underlines.
The good feelings and the rate of reservations translate into a high percentage of open establishments compared to last year. On the Costa Brava, 90% of the hotel plant is working; in Maresme, 80%, and on the Costa Daurada, the figure is around 75%. In the campsites in the interior of Tarragona and the Costa Daurada, with all the accommodation open, occupancy will be around 85%; and on the Costa Brava, with a lower offer of 65%, the forecasts are 70% on a plot and 85% on a bungalow. “The figure is similar to that of last year, we hope to improve it over time,” explains the president of the Girona Camping Association, Miquel Gotanegra. The majority profile, national clientele on holidays, but also French, Dutch and German, who are the ones who will end up “saving the month of April”, according to Gotanegra.
The apartments for tourist use that will open these days, which are around 70% of the total in the province of Girona, are also very happy. Its president, Esther Torrent, quantifies 85% occupancy during the central days of Holy Week, a similar figure in the south.
In the Maresme, with 35,550 available places, the reservations received until yesterday were, according to the president of the hotel association of this region, Jordi Noguera, over 77%, thanks mainly to national clients, whose stays range from three to four days. . It is a destination that will also receive sports groups. In the Alt Maresme, which concentrates the bulk of the hotel plant, only 50% of the hotels open, and in Santa Susanna 90% will do so. The prospects are good. “Reservations are going at a good pace, but what is usual these days is last-minute hiring,” says the Santa Susanna tourism technician, Mercè López.
