The Councilor for Tourism of Valencia, Paula Llobet, described this summer yesterday as “the best since the pandemic” at the tourism level. Llobet highlighted the latest official figures for this month of June, which is positioned as “the best June in the entire historical series prior to the covid with 420,578 hotel overnight stays and an average of 87.5% occupancy.”
Llobet’s assessment is in line with that offered yesterday by Hosbec, the Valencian Community hotel management association, which in its occupancy analysis for the first fortnight of August shows how the hotels in Valencia have had 87% occupancy rates. , being also the destination where the international market predominates the most, with a volume of 66%. Here Hosbec highlights above all the importance of the Italian market, with a 10% representation.
All in all, although these analyzes focus on hotel occupancy, the city’s tourist success today would not be understood without the rise of tourist apartments which, according to official figures, stands at a regulated supply of some 5,000 beds spread over 1,200 apartments. . A more in-depth look that breaks down that offer by districts and neighborhoods reveals that in the last month the tourist area that has increased its online offer of apartments and places the most is the one that makes up the peripheral neighborhoods of the city, since they exceed 34% growth in both cases.
For example, the area from Benicalap to Borbotó has seen its offer increase to 75 apartments and 276 beds, despite the fact that its average grade has fallen and stands at a bare 3.6. Another of the neighborhoods that has also increased its offer of apartments -includes that of Airbnb, Booking.com, HomeAway and TripAdvisor- is Rascanya, which has 87 establishments and 340 beds. Other booming areas are Campanar, with 87 apartments and 307 parking spaces, or Jesús-Patraix, with 59 apartments and 238 parking spaces.
The extension of tourism beyond the historic center or the highly visited area of ??the Ciutat de les Arts and les Ciències, with 7,222 beds and 5,192 beds in apartments, respectively, is a proposal from the current local government. In total, the squares in peripheral neighborhoods account for half of those in the beach area, but it gives an idea of ??the magnitude of the phenomenon, since there are a total of 611 apartments (regulated, it should be taken into account that there are also illegal) and 2,560 places available.
Regarding the promotion of the neighbourhoods, Councilor Paula Llobet also explained that the council is working to promote the promotion, in the coming weeks, of cultural routes through certain neighborhoods of the city such as El Cabanyal, El Grau, La Malva-rosa or Patraix. Ella Llobet explained that they are going to renew the signage and carry out promotional activities so that “our cultural heritage is known by tourists and at the same time relieve certain areas of the city such as Ciutat Vella”.
However, proposals like this will also involve critical observation by neighborhood groups, since living with tourists is not always easy. This was reflected these days by the organization Amics de Velluters, which shared an image of tourists on a street in the Patraix neighborhood on social networks to “denounce” the risks of touristification. To the photo of four kids in the street, sitting in the cool air, wondering if this is “the tourism we want”.
Mayor María José Catalá recently estimated that there were some 4,000 irregular tourist apartments in the city and announced an ordinance and an inspection plan to detect irregular apartments.
For the mayoress of Valencia, the priority at the moment is that there are no irregular apartments and, from there, “to prevent tourist apartments from generating a massive presence in some neighborhoods of the city and making coexistence difficult.”
