The “craving to travel” and the last minute sales, which are growing more and more, have overwhelmed all tourist forecasts. It has been a summer of “remarkable and atypical” growth, according to the quarterly balance of the Exceltur employers’ association, with an unprecedented increase in activity that is explained by the end of mobility limitations, after two years of restrictions, and to the fact that the national client, the main responsible for these data, had pocketed savings. Remarkable data that make tourism, in general, an activity little or barely affected by uncertainty; but the sector suffers from the increase in energy and food costs and the cut in supply chains, which have caused companies to see their business margins reduced.
Tourism GDP has grown by 2.7% in the third quarter of 2022, a figure that would make the sector “the main prop and support” of the national economy, according to Exceltur, while waiting to know the official data for July, August and september. These are figures that improve those of 2019, the last year before confinement. If the first quarter was “bad” due to the omicron variant and the second was “regular”, the third has been historic.
Employment in tourism, in terms of creation and stability, has also had a positive evolution. Affiliates to Social Security are 1.1% above the 2019 data at the end of September. As for temporary employment, the rate in the sector has gone from 30.4% in February to 11% in September , always according to data from Exceltur.
The key to achieving these figures has been national demand, which has increased its sales by 3.2% compared to September 2019. Foreigners have begun to return, but not yet at the levels they did three years ago. . The exception is Russian and Asian tourists, where there are still sanitary restrictions. All of them are among the consumer profiles with the highest spending capacity, which have grown in general.
Exceltur data also shows that overnight stays in more modest accommodation have grown significantly this summer. This is the case of campsites (12.7%) or apartments (8.3%). Coastal hotels have been the main destinations, increasing their operations by 9.9%; followed by the urban ones (7.3%). In Galicia there has also been a notable increase in activity thanks to the extension of the Xacobeo year.
The employer defines these results as “good” in terms of income. A reality that, however, does not correspond to the evolution of business margins and results, which have been reduced by the situation of international instability. “There are great disparities” between companies, in addition, by the types of tourists. The evolution of the Levante or Andalusia market, where the year has been historic, is not comparable to that of the north or the interior. “We are facing a business reality that differentiates between results, margins and sales” due to, essentially, the types of markets, the employer has remarked.
Despite the storm clouds, the tourist prospects are not bad. On the contrary, they are positive. The forecast for the end of the year is that the level of activity equals that of 2019, also due to that interest in traveling and the savings stored. In total, if these data end up being confirmed, tourism would become the main engine of the recovery, contributing two out of every three euros to a growth that the Bank of Spain has estimated at 4.5%, always according to data from Exceltur.
The employers have blamed the Government for the limited investment interest on the part of the Executive in tourism, with a distribution in the budgets that does not satisfy those responsible for the organization, its vice president, José Luis Zoreda, has denounced. Because, they say, the sector has not recovered as a whole from the crisis nor has it transformed as it should. They demand, in short, a “budgetary rethinking of resources and stimuli.”
The employers have again demanded from the Government a specific Perte for the tourism sector with the aim of repositioning it, completing the aforementioned public financing and helping to recover the solvency of some companies that have not been able to generate the necessary margins to return the indebtedness they accumulate due to Covid. There are conversations, Exceltur has pointed out, and the predisposition of the Minister of Industry, Reyes Maroto, would be positive.
Turismofobia also represents a danger that the tourist employer contemplates. “A concern that should be given preferential attention” by the administration, Zoreda claimed. The employers have also alluded to tourist taxes, a tax that, according to businessmen, tries to plug financing weaknesses of the municipalities. Regarding housing for tourist use “improperly controlled, not prohibited” Exceltur bets on specific state laws to solve this problem.
Lastly, regarding taxes on airline tickets or fuel, not yet considered in the budgets that have just started processing, Exceltur claims that Spain does not become an outpost and that any tax decision that entails a cost burden is accompanied by the decisions taken at the international level.
