All Valencian tourists have increased hotel occupancy in February compared to the same month last year, according to data provided by Hosbec. For the hotel employers’ association, the second fortnight of the month also marks the end of the low season with figures above 70% in all the analyzed areas of the Valencian Community.
The data allows hotel entrepreneurs to face the arrival of spring and Easter with optimism. Valencia city stands out above the rest of the destinations, with 85% occupancy in the second fortnight, with 4-star hotels in the lead, and an overall 78.2% throughout February. Everything points to massive Fallas.
The Costa Blanca also increased its records during the second fortnight with 77.5%, followed by Benidorm at 76.2% and the province of Castellón at 76.3%. In all cases, hotel occupancy grows between 5.5 and 8 points compared to 2023.
Although hotel activity began to reactivate for accommodations in February, motivated above all by the celebration of Valentine’s Day, it is in the first days of March when a greater change of pace is seen, since 44% of the accommodations that were still closed for the low season, they have decided to open their doors.
By area, the province of Valencia recorded a significant 82.8% occupancy rate in the second half of February, with an average of 76.7% throughout February, which is 5.5 percentage points more than in 2023.
National tourism represents more than half of the total (52.8%). Of the rest, no foreign market stands out greatly, with British, Italian, American, German, Dutch and French representation being widely distributed, all of them between 5.5% and 4%.
The boom in the province’s data comes above all from the city of Valencia, which stands at 85% during the second fortnight, with 4-star hotels in the lead with a share of 91%. The occupancy forecast for the first half of March is set at 71.6% in the province and 72.1% in Valencia.
Benidorm slightly exceeds the data for the first fortnight with 76.2% occupancy, and raises the average for the month of February to 75.9%, representing 5.7 points more than in the same period of 2023. In the Last 14 days of this leap month of February, the Spanish market represents 43.7% of the total compared to 56.3% belonging to the international market, which is led by the United Kingdom with 39.1%.
Behind the British market and at a long distance, is the Dutch market with 4.4% and the Belgian market with 4.2%, with the Irish market closing in fourth position with 2.2%. The month of March begins with very positive values, since the volume of confirmed reservations is 74.9%, 3.7 points above the data from the previous year on these same dates.
The Costa Blanca area (not including Benidorm) records an occupancy rate of 77.5%, finishing off a month of February that recorded an average of 75.4%, far exceeding the 2023 data by 8 percentage points.
Tourists of international origin represent 53.3% of the total, compared to 46.7% nationally, which maintains data similar to those of the previous fortnight. After the Spanish market, the most prominent nationalities are British (13.5%), Norwegian (7.7%) and Belgian (5.3%), French (5.2%) and Dutch (4.5%).
Regarding the forecast for the first days of March, there are already 73.9% of rooms reserved, a figure that will surely increase with last-minute reservations.
The hotels in the province of Castellón closed due to the marked seasonality of the province are beginning to join tourist activity accompanied by positive occupancy data of 76.3% during the second half of February.
These records also represent an improvement compared to those of 2023, since the average for the month (71.5%) increases by 6.1 percentage points compared to the previous year. The national tourist remains the same as in the first fifteen days with 65.4%. The remaining 34.6% belongs to international tourism, led by the French market with 7.7%, followed by the Italian market with 3.4%, the German market (3.3%) and the Swedish market (3%).
The next fortnight has a volume of confirmed reservations of 70.5%, well above that of the previous year (62.3%).
