A study commissioned by the Catalan Camping Federation (FCC) has come to the conclusion that the Catalan model of this type of tourist accommodation is clearly committed to a quality offer and places its facilities around the highest categorization in the segment. With an offer of 353 campsites and 271,419 pitches, Catalonia is one of the main European destinations. They employ 15,695 people directly (more than 40,000 indirect jobs) and in recent years there has also been a progressive increase in users from Catalonia and the rest of Spain.
In 2023, 4,026,771 tourists decided to use camping as a form of accommodation in Catalonia, which represented a total of 19,248,700 overnight stays. This figure represents a third of Catalan tourist accommodation. In addition, the camping sector is responsible for an impact of almost 2,467 million euros for the territory as a whole.
Miquel Gotanegra, president of a federation that represents 83.5% of the total places in the sector, emphasizes the willingness to bet on quality, and assures that “deseasonalization is key, it is the great challenge”. And he adds that “only with longer seasons can we ensure growth by retaining talent and remunerating workers better”. And they seem to have been on the right track for the past two years, with the biggest increases coming in the high preseason and postseason.
Miquel Gotanegra states that, “despite the fact that there has been a lot of demagoguery on the subject, the campsites’ swimming pools, which only account for 2% of the total water consumption, are already full”. And he says they are willing to do “whatever it takes” to fill them. He also remembers that in the last 25 years the campsites in Catalonia have reduced water consumption by more than 60%.
The low weight of campsites of the lowest category is particularly relevant (they only represent 9.7% of the total). It is a sector with an average year-on-year growth in values ??of around 5%. 56% of tourists who choose campsites are Catalan (41.6% of overnight stays); 36%, foreigners (50.9% of overnight stays), and 8%, from the rest of Spain. Catalan campsites have revenue volumes that exceed 500 million euros and the average economic profitability is 8.44% (significantly above the 6.4% of the Catalan business average).
The authors of the study, Bim Consultors, explain that the evolution of the price index has experienced a clear upward trend, of 20.62% in ten years. However, this increase places a negative growth in prices. If the CPI adjustment is applied during this period, it is 22.6%. There is a real stagnation of sale prices in camping and bungalow rates. Bim Consultors adds that “it is an inflationary sector, contrary to what is normally assumed of the tourism sector”.
The Catalan campsites are celebrating today and tomorrow at the Vilanova Park in Vilanova i la Geltrú, one of the most prominent in Europe, the first congress under the motto “Modeling a greener future”. The aim is to “vindicate the specific weight of the sector in tourism and in the economy, to bring the campsites of the whole territory together even more and to promote the global Càmpings de Catalunya brand”.
The meeting, organized by the FCC in collaboration with the Generalitat and the Provincial Council of Barcelona, ??coincides with the 70 years of history of a sector which, they say, “is a key economic driver for the country and a pioneer in the for the sustainability and constant improvement of the management of water resources”. Adaptation to climate change and the sustainable development of the sector in the current context of the need to improve water management will be the guiding thread of the meeting.
The campsites apply different measures, such as drip irrigation for gardening, the control of laundry systems, the reduction in water pressure, the reuse of shower water for the toilet or actions in swimming pools, such as the first acquisitions of mobile desalination plants, involving campsites in Lloret and Tossa de Mar. For years, establishments such as El Delfín Verde in Torroella de Montgrí have had their own desalination plant and are making “significant efforts towards energy self-sufficient establishments with zero use of fossil fuels for operation”. Among other actions, solar panels have been installed in bungalows or common elements and geothermal and biomass boilers have been incorporated for heating water and heating.
