Despite the fact that an average increase in hotel rates of around 14 percent, the Balearics came out top as the most popular holiday destination for foreign visitors to Spain in September.
According to a survey published today by the National Statistical Institute (INE), 35.9 million people were checked into hotels last September, up 40% from a year earlier, although still almost two million less than in 2019.
The top destination chosen by non-residents in Spain was the Balearics with 33.7% of the total overnight stays, followed by the Canary Islands and Catalonia with 19.4% and 17.9% of the total, respectively.
But, the summer season does appear to be coming an abrupt end as hotels start closing at the end of this month.
Hotel bookings in the Balearics on TravelgateX fell by 13.1% the last week compared to the previous week, but remain 30.6% above last year and are 371.93% higher than those recorded in 2020, (229.7%).
The Balearics was the sixth most booked region last week, behind Andalusia, the Canary Islands, Catalonia, Madrid and Valencia.
The Balearics accounted for 7.28% of bookings, slightly less than the previous week.
In Spain as a whole, 16.48% of bookings are made around one month in advance, 17.72% are ‘last second’ bookings (less than one day in advance) and 9.27% are ‘last minute’ bookings (two to three days in advance).
44.1% of bookings were made by couples and 35% by single travellers; as for the markets of origin, the national market is the most predominant (71.66%), followed by the United Kingdom (10.74%), Germany (2.3%), Italy (1.76%) and the United States (1.62%).