City hotel bookings soar 70% in November: Travellers snap up rooms for next summer

HOTEL bookings have risen sharply for the last few weeks of the year – in Spain's major cities, at least.

Overall, reservations have gone up by around 70% in the past month and an average of 37.47% on the same month in 2019, before the Covid-19 crisis struck.

Valencia is the city which has seen steepest hike in bookings, at 43.31% in November compared with the same month last year, followed by Madrid, with a rise of 33.29% year on year.

Málaga is third, with reservations soaring compared with November 2019 from 30.68%, ahead of Barcelona, which has experienced a year-on-year increase of 25.09%.

The greatest rise was in the last week or two of the month, and 52.55% of bookings during that time were made for stays with dates for before the end of the year.

Another 20.3% show considerable forward planning: They are for summer 2021.

It is widely expected that Christmas and New Year bookings in 2021 will be considerably higher, not just in Spain but also in Germany, France and Portugal.

The ever-increasing flow of hotel bookings in Spain has contributed significantly to a worldwide growth in the tourism industry of nine percentage points over October and November.

Lengths of stays booked are also showing positive trends as foreign travellers' confidence in Spain as a destination becomes stronger.

Based upon bookings already made, the hotel-room portal SiteMinder says the average stay for next summer will be for 4.54 days, compared with a mean figure of 2.45 days over peak season in 2020.