Dear customers and readers:
We bring you an assessment of the season we have experienced. Without a doubt, the worst we have ever experienced. Next, we are going to make a summary via data from APARTUR, the Association of Tourist Apartments of Barcelona:
- The forecast was that the decrease in the number of reservations at the Catalan level would exceed 71%. By demarcations, the expected occupancy was:
- Girona led the Catalan ranking with occupancy forecasts for the months of July, August and September of 36%, 48% less than in 2019.
- Costa Daurada and Terres de l’Ebre the forecasts stood at 31%, 57% less than last summer.
- Barcelona, with forecasts for the next three months that did not reach 20% as a whole, is the one with the largest drop, estimated at around 77%.
As we can see, the forecast for a decrease of 71% was quite optimistic, unfortunately for the sector. The most powerful sector, the tourist area of Barcelona, has been the most affected: After a forecast of a fall of 20%, the real fall has been approximately 77%.
These data give us three devastating conclusions:
- Forecasts have been wrong by more than three times what we have actually experienced: The pandemic has broken all expectations.
- The fall has been generalized in Catalonia: No area has been saved.
- The minimum fall was 12% and the maximum 57% compared to the initial forecast.
These data make us think that, without further delay, we need two solutions:
- Institutional support. We are a sector that contributes more than 12% of the national GDP, we are not of low added value: We provide employment and generate wealth directly but above all indirectly. We all live from tourism: The rental agency, the restaurant that serves its product, the driver that transports customers, the cinema that offers its films, the clothing store, the theme parks, the theaters and the state that ultimately reactivate taxes of each and every one of the actions derived from our activity.
- Go all to one, the objective is one, clear and blunt: To recover. We must put all the meat on the grill, we must return to levels of 2019 at least to reactivate the economy. We repeat, WE ARE NOT LOW VALUE ADDED. Remember that, from a theoretical-economic point of view, tourism is intensive in labor and generates temporary work. Our question is: Where is the industry that is intended to be generated with the tax system and the little confidence of a government that causes a constant flight of capital? We have a privileged climate and an incomparable gastronomy. Aren’t both things compatible?
We are all going to go for the goal: to recover and work. Work and generate wealth, not apply in wages and salaries, in official cars and in abject statements. Spain and Europe are tourism and the future. We’ll get out of this, all together.
HLCLUB.ES team