Malaga hotel occupancy exceeds pre-pandemic levels of 2019 in first quarter of 2023

In the first quarter of 2023, hotel establishments in Malaga province exceeded the occupancy figures of 2019 according to the latest data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

According to the latest data from the Hotel Business Survey published this Monday, April 24, by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), hotels in Malaga province exceeded the pre-pandemic figures of 2019 in the first three months of 2023.

They fell slightly short though of reaching the number of overnight stays at that time. Up to March, establishments in Malaga registered a total of 1.04 million tourists. They showed a 25 per cent increase over the previous year and a 6.4 per cent increase compared to three years ago.

An excellent Easter Week in terms of tourism has weighed heavily in the evolution of these figures, which clearly establish the province to be in a scenario of recovery.

The fact that figures for overnight stays have not yet quite reached those of 2019, it suggests that visitors are probably opting for somewhat shorter stays.

Up to March, Malaga accumulated a total of 3.08 million overnight stays. That is 27 per cent above the level of the first quarter of 2022 but still 1.6 per cent below 2019. The average stay so far this year is 2.94 days per tourist, compared to 3.18 last year.

Foreign travellers are the main bastion of the Malaga hotel sector, with 573,627 visitors in the first quarter and 2.10 million overnight stays. The figures for foreign tourism are almost 40 per cent higher than those recorded last year.

In relation to 2019, the pre-pandemic level is slightly exceeded in visitors (566,000 at the time) but not, by a very small margin, in overnight stays (2.15).

Domestic visitors so far in 2023 numbered 469,270 up to March with 975,040 overnight stays. This shows an increase respectively of 11 per cent and 6 per cent on last year’s volume. The number of Spanish visitors is also 13 per cent higher than in 2019, while the volume of overnight stays is the same.

Occupancy rates in March were 53.7 per cent by beds and 68 per cent by rooms. Those figures are six per cent higher than in 2022 and almost similar, or even higher than in the pre-Covid era when they were 54.2 per cent and 67.3 per cent respectively in 2019.

Today’s INE figures also reflect an improvement on the previous year in terms of the number of hotel establishments operating in Malaga. In March there were 639 hotel establishments open, considerably more than the previous year (516) and in 2019 (524). The estimated number of available beds was 57,875, compared to 53,216 last year and 59,649 in 2019.

In terms of employment in Malaga’s hotels, the figures are higher than before Covid. If Malaga hotels employed 11,888 people in March 2019, the figure now stands at 12,499.

A year ago they were still below the norm (10,971 workers). The peak of employment in Malaga’s hotels tends to occur logically in the months of July and August when there are around 19,000 workers.

In terms of hotel prices, the turnover per occupied room at the average daily rate (ADR) in the province of Malaga in March was €94.90. This was slightly above the e85.4 euros of the previous year. In terms of profitability, the revenue per available room (RevPar) was €64.90, compared to €50.30 in March 2022.