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Date Published: 22/07/2021
ARCHIVED - Tourist bookings on the Costa Blanca hit by increased infections and restrictions
Hotel reservations fall by 10% across Valencia region.
Bad health data and proposals to extend a curfew across a total of 77 municipalities - 18 in Alicante province - from next week have dealt yet another blow to the tourism sector with hotels reporting a further slide in reservations.
Benidorm and the rest of the Costa Blanca have registered a 10 per cent drop in bookings compared to the end of June, before a rebound in contagions which has seen the Valencia regon's incidence rate leap to 498 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
Hoteliers insist that they have taken "all the possible preventive measures against Covid", even reducing capacity "to make more space for tourists", but argue the only solution to return to some semblance of normalcy is to "accelerate the pace of vaccination and, therefore, lower the incidence of infected people", says Hosbec, the Costa Blanca's hotel employers' association.
According to Hosbec, just 65.8 per cent of hotel rooms (excluding Benidorm) were occupied between July 12 and 18, a figure which has fallen by a further six per cent this week.
Of all the guests who have stayed in the establishments during July, on average 86.1 per cent are still Spanish or domestic travellers of other nationalities, with foreign tourists only accounting for 13.9 per cent.
The association says hotel supply "remains stable", as there are currently 47 hotels associated with Hosbec open to the public, representing 92.2 per cent, so the problem is "demand rather than supply".
"The opening of the British market has not yet had any effect on hotel occupancy," says Hosbec, while interestingly, 350,000 passengers are scheduled to fly from UK airports to Alicante-Elche in August - "promising figures", but down 70 per cent from August 2019.
As for Benidorm hotels, they appear to be amongst the hardest hit by the surge in infections, which will only be compounded by plans to impose a night curfew in the municipality, along with Alicante, Denia, Calpe and Callosa de Segura, from Monday July 26.
Establishments in the popular resort recorded an average occupancy rate of 56.8 per cent last week, six per cent less than the previous week. And again, almost 90 per cent of the tourists were Spanish.
There are currently 90 hotels associated with Hosbec open in Benidorm, 78 per cent of the resort's hotel plant.
IMAGE: Archive
staff.inc.ali
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