Hotels in area ended last year with 2.6 million more overnight stays than in 2021

Provincial Tourism Board of the Council of Cadiz analysed the latest data on the Hotel Tourism Situation provincially, published by the National Statistics Institute (INE). The figures from December make it possible to carry out a study of all of 2022, which emphasises, above all other data, that the total number of overnight stays grew by 2.6 million -precisely. 2,598,956 more overnight stays- during 2022 in the province compared to the previous year, 2021. In absolute terms, overnight stays that year (2021) amounted to 5,411,831 in the province of Cadiz, while the same parameter in 2022 reached 8,010,787 overnight stays.

This number of overnight stays is close to pre-pandemic levels: during 2019 (the last year before Covid), Cadiz recorded a total number of 8,030,659 nights of hotel occupancy. They are the only years from the last eleven (20112022) in which the barrier of eight million overnight stays in hotels in Cadiz has been surpassed. Behind these results, what is striking is the comparative increase in foreigners who have travelled and stayed in the province throughout December, as well as the cumulative number of the year -an item that is the result of adding the twelve months-. The percentage increase in foreigners in the province during December 2022 compared to December 2021 increased by 38.6% -the average growth resulting from all nationalities of visitors is 22.6%-. Likewise, the sum of foreign travellers throughout 2022 (cumulative figure over the twelve months) more than doubles that of 2021. That year, the figure was 359,013 foreigners, and in 2022, the same parameter reached 779,284.

It is necessary to bear in mind that, without comparing to the previous year, in absolute terms, the number of national tourists is higher: 1,891,665 in total from January to December in 2022. The case is that they have not risen so much in relation to the data from 2021 -increase in percentage terms-.

Another of the most notable aspects in December 2022, as pointed out by the first vice-president of the Council and head of the Provincial Tourism Board, José María Román, is the growth in employment linked to hotel establishments in Cadiz. The province ended December with 923 more jobs in this specific sector than it had in December of the previous year, 2021. “It is very significant to achieve this in the low season, because December is not normally among the best tourist months in the province. This is one the priority areas of the Provincial Tourism Board: to encourage activity out of season, beyond the summer months”.

Cumulative data for the twelve months of 2022

The more than eight million overnight stays last year are the result of visits to the province by 2.6 million travellers. Among them, almost 1.9 million people were of Spanish nationality, and more than 779,000 people were foreign.

The hotel nights generated by each of these groups were: 5.3 million overnight stays from visits of Spanish tourists, and almost 2.7 million overnight stays, from foreign tourists.

The average cumulative employment in this period was almost 5,900 jobs.