Sector analysis

The collapse of tourism in Spain in the wake of COVID-19 has pushed the tourism industry to undertake major price adjustments and the hotel sector has been the greatest exponent of this trend. According to data from the National Statistics Institute, the price per room per day charged by hotels in the summer of 2020 was 16% lower than the previous year. However, this huge price cut does not seem to have played a decisive role in reviving demand in some regions. The change in travel preferences brought about by the pandemic has meant that tourists have opted for nearby, familiar and less congested destinations, focusing less on price and thereby limiting the success of big reductions in hotel prices.

Air passenger transport is one of the mainstays of the tourism sector's value chain. For this reason, and in a similar way to the rest of the sector, it experienced a huge slump in 2020 in the wake of COVID-19. Airlines are currently having to tackle a combination of high capital costs due to their large structures and an almost total lack of operating income. The evident need for liquidity among Europe's airlines has led some governments to inject public capital to prevent their collapse. However, 2021 looks like being the watershed the tourism sector needs: the progress made by the vaccination roll-outs and the approval of measures such as the health passport will be crucial for air passenger transport to embark on the road to recovery and return to being one of the mainstays of tourism.