Turisme Comunitat Valenciana, the Valencia regional tourism body, in conjunction with the Valencian Institute of Tourism Technologies (Invat tur), organised the conference ‘Summer data’22: Back to normality’, to analyse the trends in preparation for summer 2022.
The regional secretary of Turisme, Francesc Colomer, highlighted at the opening of the conference that “if the script does not change, 2022 will be a year of comeback, of recovery”, although he has been cautious and has pointed out that “we should not be fascinated by the numerical recovery, we must also consider other metrics such as the ability to be more profitable, because inflation affects costs”.
Francesc Colomer has underlined the effort and “the generosity of the tourism sector in order not to pass on the rise in all costs in a tremendous rise in prices”.
Regarding the trends, he indicated that “we must continue working on diversifying products, issuing markets and strategies to be resilient and adapt quickly to the changes that may occur”.
During the session, travel trends and customer characteristics were discussed for the 2022 high season and the options for this summer to really be that of the recovery of tourism prior to the pandemic.
Experts from companies that analyse data and have up-to-date information on the market in order to advance possible forecasts have participated in the conference, such as Alex Villeyra, COO of Mabrian; Lola Buendía, director of marketing and communication at Beonprice; Pedro Díaz, the commercial director of TurObserver; in addition to the director of Tourist Intelligence of Turisme CV, Mario Villar.
During the day, Mabrian, a leading tourism intelligence company, presented the summer 2022 trends for the Valencian Community with figures that show that tourism is returning to normal and to pre-pandemic levels.
Specifically, the evolution of tourist interest in the Valencian Community has been analysed, focusing on Alicante, València and Castelló. Among the findings, a strong demand has been detected from the main issuing markets, with levels of interest in the destination higher than those of 2019.
Among these issuing markets with growing interest is the British market, which has been reactivated especially in recent weeks.
Regarding the global air capacity of the three airports of the Valencian Community, it should be noted that it is at the same level as 2019 for the months from June to October in terms of seats.
The Community is directly connected to 131 airports, with a strong growth in supply in the domestic market, as well as markets such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway and Switzerland. The United Kingdom continues to be the main issuing market, although it is still below the values of 2019 in terms of the offer of places.
The data also shows that the length of stay in the destination is normalising, with an average of 6.7 days and an increase in prices has been detected in all categories, both in hotels and flights.
Furthermore, hotel demand tends to increase in 4-star hotels over 3-star hotels, with the superior category remaining stable. On the other hand, the reservation period stabilises at an average of 68.6 days in advance.
Finally, in the trends for summer 2022, an increase in overall satisfaction has been detected, mainly thanks to the increase in the perception of security and satisfaction with the quality of the accommodation offered.
Regarding interest among tourists, interest in cultural products and sun and beach remains, although it decreases slightly compared to 2019. Likewise, gastronomic interest increases and is in second place, surpassing interest in sun and beach. On the other hand, it is worth noting the increase for nature-based and activity products.
