More hotels closing due to strong decline in bookings

The collapse of tourism in the Archipelago has already had a massive affect on the local economy, and several more hotels will close in the next few days due to the incessant drop in reservations.

The Landmar Costa Los Gigantes will close, provisionally, next Sunday the 10th; the Bahía Príncipe Fantasía Tenerife hotel will do so today; the Monopol hotel, in Puerto de la Cruz, also closes today, and the San Roque Boutique Hotel, in Garachico, will do so later this month, despite the fact that they only reopened on December 3rd.

It is more than likely that more will be added to this list over the next few weeks, since the situation of the pandemic and the restrictions on mobility imposed by the governments of the main emitting countries of the Islands, the UK and Germany, as well as the limitations applied to the development of the virus itself in Tenerife, have led many hoteliers to make this decision.

The manager of Ashotel, Juan Pablo González, said yesterday that "unfortunately this decision is being taken by many hoteliers because reservations have fallen significantly. Our main markets, the British and German, are in a very bad health situation. The United Kingdom has closed its borders until at least February. The national market is also bad and the Nordic one is not travelling much either, so as much as we want to, we cannot be optimistic with these prospects.”

González confirmed that the winter season in the Canary Islands is already lost, and said that "until the vaccine is running regularly, the situation will not improve. Until then, it will be like a roller coaster: today we are good and tomorrow bad, and thus it is impossible to keep the hotels open”.

He noted that during the summer and the Christmas holidays the local market ‘has helped, but it is impossible that it can replace the British or German markets.’

"Right now, many hoteliers are at 15% occupancy. This for a four-star hotel with more than 200 rooms represents losses of 180,000 euros per month. Under this scenario, it is logical that many hoteliers are thinking about closing. Keeping a hotel open at a loss is difficult. It costs a lot to close a hotel and open it too.”

González indicated that during the summer the hoteliers demonstrated "that they are prepared, since there were no infections in the establishments and the sanitary measures were complied with, but all this is useless if there are no tourists and if no customers come."

He confirmed that there are some hoteliers who hope that the situation will begin to recover from Easter, but, as the situation is, he indicated that, at least, until the summer the sector will not begin to raise its head. From there, there will be half a year to try to recover some of what has been lost throughout 2020 and part of 2021. "The vaccine will be what gives confidence and marks a before and after," he said.

THE DATA:
The Canary Islands received 160,662 international tourists in November, 86.3% less than in the same month of 2019, as a result of the pandemic and outbreaks, which led some countries to adopt new restrictions on travel, while however, the Archipelago was the main destination in Spain, with 35.2% of all tourists.

This is extracted from the data published last Tuesday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), which also includes that the expenditure made by foreign tourists reached 199 million euros in November, a figure 86.6% lower than that of the same month of 2019.

In total, the whole of Spain received 456,956 international tourists in November, 90.2% less than a year earlier. With this sharp decline, there has now been nine consecutive months of decreases in the number of international tourists visiting Spain. The INE has also reported that the expenditure made by foreign tourists reached 467 million euros in November, a figure 90.8% lower than that of the same month of 2019.