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In full uncertainty about the arrival of the ómicron variant and at the gates of the Constitution bridge, Spanish tourists are canceling their trips abroad, especially to Portugal. Specifically, 18% of Spaniards who had booked these days to go abroad have canceled their trip, according to data from Destinia.
The reason? “We are seeing a high volume of cancellations due to the new restrictions and mandatory PCR, which makes the trip more expensive and the bureaucracy before traveling is heavier,” Ricardo Fernández, general director of Destinia, acknowledges to this medium.
For example, 26% of Spaniards who were going to travel to Portugal have canceled in the last few days since the omicron variant began to be discussed.
In fact, it is expected that at Christmas it could also affect the arrival of foreign tourists to Spain. "The new restrictions that the British government has placed on returning, in which isolation is requested until a negative PRC is carried out on the second day of returning, are causing many Britons to cancel their vacations," they point out from the online travel agency .
Likewise, Spain has begun to require a complete vaccination schedule, which was previously not mandatory if you had a negative PCR, which also causes cancellations.
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However, facing this bridge of the Constitution, the new variant of the Covid will not affect internal tourism. "The Spaniards will travel abroad less, but we believe that at the national level it should not be so noticeable," says the manager.
So much so that the figures for this bridge are very positive. "We are 20% above the October long weekend trips," he says. However, at Destinia they acknowledge that the new news about omicron is making people more conservative and last-minute reservations are slowing down.
Raise the price per night
The average price per night for this long weekend in December is 108 euros, 18% more compared to what Spaniards had to pay to travel on the long weekend in October (92 euros).
Madrid stands out as the preferred destination, which is once again the city chosen by the Spanish for this bridge, with 43% more reservations than the next city in the ranking, which is Barcelona.
Likewise, it is noteworthy that this year it enters the top 10 cities for the Vigo bridge, with the great Christmas lights campaign that has been launched in recent years, achieving 59% more reservations than in the October bridge and 23% more than in December 2019.
Hostelry
The increase in reservations to travel through Spain is also transferred to the hotel sector. For this bridge, online restaurant reservations have grown by 70% compared to 2019 and 217% compared to 2020, according to The Fork app (formerly ElTenedor).
It should be noted that, given the circumstances and the new consumption habits, these days are reserved online more than before and planned up to more than a week in advance (compared to the usual eight hours).
With regard to the average budget that diners plan to allocate to their lunches and dinners during these days, the average is 29 euros, above the usual budget that is between 25 and 27 euros. In addition, consumers have made their reservations in different types of restaurants, where Mediterranean food (27%), Spanish (17%) and Japanese (6%) continue to triumph.
As for the cities with the highest number of reservations for the Puente de la Constitución in Spain, the big capitals such as Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Malaga stand out.
However, if we look at the provinces that are experiencing the greatest growth in bookings for this bridge, these are Cádiz (+316%), Alicante (+167%), Ávila (+126%), Seville (+126%) and Mallorca (+120%), due, in part, to the increase in travel and national tourism.
