OVERSEAS TOURISM GOOD NEWS FOR SPAIN
The National Institute of Statistics (NIS) has revealed that holiday rentals and occupancy rates in Spain are on the rise. It said that the March figure for overnight stays, 4.8 million, was an increase of 2.2 per cent on the same time the previous year, and the occupancy rate was 42.4 per cent, up three per cent from March 2006. It also noted that rents themselves had risen by an average 3.6. per cent.
This is welcome news for owners of property in Spain after a sustained period of uncertainty about the state of the Spanish market and some predictions of a crash. Fears have been eased in the last couple of weeks with many industry experts now seeing the 'crash' as a 'correction' of over-inflated stock prices of a few property companies.
Various reports on Spanish property prices this year have shown very different results, though none of them are definitive as they all use different sources of data and methods of calculating average prices. Increasing tourist numbers will in any case be seen as a healthy sign by those looking for rental income from their home in Spain.
Overseas visitors accounted for 87 per cent of the total, 30 per cent of whom were British, 22 per cent German and 17 per cent from Norway and Sweden combined.
The data from the NIS revealed that the top destinations for overseas visitors were the Canary Islands, Andalucia and Valencia.
Source Western Europe News May 07