Exceltur report reveals tourist rental properties in Malaga offer almost three times more beds than hotels

The latest data for the city shows that the capital of the Costa del Sol now has more than 39,600 beds in this type of accommodation compared to only 14,100 in hotels

Pilar Martínez

Málaga

Friday, 11 October 2024, 17:52

Spain's Alliance for Excellence in Tourism (Exceltur) wants it known that the new increase in the supply of tourist accommodation during the summer has laid out the harsh reality for tourism and residents in many Spanish destinations. In its latest report on assessing the summer trade in 2024 and setting out expectations for the fourth quarter and the year end, presented this week it includes a study on the volume of vacancies in the 25 main Spanish cities and their progress. This barometer focuses on urban destinations in which the growth of this type of lodgings remains unstoppable, pointing to Malaga as the city in third place in Spain with the most tourist rental places in Spain, after Madrid and Barcelona. The study especially highlighted that the number of beds provided by these holiday properties is already three times the number of hotel beds. To be precise, the report states that the capital of the Costa del Sol now has more than 39,600 beds compared to only 14,100 in hotels. Such a trend is higher than the proportions in the national average, in which the number of tourist accommodation places is still slightly below that of hotels, with 388,000, after growing by 16.6%, compared to the 421,000 in hotels and similar lodgings. In addition, Exceltur insists that in Malaga the holiday rental business is booming with an increase of 18% from the summer of 2023.

This tourism lobby group further underlined that "the reality of holiday homes and their impact on the tourist capacity of Spain's city destinations depends on the regulatory efforts at local level and the means to enforce them.". Exceltur's report also points out that, in the face of increases such as that of Malaga city, "a series of very diverse realities can be identified: destinations that have managed to organise and reasonably control this growth and that in 2024 reflect falls in their volumes of beds or moderate growth typical of the high season, which allows them to achieve a greater balance with the rest of the regulated accommodation formats." Several examples are cited, such as Palma de Mallorca with a drop of 8.9% in the third quarter of this year compared to 2023, Ibiza at 8.3% less, San Sebastian with a 5.4% drop and Pamplona at 15% less. Even Barcelona, with a rise of 8.6%, has moderated growth in such tourist rentals compared to the double-figure increases of previous years.

Exceltur clarified that this data refers to the number of beds in tourist accommodation, using the published AirDNA list (a data-tracking company for over 10 million Airbnb and VRBO holiday rentals) and its categories (complete houses, private rooms and shared rooms) for each city analysed. They take the data from Spain's INE national institute of statistics on beds in each accommodation type. Exceltur also explained that "the quarterly vacancies have been obtained from the averages of the monthly data, being aware that some of the supply enters and leaves the market depending on the temporary nature behind the demand and the needs and wishes of the owner."

In contrast to these cities that have managed to halt the boom in tourist rentals, the Exceltur reports is keen to point out the city destinations that are recording new increases that "reach levels comparable to or even much higher than the supply of accommodation in hotels, guesthouses and hostels, putting a strain on the much-needed balance between tourists and residents." In this group of "destinations with a strong increase in holiday property vacancies and with high levels of tourist pressure" they include Madrid with a 24.8% increase to 84,700 vacancies in tourist homes and 92,400 in hotels. Next is Malaga with a 17.8% increase to 39,600 vacancies in holiday lets, almost triple the 14,100 in hotels. Finally, Valencia with a 26.8% increase to 37,500 compared to 20,600 in hotels and Seville, with a 19.4% increase to 33,100 vacancies in holiday properties and 25,900 in hotels.

These increases have meant that the supply of tourist vacancies in rentals has once again grown by almost 50,000 more than in the summer of 2023. This increase brings the total number of beds in this type of accommodation in Spain to 388,000. The figure has not yet reached the maximum that it reached in 2018, when some of the most affected Spanish cities began their regulatory actions. With this increase the total number of tourist rental places is once again close to the number of hotel beds, 421,000, which has hardly changed in the last decade. During those ten years, the report stated, "holiday rental places have increased by 92%". Exceltur puts out this warning: that this phenomenon has had a key impact on the total tourist accommodation capacity of these destinations, "with the consequent impact on accessibility to housing and good neighbourly relations, which are affecting the growing social animosity against the sector."

Exceltur's report does also mention that Spain's tourism industry increased its sales by 4.8% between July and September 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, generating almost 77.16 billion euros, exceeding previous forecasts. Its executive vice-president, José Luis Zoreda, stressed that these figures are "frankly good, driven by overseas demand, the main driver of the sector." For this reason, he has improved his estimate for year end, estimating that tourism's portion of GDP (gross domestic product) will grow by 6.3% in current terms to almost 207.93 million euros, 1.7 percentage points more than the forecast made in July.

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