Alex Trelinski
COSTA Blanca hotels reported a dreadful Easter for visitors due to the pandemic travel restrictions.
The Hosbec hoteliers association said that of the 30% of hotels that opened over the normally-busy holiday period, up to 67% of rooms were taken.
The only very mild consolation was that the figures were better than the previous Easter which came during the first State of Alarm when all hotels were closed as part of the national lockdown.
Benidorm, according to Hosbec, took a massive hit as it is strongly dependent on international visitors.
With that in mind, just 12% of the resort’s hotels decided to open over Easter.
Between April 1 and April 5, Hosbec said that 90% of rooms were occupied by people from within the Valencia region due to the of border closure, with just 4% occupancy from foreign travellers.
Further north in Valencia City, there were just 11 hotels open with 30% occupancy, of which almost a quarter came from outside Spain.
A Hosbec spokesman said: “These figures would have been unthinkable a few months ago and especially for this time of the year.”
“Restrictions including the border closure is continuing to have a serious impact on all tourist-related activities.”
Fresh calls were made to help the regional hotel sector this week with a demand for €300 million of support from the Valencian government.
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