Automatic

🏨 Hotel bookings in Spain show positive trends with anticipatory reservations increasing since early September. The last week of August started at 12%, rising each week to 21% by the fourth week of September and slightly dipping to 20.1% in the second week of October. Year-over-year, during 7-13 October, hotel bookings surged across Spanish destinations: Catalonia (+42%), Andalusia (+21%), Canaries (+19%), Madrid (+32%), Valencia (+42%), Balearic Islands (+27%), Castile and Leon (+36%), Galicia (+7%), Basque Country (+60%), and Aragon (+38%). Catalonia consistently leads with 19%-20% market share in reservations since June, hitting 20.1% during the week of 7-13 October.

🏖 Turoperador Mundiplan began selling its senior tourism program across all autonomous communities on September 12, offering over 100,000 places in national and international destinations, with 7 hotels in Catalonia. The operator, a collaboration between Iberia, IAG7, and Alsa, experienced a 20% growth in its second year. The CEO, Jacob Fernández, attributes success to a wide range of destinations and dates, and an air infrastructure that connects all Spanish provinces. Unlike Imserso, Mundiplan's trips began selling on September 12 with autumn departures, offering a differentiated selection of 38 hotels across five autonomous communities. In Catalonia, there are 7 hotels available, with four new accommodations in Salou, all rated between 3 and 4 stars.

📈 Eva Martin-Fuentes, Carles Mateu, and Juan Pedro Mellinas published an article in Tourism and Hospitality Research analyzing Booking.com's rating system changes. Booking.com, owned by Booking Holdings Inc., earned $4.289 billion in 2023. Between late 2019 and early 2020, Booking.com switched from a 2.5-10 to a 1-10 rating scale, and from averaging six aspects to a single global score. This change caused a progressive drop in hotel ratings worldwide, with top-rated hotels seeing a decrease of 0.1 to 0.2 points. Hotels rated around 8 points experienced a 0.3 to 0.6-point drop, while hotels below 6 points lost about 1 point. The study shows a significant impact on hotels with better "facilities" having lesser drops in ratings. Hotel managers are advised to focus on maintaining the quality of their facilities as they are key to guest satisfaction.