In recent days French schoolchildren have been enjoying their autumn holidays. Next week, the 25,000 participants in the Smart City Expo World Congress. Before and after they were and will be those attending the large medical congresses held in Barcelona. And every weekend families choose this city as their destination. The Catalan capital is experiencing a good autumn from the point of view of tourist influx which, according to all forecasts, will continue until the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024.
The latest report from the Barcelona Tourism Observatory indicates that the level of hotel reservations made until the end of October for the months of November, December and January is above those made for the same period last year. In the case of November the difference is 20 points.
Since March, the American market has been the international market that brings the most clients to Barcelona hotels. It has been like this every month and it is very likely that this situation will be repeated, especially in November, but also in December and even January. In fact, according to the latest statistics from Barcelona City Council, prepared from data from the National Statistics Institute (INE), in the first seven months of this year, nearly 600,000 travelers from around the world have passed through the city's hotel establishments. USA. The difference with the two main European markets is very large, since neither the British nor the French are close to the 400,000 mark.
Compared to other large European cities, Barcelona is in third position in terms of hotel reservations for the next three months, behind Madrid and Berlin, which have a lot of domestic tourism around Christmas.
Cruise tourism, which usually reaches one of the peaks of the year in October, falls as usual around this time. The report from the Observatori del Turisme a Barcelona, prepared from data provided by the Barcelona port, indicates a forecast of more than a hundred cruises in the Catalan capital in the last two months of 2023, concentrated mainly in November. At the end of this year, around 800 of these vessels will have operated in the Port of Barcelona, a figure very similar to those registered in 2019 and 2022.
The winter season forecasts for El Prat airport are also positive. During this winter, an average of 4.6 million seats will be offered monthly, which means 18.7% more seats than last year and only 2% less than in the 2019-2020 winter season.
The importance that the American market has in Barcelona's tourist activity will soon be noted with an improvement in connectivity with that country. Delta Air Lines has announced an increase in the connection frequency between Barcelona and New York, so that in the summer of 2024 it will offer two daily flights with JFK airport. There will also be a new connection with Miami starting in April of next year and in June American Airlines is scheduled to add another between Dallas and the Catalan capital.
