Port Aventura World has decided to intensify the strategy started a year and a half ago to gradually increase the number of hotel rooms to be offered near its facilities with the sale of tickets to its three theme parks. With six themed hotels within the resort (2,500 rooms), managing hotels in Salou, outside the complex, has become a strategic objective.
The management of Port Aventura World was waiting to close and sign yesterday afternoon the operation to take control of its third hotel outside the resort, the four-star Dorada Palace Hotel in Salou. The agreement, only awaiting signature and official confirmation, will give the reins of the hotel establishment to Port Aventura, which will not pay to take over the property.
Ownership will remain in the hands of its current owners, as explained by sources familiar with the negotiation. Management will pass into the hands of Port Aventura World, which will thus be able to offer the 300 rooms of the Dorada Palace. It is one of the historic hotels in Salou.
The efforts to increase the number of rooms do not end here. The park is working to take control of a second hotel in the same area, also outside the resort, also in Salou. After contacting and prospecting several options, negotiations are advanced with the Best San Francisco, also four stars and owned by the powerful hotel chain.
It is a hotel near the beach that the management of Port Aventura World really likes, but the operation is not closed. The Best Hotels group has thirteen hotel establishments in Salou and its area of influence. Company sources deny that there is any agreement and do not evaluate the operation.
Port Aventura World purchased its first hotel outside the tourism and leisure complex of Salou and Vila-seca in spring 2022. He then acquired the Atenea Aventura hotel, in Vila-seca (Tarragonès), less than two kilometers from the complex, now marketed under the name of Hotel Vila Centric. That same year it acquired a second establishment following the same strategy, the Hotel Pirámide Salou (230 rooms). In both cases it did take ownership of the hotels.
If the operation to manage the Dorada Palace Hotel is signed and the purchase of a second hotel is completed, Port Aventura World will already have four hotel establishments outside the resort and another six inside.
The bet responds to a commercial motivation. Ticket sales for the three theme parks work especially well when one or two hotel nights are offered in the same package; for foreign visitors, but also for clients from all over Spain.
The hotel expansion of Port Aventura is generating concern in the sector. It is difficult for the rest of the hotels in Salou, La Pineda and Cambrils, in the heart of the Costa Daurada, to compete with an operator with the capacity to offer hotel nights at very competitive prices, also adding the experience in Port Aventura, Ferrari Land or the Caribe Aquatic Park starting in June.
The hotel growth strategy also coincides with the commitment to increasingly lengthen the season at the complex, closing after Epiphany and opening the season in February for Carnival. “The commitment is to grow, we are going to continue acquiring hotels,” David García, general director of Port Aventura World, announced at the beginning of the year and insisted this fall.
