After the closing the 2019 summer season, campsite owners agreed on one thing: that business was taking off like never before. Camping was becoming the preferred choice of many, both locals and tourists, and the numbers reinforced that perception.
In 2019, the number of visitors to campsites grew by 16.7% compared to the previous year, with a total of 6.3 million visits to Spanish campsites.
With these numbers, satisfied guests and word of mouth at full capacity, everyone set to work to improve facilities, services, events and, in general, everything that could improve the experience of their customers for the following year.
Of course, no one expected what would happen in mid-March 2020.
Covid-19 knocked on Europe's door. Faced with a pandemic that was spreading out of control and threatening to leave an unprecedented trail of deaths, severe measures were taken that would mark an entire generation: confinement, masks, distancing, limited seating, etc.
In any case, the arrival of Covid-19 led to the closure of borders, a host of difficulties in non-urgent travel and, above all, a great reluctance to leave one's home and comfort zone out of fear.
As a result, in 2020 we saw a 53.7% decrease in the number of tourists visiting Spanish campsites during the first months of the year, according to a study carried out by the Spanish Campsites Federation. This reduction in the influx caused a drop in the number of nights booked at campsites, a decrease of 45.4%.
An understandable drop, occurring in a context of pandemic and in which half of the resorts did not even open.
After a promising 2021 but still with restrictions, 2022 already bore witness to what Europa Press described as a ‘meteoric recovery’ of the camping sector at national level, which achieved 8.3% more overnight stays than in 2019, which had been, until then, the best year for the camping sector.
With the rising costs associated with travelling (flights, accommodation, activities, etc.), more and more people are opting for camping as a holiday option. Also, there are more and more campsites with better facilities, allowing the user to choose between a normal stay or a ‘premium’ or glamping stay, a concept that we will discuss in future blog posts.
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