The National Institute of Statistics said in a report today that the number of overnight stays in Spanish hotels in November stood at 4.5 million, a figure which was 8.3 percent below last year’s figure for the same month. The new figures released are a bit surprising as the rate of decrease in bookings had slowed down in October.

Unions fear that lay offs and closures could be even greater

The Costa del Sol Hoteliers Association, AEHCOS, has said it expects a quarter of the hotels on the coast to close over the winter, while the union CCOO fears that temporary ERE lay-offs in the sector could lead to 35% of hotels closing. Most are expected to do so from November until just before Easter.

AEHCOS represents 350 hotels on the coast with some 88,000 beds.

The cost of hotel rooms around the world has dropped sharply according to a report based on on-line bookings through the website hotels.com.

Overall the average price of a room was down 17 per cent in the first six months of this year compared with the same period of 2008.

Alan Sugar will own all three parts of the hotel and facilities unless his bid is beaten in ten days

Well-known British businessman Alan Sugar has purchased the three plots which make up the luxury Byblos Hotel in Mijas, from the owners, Aifos who took over the building in 2005.

The hotel was sold at auction on the third attempt in the week that Aifos applied for bankruptcy protection with reported debts of 1 billion €.

City hotels are bearing the brunt of the economic downturn, according to a new survey, with average prices dropping by as much as 31% since last summer, a new survey reveals.

The study of hotel tariffs in 50 cities, carried out for the comparison website Trivago, found the biggest price drops in Spain, where the average cost of a night in a Madrid hotel has dropped from £107 in July 2008 to just £74 now.

Hotel prices in a majority of European cities have fallen by an average of seven per cent during July, compared with the same month last year, according to a new survey.

Trivago, the price comparison website, surveyed 50 cities and found that in 38, average room rates fell or stayed the same.

The economic crisis means that Spanish hotels will have more domestic than foreign tourists this summer for the first time in decades.

In the 1980s an estimated 70 percent of tourists were foreigners, Roman Estalella, head of the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation, told the Europa Press news agency.

This year, “Spaniards will spend less on travel by staying” within the country, while the number of overseas tourists will be down by 8.0 percent as the economic crisis hits both Spain iteself and its source markets for tourism.

Hoteliers have cut room rates by up to a quarter in the past year in an attempt to encourage people to holiday in Britain, according to research by Trivago, an online comparison website.

The average price of a double room in Manchester has fallen by 22 per cent to £78 this month, compared with £143 in June 2008. Rates in Edinburgh have fallen by 25 per cent to £110 over the same period, and in Glasgow by nine per cent to £85.

Britons are being priced out of holidays on the Continent, where average hotel prices have risen by up to 50 per cent in the past year, according to new research.

The weakness of the pound has been blamed for the sharp rise in average room rates across Europe’s most popular cities. It has fallen by 13 per cent against the euro (from €1.27 to €1.12) since May last year. But according to a monthly hotel price index compiled by Trivago, an online comparison website, the rates British travellers are quoted have increased far beyond these currency fluctuations.

Several British hotel chains could fail this year, industry analysts predicted this week.

In a poll of 143 hotel executives by DLA Piper, a law firm, 95 per cent of respondents predicted bankruptcies in the next 12 months, while a quarter said that they expected at least 10 hotel chains to go into administration.

The survey adds weight to the growing concern over the future of Britain’s hotel industry, with recent reports showing a sharp decline in business travel and overall demand for rooms.