One in every three tourist accommodation places are homes: almost 6,000 VT in Hego Euskal Herria

At Hego Euskal Herria there are 5844 tourist homes, intended for short and seasonal rentals. But what impact does this number have on the tourism and housing market?

Most of these homes are in Bizkaia (2307), according to the population. However, Gipuzkoa It follows not too far behind (2000), due to the tourist importance of many municipalities. In Navarre There are 1,340 tourist homes, and in Alava There are only 197.

There have always been homes that are intended for vacation use in summer, especially on the coast, but now the range has expanded. Many of those homes, which previously went unnoticed, are now registered as tourist homes and are more visible and accessible thanks to online vacation rental platforms.

These homes complete the tourist offer of hotels, apartments and rural accommodation, and are already a third of the total options for travelers. The impact of these places on the tourist offer is very low in Navarra (23%) and low in the BAC (33.2).

The ratio of the regional community is at the bottom of the ranking of autonomous communities, and in the case of the CAV, it is at the level of Madrid, the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands, three autonomous communities with a great hotel tradition and, therefore, with less weight of VT, despite the importance of the tourism sector. If we take Cantabria (46.4%) or Asturias (40.8%) as destinations similar to the Basque one, both are above.

He weight that VTs occupy within the tourism sector It’s disparate. It depends, in large part, on the previous development of other infrastructures such as hotels or tourist apartments in the municipality. Thus, there are cases where 100% of the tourist places offered are VT, especially in small municipalities. In towns with a greater weight of hotels or in the interior, where there are rural accommodations, the percentage of VT is lower.

Another way to measure impact is to look at how many VT beds there is per 1000 inhabitants. Hego Euskal Herria’s data are well below the state average (36.1 beds per 1,000 inhabitants): there are 9.8 beds in Navarra and 9.2 in the BAC.

At the other extreme are the island communities. In the Balearic Islands, the ratio is 137, and in the Canary Islands, 85.1. Therefore, the impact of VT on the population is in line with the weight of the sector in the generation of economic activity: around 40% in the islands, compared to the 7% and 5.5% weight on the GDP in Navarra and the BAC, respectively.

It is advisable to zoom in on the photo and look at the municipalities, since the ratios are very different. Among the capitals, Saint Sebastian reaches 30.6 beds/1000 inhabitants. Below are Bilbao (11.6) and Pamplona (11.5), and above, between 40 and 50, coastal municipalities such as Bermeo, Zarautz, Hondarribia either Lekeitio. Numbers that show that the number and impact of homes depends on the tourism specialization of the municipality.

The impact is much greater as the municipality decreases in population, and produces ratios such as Mundaka (192.9), Bakio (103.7) or Valcarlos (348.7), a notable case far from the coast, due to its tourist weight and smaller size. This is the “small dimension” effect.