Tourism sector enjoys successful bank holiday weekend
Ski slopes celebrate good start to season, while mountain hotel occupancy was around 80-90%
The Catalan tourism sector celebrated what was a clearly successful December long bank holiday.
As Wednesday and Friday of last week were bank holidays, it's common that many people would book Thursday off work and enjoy a five-day break somewhere, with getaways in the mountains and in ski slopes most popular this time of year.
The Pyrenees and Central Catalonia have most benefitted from the snowfall of the last few days and the winter weather arriving to northern Catalonia, with occupancy rates of around 80-90% in hotels, campsites and rural house accommodations.
In fact, the Montsec Astronomical Park broke its occupancy record for these dates in its 15 years of existence.
On the other hand, the long weekend coincides with the low season on the coast, where only one in five establishments remained open. Even so, the tourism sector speaks of 70%-80% occupancy rates in the Tarragona area and 60% in the Ebre Delta region.
Girona ski resorts were left satisfied with the visits received over the weekend that will "mark the beginning of a good season." The director of the La Molina ski resort, Xavier Perpinyà, said that "opening has allowed people to get a taste of snow and activate the economy of the area."
In the same vein, the director of Vallter 2,000, Enric Serra, is grateful to have been able to open the weekend "in conditions similar to those of last year."
As for tourist apartments in the Girona area, occupancy has been good, especially in the Pyrenees, with rates of around 90% in hotels but lower in campsites.
Over to the west, the Lleida Pyrenees saw great rates of 85% occupancy in hotels and campsites and 90% in rural houses.
Ski resorts in Lleida sold around 62,000 ski passes, most of them at the Baqueira Beret resort.
Return to Barcelona
185,000 vehicles returned to the Barcelona metropolitan area on Sunday between 12 and 8 pm according to the Catalan Traffic Service.
Nevertheless, this accounted for only 74% of the expected 250,000 journeys coming back to the capital at the end of the long weekend.
The C-16 road in Berguedà and C-14 in Alt Urgell saw most delays on Sunday.
In the late afternoon, there was also congestion in some parts of the AP-7 highway.
There was also one fatality in a road accident.