Barcelona.
From the 14th March onwards, a sharp drop of the Perception of Security Index (PSI) can be seen for Spain as a destination. From that date onwards, the drop in this index at a global level is continuous, dropping approximately 18% between the 1st February and the 13th April, says Mabrian.
The first relevant impact on tourist mentions on Social Media related to the crisis for Spain as a destination was seen on the 25th February. This intensified from the 8th March onwards, reaching peak level on the 14th, coinciding with the day the State of Alarm was announced. During peak level, around 10.6% of tourist mentions expressively referred to the Coronavirus crisis. From then on, the trend eased slightly over time, although levels remained around 7% in the second week of April. Mabrian reveals new data in its "Executive summary: effects of the COVID-19 crisis Destination: Spain".
Evolution of the Perception of Security Index for Spain
From the 14th March onwards, a sharp drop of the Perception of Security Index (PSI) can be seen for Spain as a destination. From that date onwards, the drop in this index at a global level is continuous, dropping approximately 18% between the 1st February and the 13th April. By origin market, the three markets that stand out the most in terms of sensitivity are the French market (-61% PSI), the German market (-51% PSI) and the British market (-70% PSI) when comparing the perceived confidence shown at the beginning of February and on the 13th April. On the other hand, the Italian market shows a more stable level of confidence, above the global average.
Evolution of demand towards Spain: Flight Searches
The evolution of spontaneous flight searches to visit Spain suffered a sudden change of trends around the 10th March. From that day onwards, the year-over-year variation of the total flight searches registered drops continuously until beginning of April where it starts to stabilise, albeit with no signs of recovery. On the 10th April, the year-over-year comparison of flight searches shows an 87% drop.
Evolution of Air Connectivity
The loss of air connectivity is drastic during the month of April, with a loss of over 90% of seats in comparison to the same month in 2019 (-11.5 million seats). For May, trends are also clearly lower but to a lesser degree, with approximately 20% less scheduled seats (-2.4 millions seats). In June, schedules are showing little signs of differences with the schedules for June 2019, with only a 3% difference (-400K seats). However, it is important to bear in mind that these schedules are subject to constant change as airlines make decisions on a daily basis and it is very likely that the drops in May and June will increase over the next few weeks with regards to the data extracted on 14/04/2020.
Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
