Description

The Hotel Occupancy Survey (HOS) measures the evolution of supply and occupancy in hotel accommodation via the analysis of various variables: travellers, overnight stays, degree of occupancy, number of establishments, average stay, etc.

The collection of the information is carried out for seven consecutive days of the reference month chosen at random, in such a way that all establishments cover the whole month. The sample varies between 6,000 hotels in winter and 8,500 in summer. The information is placed in a questionnaire. Data from hotels with one to five gold stars are collected and hostels or B&Bs with one to three silver stars. The collection of data is exhaustive in all provinces, except the lowest categories.

HOS History

European Directive 95/57/EC from the Council, of 23 November 1995, asks for data to be obtained on different tourist accommodation for all European Union member states.

In 1996 the INE started to investigate hotel establishments and tourist accommodation. And, as of 1999, the collection of information and the study of tourist apartments and rural tourist accommodation started.

With the aim of improving the HOS estimates, two methodological changes will be made from January 2006 onwards. On the one hand, the directories that provide the survey framework will be updated and on the other hand, the information collection system will be modified, expanding the collection's temporal scope to all days within the reference month. This means that the data published from January 2006 onwards are not directly comparable with previous data. In order to make comparisons between all these data easier, link coefficients are available on INEbase.

Other occupancy surveys

Apart from information on hotels, the INE also publishes data on apartments, campsites and rural tourist accommodation

The Tourist Accommodation Occupancy Survey covers information via questionnaires contributed by tourist apartment and/or companies who use these establishments, registered as such in the corresponding tourist councils of each Autonomous Community and in agreement with the definitions that feature in the autonomous legal regulations. Data on establishments with luxury categories of one to three keys is collected.
Go to this survey data.

The Campsite Occupancy Survey covers information on the camp sites located in the whole country, among those that have different luxury categories, first, second and third.
Go to this survey data.

The Rural Tourist Accommodation Occupancy Survey covers information on the establishments that, according to the regulations of each Autonomous Community has the denomination of rural tourist accommodation.
Go to this survey data.