Salou, the favorite holiday destination

Salou. Costa Dorada. 14 November 2016. Salou is a mature tourist destination, well-established and highly valued by both domestic and foreign visitors, and good proof of this are the figures for the 2016 season that is about to end when the year is over. Specifically, more than 7.4 million overnight stays have already been recorded (9 percent more than in 2015) and are expected to reach 7.5 million on 31 December.

By nationality, the visitor who grows the most is Spanish (5.11 percent more than in 2015) with 2 million overnight stays; Followed by the British who also reach the 2 million overnight stays with a 22.5% increase in the case of Irish tourism and 24.9% in relation to the British. The French tourist has grown by 8.15 percent, and Russian by 9.4 percent more than in 2015.

Outlook 2017
Looking ahead to next season the Salou Tourist Board has explained that in the UK market have already sold more than 50,000 holiday packages in Salou by 2017, up 24 percent this year, according to a report by Leisure Travel Monitor (GFK) for the month of September.

With these figures, the representatives of the City of Salou are very optimistic towards the next season. The Mayor, Pere Granados, has said that "we must take this opportunity so that the tourists who visit us are satisfied" and explained that "we are working on concrete projects in the area of ​​Carles Buigas but we also want to extrapolate this great reform to the rest of Salou ".

For his part, the Councilor for Tourism, Benet Preses, said that the opening of Ferrari Land, the theme park of Ferrari in PortAventura World opens new perspectives especially to Italian tourism and, in addition, it is expected that Reus airport will increase flights Which could exceed 60%.

Tourists recommend Salou
Other data to take into account of Salou is that 53% of the tourists have come to spend their first vacation on the recommendation of their friends or family, according to the study of Characterization of tourist demand. The Internet and conventional travel agencies, with 14.9% and 10.1% respectively, are the second and third means of knowledge of Salou in 2015 according to the visitors.

Other notable aspects are that 70.7% of the tourists who have stayed in Salou in 2015 have repeated their stance. In addition, on a scale of 1 to 5, they value their overall level of satisfaction in Salou by 4.5. Specifically, the overall satisfaction of tourists in relation to the restoration of Salou has been, on average, 4.2.

The presence in networks
In addition, as regards the online presence of the Visit Salou brand, it has experienced a remarkable growth during the last twelve months, which in some cases is spectacular, especially as regards the consultations on the website and the blog and especially in the Social networks Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, where almost doubles the number of followers. In this sense, the managing director of the Tourism Board, Juan Carlos Capilla, stated that "two years ago we started working to improve our digital competitiveness as a destination and we have collected very positive data."

As for the web, the sessions stood at 421,923, a 17.22% more than in the past period; The users were 258,445, 29.25% more; And page views exceeded one million views, with a growth of 16.92%. One of the most desired aspects by any web owner: the average session duration reached 2 minutes 7 seconds, with a 3.51% increase.

By cities, most connections were made from Salou, that is, once visitors arrived at destination. In the capital of the Costa Dorada have registered 131,438 sessions; Followed by Barcelona, ​​with 38,470 sessions; Tarragona, with 17,388; And Madrid, with 17,081. In addition distance comes Reus, with 6,024 sessions; Zaragoza, with 2,968; Valencia, with 2.753; And Bilbao, with 2,516.

Sabor Salou, the gastronomic fair on the Costa Daurada