The Colombian hotel industry is showing signs of slowdown in 2024. According to the latest figures from Dane, in the Monthly Accommodation Survey. Data confirmed Cotelco.
The union maintained that hotel occupancy has experienced a drop in the first months of the year, compared to the same period in 2023.
The Dane Monthly Accommodation Survey (EMA) indicated that, by March 2024, Hotel occupancy stood at 49.7%, a drop of 2.4 percentage points compared to March 2023.
Cotelco’s Hotel Information System (SIH) also showed a similar decrease for the first quarter of 2024, with an occupancy of 55.5%, 4.4 percentage points less than in the same period of the previous year.
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The EMA also reported that 7 of the country’s 12 regions recorded drops in hotel occupancy during March, with Bogotá (-8.8 percentage points) and Llanos and Orinoquía (-4.6 pp) the most affected, compared to the regions of Amazonia (15.9 pp) and San Andrés and Providencia (11.2 pp) that had a higher occupancy.
Likewise, for the first quarter of 2024, 10 of the 12 regions presented negative variations in occupancy, with the Llanos and Orinoquía (-5.8 pp) and Antioquia (-5.2 pp) those with the greatest negative variation.
Impact on GDP
The drop in hotel occupancy is reflected in the GDP of the “Accommodation and food services” sector, which experienced a contraction of 3.4% in the first quarter of 2024compared to the same period in 2023.
Despite the good performance of international tourism, domestic tourism is not compensating for this declinewhich generates concern in the industry.
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For this reason, José Andrés Duarte, executive president of Cotelco, has proposed a differential VAT of 5% for the hotel sector as a measure to stimulate domestic consumption and reactivate the industry.
“We have insisted that the good performance of international tourism does not compensate for the relevance and importance of domestic tourism. It is key that we can boost spending capacity in a formal offer, just as was done with the stimulus of the VAT exemption. From Cotelco we have proposed a differential VAT of 5% that allows giving a boost to consumption that has been contracting; It is a way to positively energize the sector and the regions because greater revenue is generated due to increased spending.”
He argued that this measure would allow increase tax collection by increasing spending in the formal sector.
Duarte has also called on the authorities to strengthen the National Tourism Registry (RNT) and control the growth of informality in the sector.
“The growth of informality is also affecting our sector, we must strengthen the types of accommodation and lodging committed to employability, quality, service and safety; key aspects for the growth of tourism in our country,” she concluded.
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