Tourism in La Rioja seeks more foreign visitors to grow during the week and increase spending

“Enogastronomy, rural and nature tourism, cultural tourism and incentives and conferences are the fundamental pillars of our strategy,” confesses the director of Tourism of the regional government. On these axes, she believes, the sector must pivot, not on a whim but out of the conviction that “they can contribute to bringing wealth to the territory.” The wine-gastronomy binomial “places us as a national and international reference”; cultural tourism – linked to the cradle of Spanish – “generates long stays and has repetition value”; and that of congresses “helps the sustainability of the sector and its deseasonalization” beyond the fact that “it leaves a significant level of spending,” explains Virginia Borges.

This “hopeful” scenario is reinforced by the progressive increase in travelers and overnight stays that has been experienced after the pandemic parenthesis, which seems to have been left behind after the consolidated comeback in 2023. So now the aspiration “has to be to improve “Last year’s records” coincide with the different sector managers and move towards one million travelers. The data for the first four months already show that path, with the highest number of tourists in the last decade in that January-April period, even above a 2017 that is still remembered, and also close to the record for overnight stays.

“We hope to be between 85% and 90% occupancy in the summer, but in recent years there has been a lot of booking at the last minute that always increases that percentage,” says José Joaquín Sanz, president of the Association of Rural Houses of La Rioja. (Ascaroja). Campsites are managed with similar expectations, and they do expect favorable weather. The challenge now is to be active “more regularly,” says Sanz, not only on weekends but also from Sunday to Thursday. “We have to aspire to stays of two nights – in the case of hotels – it will be difficult to achieve it but it has to be a challenge for the legislature,” says Demetrio Domínguez, head of the hotel employers’ association integrated into the Federation of Businesses. from La Rioja.

France, United Kingdom, USA…

Growing in overnight stays means increasing spending per tourist – in the accommodations themselves but also in other types of companies, shops, services… –, the second major objective of the sector. And both intentions come together in a third that has also become a priority: attracting more foreign clients, with an a priori higher purchasing power. “Aggressive promotional campaigns are needed that last over time, there is fierce competition and there are other communities such as the Basque Country, Navarra, Cantabria or Asturias that have a very powerful offer,” recalls Sanz.

Reaching all markets is an impossible mission because resources, public and private, are limited, but there seems to be the same criteria in the Government and employers’ associations when it comes to identifying the international tourist who best ‘suits’ La Rioja. The French, English and Germans, on the European continent, are, along with North Americans, the best clients “and we must focus on them, without forgetting of course the national market” – maintains the Ascarioja spokesperson – where Madrid, Catalans and Basques account for 60 % of Spanish visitors. “But we have the problem of infrastructure, which is a burden for our tourism sector,” laments Susana Díaz, president of the Association of Housing for Tourist Use. La Rioja, she adds, “has a lot of pull, especially with the wineries as a starting point, but then it is difficult to get there.”

The world of wine, together with gastronomy, has to be “the locomotive that pulls the rest of the wagons”, in the words of Virginia Borges. “The wineries are doing an extraordinary job,” Díaz confirms, “but so are the rest of the private initiatives.” In this sense, Domínguez believes that La Rioja “still has a long way to go and there are great expectations”, for this summer in particular – although reservations in hotels and tourist homes are “slower” – and for later. «We have to grow, but not so much in statistical numbers but in the realities of what matters to us. We do not want a tourist park where we only queue to enjoy the attractions, we want sustainable tourism that is respectful of our territory and those who live there throughout the year,” adds the president of the hotel association.

Sector agents are clear that “you cannot kill the goose that lays the golden eggs,” considering tourism as a generator of activity, wealth and employment. The risk of overcrowding that exists in other parts of the national geography “does not exist in La Rioja,” they point out. On the contrary, because precisely in summer you will see how the towns, empty for many months of the year, come to life with tourists. “65% of visitors to our rural houses repeat after the first experience,” José Joaquín Sanz congratulates. “We have to continue building customer loyalty,” he concludes.