Experimental Statistic. Measurement of the Number of Tourist Dwellings in Spain and their Capacity

The main objective of this experimental statistic is to estimate the number of tourist dwellings in Spain, along with their capacity, so as to respond to the growing demand for information in this area.

The 'Web scraping' is used to obtain the information, a technique that employs software programmes to extract data from the three most widely used tourist accommodation platforms in Spain. Based on the accommodations collected, an initial selection of tourist dwellings is made in accordance with the regulations in force in each autonomous community. For unlicensed accommodation or those with an incorrectly defined licensing, their inclusion or exclusion will depend on other variables extracted such as sub-type and services provided. Subsequently, deduplication algorithms are applied to eliminate those dwellings that appear on more than one platform.

This statistic is conducted twice a year. A change was agreed in the second half of 2024 for the reference dates for this experimental statistic (from August and February to May and November each year). This was motivated by a technical decision, as bookings for this type of accommodation are made months in advance for the busiest tourist periods. Therefore, it was decided that instead of downloading data in August and February, it would be done in May and November.