On 30 June 2010 there were 437 hotels in Madrid, representing an increase of some 5.3 % compared with the number of hotels that were operating in the capital of Spain in the first half of 2009.
When we take into consideration the full range of accommodation available in Madrid including hostels, B&Bs, apartments and camping sites, then the total number of establishments where visitors can stay when visiting this city in Spain rises to 1,712. This figure is 2.33% higher than a year ago. According to the Minister of Economy and Finance, Antonio Beteta “This shows that tourism entrepreneurs still consider Madrid a good location for investment”.
Beteta made the remarks during a conference in which he presented an analysis of the tourist figures for this area of Spain for the first six months of 2010. In this conference, the director of tourism for the Madrid area, Antonio Nieto, added that they currently have no data available on the number of hotel projects currently under development in the capital of Spain, but they are aware of the fact that some hotels still continue to open in the region of Madrid, “although some projects have been slowed or stopped due to the current economic crisis, others are going ahead according to the initial plans and will open shortly”.
Nieto stated that the simplification of administrative procedures adopted last year in Spain has made the process of opening tourist establishments a lot easier. Now there is no need to wait for prior authorisation before opening new hotels, catering premises or rural guesthouses. According to the autonomous government of the capital of Spain an entrepreneur interested in opening a hotel, guesthouse or hostel is no longer obligated to put their project on hold whilst waiting for the bureaucratic system to deliver the necessary paperwork. If there has been no official response to application forms and requests to open a hotel for two months, it means that they have automatically been granted permission to operate.
The change in regulation has meant that both domestic companies from Spain and international hotel firms have shown a lot of interest in opening hotels in Madrid and the surrounding area. Recent openings include the Atocha BC, the Mercure Santo Domingo, belonging to French group Accor. Among future hotel openings will be the first Indigo hotel in Continental Europe, which is planned for 2012.