The Casa Camper hotel has been voted the best hotel in Barcelona after a report showed that it received top scores from many of its customers on the popular hotel booking sites Booking.com, TripAdvisor and Trivago. This four-star boutique Barcelona hotel with just 25 rooms located in Elisabets Street in the Raval area of the city achieved the highest score with 27.5 points out of a possible maximum of 30.

The report selected the 15 best hotels in Barcelona among the three, four and five star categories and it is based on the points given by guests who have spent at least one night in these Barcelona hotels. The scoring assessment involved, among others, aspects such as personal attention, service, comfort and value for money.

In second place comes the Hotel Monte Carlo which received a score of 27.3 points. It is also a four star hotel and has 50 rooms. This hotel is located in a renovated nineteenth-century palace right on the famous Ramblas in Barcelona. The 125 room, five-star Palace Hotel in Gran Via de les Corts Catalans, formerly the Barcelona Ritz hotel, ranks third on the list with a score of 27.1 points.

The H1898 Hotel, also located on Las Ramblas and the Abac hotel on Avenida Tibidabo, respectively took fourth and fifth place on this list of the most valued hotels in Barcelona. The other establishments that complete the list are The Hotel Ohla which came in sixth place followed by the Gran Hotel La Florida, Hotel Jazz, Hotel Arts Barcelona, Hotel Murmuri, the Fira Palace, the Pullman Barcelona Skipper, the Olivia Plaza, the Mate Emma Hotel and the Gran Hotel Torre Catalunya.

So, if you are planning a trip to the second city in Spain, you now have a good list of highly recommended accommodation options with which to start your search.

Tenerife continues to establish itself as a popular tourist destination for high spending European tourists. The hotel industry has just closed a great year on the Spanish island and the managers of the main top class hotels there have confirmed that luxury tourism grew by some 20 percent last year when compared to 2010, which itself also ended with a 15 percent increase over the results obtained in 2009.

This success has been put down mainly to the fact that many of the island’s five star hotels have been renovated recently and have added more value to their offering by providing luxury accompanied by exclusivity, resulting in personal attention, relaxation and privacy. Tenerife’s climate and natural beauty provide the rest.

José Fernando Cabrera, owner of Royal Garden Villas, said “luxury tourism has evolved very positively over the past two years.” In addition, new markets have emerged to join the large numbers of traditional visitors from the UK and Germany. Cabrera went on to say, “there has been an increase in Russian tourists, especially in the winter season, and also guests from the Scandinavian countries as well as France, Belgium and, more recently, even Saudi Arabia”.

Marine Vigouroux, Public Relations Manager in the exclusive Abama Golf and Spa hotel, said client numbers rose 10% last year compared to 2010. She says that the main customers of the business are British, whose numbers increased significantly although Italy was the country which showed the greatest increase in tourists over the past two years. Russian guests are in fourth place followed by Czechs in fifth place. The hotel also has a restaurant that boasts a much-prized Michelin star. Despite the high purchasing power of customers who choose to stay at the Abama, Vigouroux recognizes that most establishments in this category have managed to maintain positive numbers thanks in part to the fact that they have adjusted their rates for overnight stays and services to reflect the current tough economic conditions.

Armando Pineda of the Gran Hotel Bahia del Duque Resort, confirmed that 35,000 tourists stayed in the hotel during last year which represents an increase of ten percent over 2010. Most visitors came from the UK, Germany and Spain although during the past year guests from Eastern Europe were in second place, and Russians were the customers who booked the hotels most exclusive services.

Within this headline rate some cities in Spain recorded significant price fluctuations. For example, hotels in cities such as Pamplona and Santiago de Compostela have managed to raise their average price by 14 percent compared with last month. A night in a hotel in Las Palmas will now cost you around 7 percent more than in December whilst hotels in the Caceres area are now showing a decrease of some 20 percent compared to last month.

There are also many variations on price depending on which autonomous region in Spain we might be travelling to. The hotels in Galicia and Navarre, for example, have increased their prices by around 9 percent, whilst hotel rates in La Rioja have dropped by 21 percent this month and it is now the cheapest region in Spain with an average nightly rate of just €64. Other regions where it will be cheap to stay during January are Valencia, with an average room rate of €68, Castille-Leon and Aragon both at €70 and Asturias and Galicia at €71.

On the other hand the hotels on the islands in Spain are currently among the most expensive in the country. The average rate in the Canary Islands is now €109, whilst in the Balearic Islands it is €108. Hotels in Palma de Mallorca are the most expensive city hotels in Spain this month at €109, ahead of Madrid (€98), Barcelona (€96), San Sebastian (€94) and Las Palmas at €90.

Price stability among hotel rates would appear to be the general trend in many European countries this January, showing no major variations from the same month last year. Nevertheless, some increases and decreases can be seen in a few capital cities. The average price of a hotel in Prague has increased by some 15% from €86 to €99, while Paris has increased by 6%, Venice by 5% and the hotels in London are up 4% on last year. As far as price decreases go, Krakow tops the list with a drop of 8% to €58 making it the cheapest city in Europe as far as hotel nights go. Other capitals with cheaper hotel prices are Athens, where to stay costs 7% less and the hotels in Dublin have also cut their rates by around 5 percent.

The Gran Hotel Bahia del Duque located on the Spanish island of Tenerife was recently voted the best hotel in Europe at the Excellence Awards held by the publisher of speciality travel magazine Condé Nast Johansens. This magazine is dedicated to covering the best luxury hotels, spas and venues world-wide.

The hotels 3,000 square meter spa, its outdoor thalassotherapy sessions, its 40 villas with private pool and butler service, its traditional Canarian decoration and architecture and its eight restaurants surely played no small part in winning the award for this Tenerife hotel. The combination of all these excellent facilities and services made the Gran Hotel Bahia del Duque Resort an easy choice for the best hotel in Europe at the Annual Awards for Excellence given by Condé Nast Johansens.

The leading, multi-media travel publisher has six travel guides, with many recommendations for hotels, spas, villas, apartments and leisure and business centres throughout the world. Over thirty years the Condé Nast guides have become a reference source for any demanding traveller. The award for Best European Hotel was the most coveted award given in the latest edition of the awards held recently at a ceremony in the legendary May Fair, one of the best hotels in London.

This hotel in Tenerife was chosen out of a selection of 238 hotels appearing in the ‘European and Mediterranean 2012 guide’, just published and which includes 42 hotels in Spain. In addition to this luxury resort on the Costa Adeje on Tenerife, three other hotels in Spain also received excellecne awards – the Gran Hotel Atlantis Bahia Real Fuerteventura, the SAH Wellness Clinic in Alicante and the Dolce Sitges Hotel. Seven other  hotels in Spain were also nominated but did not receive an award. These were the Don Carlos Leisure Resort & Spa in Málaga, the Gran Melia Don Pepe Hotel also in Málaga, Hotel Bagués in Barcelona, the Hospes Palacio de los Patos in Granada, the Gran Meliá Colón in Seville, the Hotel Sant Joan de Binissaida on Menorca and the Etxegana Hotel & Spa located in the Vizcaya region of northern Spain.

The Grand Hotel Mencey has re-opened its doors in Santa Cruz de Tenerife after two years of continuous renovations. In addition to a complete remodelling of the facade, all the rooms and common areas, the main innovation of the new Iberostar Grand Hotel Mencey is its spa. The spa is more than 2,000 square meters surrounded by gardens where guests can enjoy a full thermal circuit as it is equipped with Turkish baths, cold pool, jacuzzi and a thermal pool. Guests will benefit from a 50 percent discount rate when using the spa facilities.

Rooms rates vary depending on the day of the week, but it will usually be cheaper at weekends to stay in this Tenerife hotel. For a standard room, Monday to Thursday, the average price is €130 per night. For Friday, Saturday and Sunday the rate goes down to around €105, if we book far enough in advance. There are a total of 52 junior and executive suites in the whole complex with prices ranging from €375 to €575 per night. The most exclusive room in the complex is the royal suite available for around €1,000 per night.

According to the hotel manager, David Cañibano, the hotel has already opened its doors to the first guests and is now fully operational although the work will continue in the coming weeks with a view to completing final touches which could last until the day of the official opening this month.

President of the tourist association of Tenerife, Ricardo Melchior, attended the opening of the Iberostar Mencey and stated that the renovation of this Tenerife hotel is “an extraordinary piece of work that has succeeded in bringing back a comfortable and beautiful building to its former glory”. Throughout the tour of the facilities of the complex he praised the murals displayed in many rooms and halls and stressed that “they are part of Tenerife’s cultural heritage.” He also stated that city regained “one of its jewels” after two years of renovation and an investment of some €40 million.