Tourism & the Hotel Industry

Problems Faced By the Hotel Industry in Barcelona

Occupancy Compared to the Olympics Period

Occupancy Compared to the Period Prior to the Olympics

Barcelona, the capital of the autonomous region of Catalonia, is the leading commercial and industrial center in Spain.1 The city hosted the 1992 Summer Olympic Games, and as a part of the process of preparing to host the games entered into a major rehabilitation and redevelopment of the physical infrastructure.2 For the host city, a major focus of any event such as an Olympic Games is directed toward the development of tourism. A critical component of any tourism effort is the hotel industry. This study examined the hotel industry in Barcelona with a view toward the identification of problems and the development of strategies to permit the hotel firms in the city to maintain high occupancy rates in the post Olympics period.

Some new hotels were built in Barcelona in anticipation of the Olympic Games in 1992, and many more such establishments were renovated and expanded for the event.3 During the relatively brief period

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pancy rates that tend to characterize the period while a special event is in progress. Such cities, of which Los Angeles is one, however, are able to accomplish this feat because of factors independent of the momentum generated by an Olympic Games. Los Angeles is an area of dominant influence, with an area population of 12.2 million persons. Further, Los Angeles is the second leading manufacturing market in the United States, with almost fourpercent of total manufacturing output in the United States occurring in Los Angeles. The concentration of manufacturing organizations in the Los Angeles area means that the area has a strong market for business conventions and other business meetings requiring hotel accommodations and services. In fact, just over threepercent of all hotel business in the United States occurs in the Los Angeles area. Further, Los Angeles area is a destination point for vacationers from Canada, Mexico, and the United States. A major problem for tourism with respect to an Olympic Games is that the Olympics tend to attract more young persons than persons from older population groups. Over the longterm, however, it is the older population groups who tend to travel the most. Most cities that
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Some common words found in the essay are:
EEC European, Poor's Corp, Olympic Games, Management Quarterly, Travel Research, Hotel Industry, Los Angeles, Administration Quarterly, Travelers United, Production Index, hotel industry, olympic games, yield management, occupancy rates, strategic planning, los angeles, political data, unused capacity, ep ex, income distribution, cornell hotel restaurant, spanish demographic economic, demographic economic political, economic political data, tourism hotel industry,
Approximate Word count = 6329
Approximate Pages = 25 (250 words per page)