50 new hotels to open in Barcelona in 2009 and 2010

The capital of Catalonia will open between 2009 and 2010 more than fifty new hotels, which will provide 5,600 extra rooms, 3,700 of them in four and five-star establishments.
In the last fifteen years, Barcelona has risen from 155 hotels to 315, with 29,500 room available, according to data provided by Turisme de Barcelona.
The real estate consulting firm Christie + Co brings into question the ability of Barcelona to absorb the new hotels projected for 2009 and 2010, although admitting that "the development of new hotels will continue, but some projects may be canceled because of the current economic crisis". Mar Vila, from Esade Business School, believes that the city does have enough factors to continue to grow both in number of hotels and in number of rooms . "I don't know if any of these projects will fall by the wayside or is poorly defined, but the city will go on growing. Barcelona has a powerful brand and is working on the right path", she says. "But only an increase in numbers was not always accompanied by a growth in revenue and profitability of the hotels, and there are already establishments that are losing money, and this is critical," she concludes.