Rural tourism. Establishments and beds. By categories. Tourism brands

Rural tourism

Form of tourism in accommodation located in the rural environment. They tend to be in contact with agricultural operations and buildings built before 1950 in accordance with the architecture of the zone. They have drinking water, electricity, heating, sanitary services and the appropriate furniture. They are classified into four groups: shared country house, independent country house, masia and masoveria.

Rural tourism. Shared country house

Single family house in a population nucleus that the owner shares with tourists and provides accommodation in the form of rooms and at least breakfast.

Rural tourism. Independent country house

Single family house in a population nucleus that provides accommodation services in the form of an entire house.

Rural tourism. Masia

Single family house outside of any population nucleus that the owner shares with tourists and provides accommodation in the form of rooms and at least breakfast.

Rural tourism. Masoveria

Single family house outside of any population nucleus that is rented out in its entirety.

Tourist establishments are disaggregated into hotel establishments, camp sites and rural tourism establishments, according to their category and capacity.

The information presented herein is fundamentally structural and focused on tourist offering. Given the characteristics of this sector, the information has been clustered for certain municipalities.

Until 1994 the source for this data was the General Directorate of Tourist Companies and Activities, belonging to the Ministry of Transportation, Tourism and Communications. Since 1995, the General Directorate of Tourism, belonging to the Ministry for Business and Labour of the Generalitat de Catalunya, has been in charge of publishing data on the registry of tourist establishments: hotel establishments, camp sites, rural tourism establishments and housing for tourists' use.

Until year 2003, Terres de l'Ebre tourism brand was included in Costa Daurada and Val d'Aran formed part of the Pirineus. At the end 2011, the Catalan Tourism Agency approved the creation of a new tourism brand called Costa Barcelona. This region includes the territory of the former Costa del Garraf and Costa de Barcelona-Maresme.

In 2015, two changes were made to the tourism brands, approved by the Catalan Tourist Board. The first change is that the counties El Vallès Oriental and El Vallès Occidental, which used to be a part of the Catalunya Central brand, as of 2015 will come under the Costa Barcelona brand. The second change is to the name of the brand: Catalunya Central will now be known as Paisatges de Barcelona.

On the occasion of the creation of El Moianès county, the municipalities of Castellcir, Castellterçol, Granera and Sant Quirze Safaja (which were part of the Costa Barcelona brand), from 2015 they become part of Paisatges de Barcelona brand.

Thus Catalonia is divided into 9 tourism brands:

• Barcelona: Barcelonès.
• Costa Brava: Alt Empordà, Baix Empordà, Gironès, Pla de l'Estany i Selva.
• Costa Daurada: Alt Camp, Baix Camp, Baix Penedès, Conca de Barberà, Priorat i Tarragonès.
• Costa Barcelona: Alt Penedès, Baix Llobregat, Garraf, Maresme, Vallès Occidental i Vallès Oriental.
• Paisatges Barcelona: Anoia, Bages, Moianès i Osona.
• Pirineus: Alt Urgell, Alta Ribagorça, Berguedà, Cerdanya, Garrotxa, Pallars Jussà, Pallars Sobirà, Ripollès i Solsonès.
• Terres de Lleida: Garrigues, Noguera, Pla d'Urgell, Segarra, Segrià i Urgell.
• Terres de l'Ebre: Baix Ebre, Montsià, Ribera d'Ebre i Terra Alta.
• Val d'Aran: Aran.

Until 2011, the territorial disaggregation by tourism brands was calculated using special estimators for small areas. This methodology does not guarantee that the total amount is exactly the same as the result for the whole of Catalonia using the traditional estimator. However, the discrepancies are of little significance.

For further information about these statistics, you may check the methodology.