Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): En Navidad los hoteles del centro están llenos de turistas. - At Christmas the hotels in the center are full of tourists.

Por Navidad also exists and is very common, especially in Spain, but it is a bit more like “around Christmas / at Christmastime”, slightly vaguer and more “around that period”.

You cannot say a Navidad to mean “at Christmas”. A is used for:

clock time: a las ocho (at eight)
movement towards: voy a Madrid (I’m going to Madrid)

So, in this sentence en Navidad is the standard and most neutral choice. Por Navidad would also be fine with a nuance of “around Christmas time”.

Why is there no article: why en Navidad and not en la Navidad?

Names of most holidays in Spanish are used without an article in everyday speech:

en Navidad – at Christmas
en Año Nuevo – at New Year
en Reyes – at Epiphany (Three Kings’ Day)

En la Navidad is not grammatically wrong, but it sounds more formal, literary, or religious, focusing on the holiday as a specific religious event or period. For a simple, everyday sentence about tourists and hotels, Spanish speakers nearly always say en Navidad.

Why is Navidad capitalized?

In Spanish, names of holidays and festivity periods are capitalized, just like in English:

Navidad, Semana Santa, Ramadán, Carnaval

But months and days of the week are not:

en diciembre, el lunes

So Navidad is capitalized because it is the proper name of the holiday.

Why do we need the article los in los hoteles del centro?

In Spanish, plural countable nouns usually need an article (or another determiner like estos, muchos, algunos) when you’re talking about a specific group:

Los hoteles del centro = the (specific) hotels in the city centre
Los turistas ingleses = the English tourists

If you say just hoteles del centro with no article, it would sound incomplete or like a label, not a full subject:

✅ Los hoteles del centro están llenos de turistas.
❌ Hoteles del centro están llenos de turistas. (unnatural as a normal sentence)

English often drops “the” in a more generic way (hotels downtown are full of tourists), but Spanish tends to keep the definite article where English might omit it.

What exactly does del centro mean, and what is del?

Del is simply the contraction of de + el:

de el centro → del centro

Literally, los hoteles del centro means “the hotels of the centre”, i.e. the hotels located in the city centre / downtown.

In context, del centro often means of the city centre (hotels whose location is in that area).

You could also say:

los hoteles en el centro = the hotels in the center (emphasizing physical location)

Both los hoteles del centro and los hoteles en el centro are natural; del centro sounds a bit more like “the ones that belong to / form part of the downtown area”, while en el centro just states where they are.

Could I say En Navidad, los hoteles en el centro están llenos de turistas instead?

Yes, that is perfectly correct:

En Navidad, los hoteles en el centro están llenos de turistas.

Differences:

del centro vs en el centro: very small nuance, as explained above.
Comma after En Navidad: optional in Spanish; many writers include it after a fronted time phrase, but it’s not obligatory.

So your alternative sentence would sound natural in Spain.

Why is it están and not son: why están llenos?

Spanish uses estar instead of ser:

for states or conditions (which can change)
for physical states like full, empty, open, closed

Being full of tourists is a current condition, not an inherent, permanent quality of the hotels. So you say:

Los hoteles están llenos. = The hotels are (currently) full.
La botella está vacía. = The bottle is (currently) empty.
La tienda está abierta. = The shop is open.

Using son llenos would sound wrong here. With adjectives that describe inherent characteristics you typically use ser:

Los hoteles son caros. = The hotels are expensive (as a general quality).

Why llenos and not lleno or llenas?

In Spanish, adjectives must agree in gender and number with the noun they describe.

Subject: los hoteles
- masculine (because hotel is masculine: el hotel)
- plural (los)

So the adjective must also be masculine plural: llenos.

Compare:

El hotel está lleno. (masc. singular)
Los hoteles están llenos. (masc. plural)
La habitación está llena. (fem. singular)
Las habitaciones están llenas. (fem. plural)

That’s why in this sentence you need llenos.

Why is it llenos de turistas and not llenos con turistas?

With lleno / llena / llenos / llenas to mean “full of something”, Spanish almost always uses the preposition de:

lleno de agua = full of water
lleno de gente = full of people
llenos de turistas = full of tourists

Con can sometimes follow lleno in very specific, more figurative uses, but the standard pattern is “lleno de + noun” to indicate the content that fills the space.

So llenos de turistas directly corresponds to “full of tourists”.

Why is there no pronoun ellos before están?

Spanish is a “null-subject” (or “pro-drop”) language: you can omit the subject pronoun because the verb ending already shows who the subject is.

(Ellos) están llenos. → normally just Están llenos.
(Nosotros) vivimos en Madrid. → Vivimos en Madrid.

In your sentence, context and verb form make it clear that the subject is los hoteles del centro, so you do not add ellos. Using ellos here would actually sound strange, because ellos usually refers to people or animals, not inanimate things like hotels, unless there’s a very specific reason.

Can en Navidad go at the end: Los hoteles del centro están llenos de turistas en Navidad?

Yes, that is also correct:

Los hoteles del centro están llenos de turistas en Navidad.

Both orders are fine:

En Navidad, los hoteles del centro están llenos de turistas.
Los hoteles del centro están llenos de turistas en Navidad.

Differences are mostly about emphasis:

Putting En Navidad first highlights the time period.
Putting it at the end keeps the focus first on the hotels and their condition, then adds when it happens.

Grammatically, both are fully acceptable in Spain.

What exactly does Navidad refer to here: the day, or the whole period?

In everyday Spanish, Navidad can refer to:

The specific day of Christmas (25 December), or
The Christmas period / the holidays in general (roughly late December–early January in Spain).

In this sentence about tourists and hotels, en Navidad is naturally understood as “over the Christmas period / at Christmas time”, not just one single day. Context tells you it’s the season.

What gender is turistas? It ends in -a but seems masculine.

Turista is one of those nouns that has the same form for masculine and feminine:

el turista = the (male) tourist
la turista = the (female) tourist

In the plural:

los turistas = a group including at least one man
las turistas = a group of only women

In your sentence, you have de turistas with no article, so you don’t see the gender at all. It just means “(full) of tourists” in a general, mixed-gender way.

So the ending -a here does not automatically mean feminine; you look at the article (el / la) to know the gender.

Why de turistas and not de los turistas or de unos turistas?

After lleno de, Spanish often uses a plural noun without an article to mean an unspecified amount of something:

lleno de agua = full of water
lleno de gente = full of people
lleno de turistas = full of tourists

If you say de los turistas, you are referring to a specific group of tourists that both speaker and listener already know about:

En Navidad los hoteles del centro están llenos de los turistas que vienen a esquiar.
→ “full of the tourists who come to ski” (a particular set of tourists)

Using de turistas (without article) keeps it general and indefinite, just like English “full of tourists” with no “the”.