2023-08-02 13:16:26
Tourism is consolidated as one of the main legs of the Spanish economy after a first semester in which foreign visitors left more than 46,000 million euros in our country, according to figures published this Wednesday by the INE. And that fewer tourists arrived than before the pandemic. Specifically, a total of 37.5 million international tourists arrived in the first six months of the year, almost 24% more than last year, but still 1.6% below the levels of 2019 when they visited Spain 38 2 million foreigners.
On the other hand, the spending made by these tourists in 2019 reached 40,380 million euros, while in the first half of this year a smaller number of visitors have left 46,011 million euros on their trips, 12% more. Compared to last year’s figures, they are 28% higher.
Even so, it must be taken into account that the variation in the CPI from June 2019 to June 2023 is 15%, according to the INE, so the 12% with the highest spending by tourists would still be slightly below the average. pre-pandemic levels if the effect of inflation is removed.
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The average cost per tourist in the first half of the year is 1,275 euros, 6% more than last year, with a daily cost of 188 euros, 8% more. In addition, the average duration of the trips is 6.8 days, according to INE figures, practically the same as last year.
For the acting Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Héctor Gómez, these “excellent” figures show the success of the Government’s commitment to quality and excellence to continue as world leaders in tourism. Gómez highlighted “the extraordinary growth of tourism from the United States, which implies a revaluation of our destinations and the confirmation that we are a country with a very attractive high-quality offer.”
And it is that travelers from the US have exceeded 1.84 million people, 55% more than those who came last year in the first half of the year and 15% more than those who came before the pandemic. Visits from the rest of America have also increased a lot, specifically 20% since 2019, from the 1.8 million tourists who came then to the 2.2 million who have visited Spain this year.
After the United States, it is Switzerland (with 19.8% more) and Ireland (with 13.7%) that are growing the most compared to a year ago. A ‘boom’ of arrivals that is managing to offset the drop in Asian tourists in general, and Japanese and Chinese in particular. Specifically, the forecasts of the tourist association Exceltur indicate that the number of hotel reservations for North American tourists will increase by almost 23% compared to the summer of 2019, as well as by 15% for Latin Americans. However, Chinese tourist reservations will plummet 62% this summer compared to before the pandemic, as well as that of Japanese, which will fall 57%.
British, German and French
Beyond the surprise of the American continent, the British were once again the ones who dominated the visits to our country in the first part of the year, with a total of 7.7 million tourists from January to June, although still well below the 8.3 million that came in 2019. In second place, the Germans (4.9 million) and the French (also 4.9 million and already above the pre-pandemic figures).
The communities that received the most tourists in the first semester were Catalonia (with 7.9 million), the Canary Islands (6.8 million) and the Balearic Islands (5.7 million), all above pre-pandemic levels except in the case of Catalonia.
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