Date Published: 02/10/2020
ARCHIVED - Tourism tsunami continues in Spain; 75 percent less tourists in August and 79 percent lower spending
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
Spain “lost” 7.5 million tourists during July
Businesses working in the tourism sector don´t need a set of statistics from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) to tell them that this summer has been disastrous for the tourism sector in Spain, but it’s probably reassuring to know that the tsunami of coronavirus has been equally cruel to all of the principal tourism hotspots of the mainland and offshore islands.
The complete lockdown in April and May during which 100% of both tourists and revenue were lost was bad enough; the 97% loss of tourists in June only to be expected when borders didn´t open until the 21st, the 75% loss in July, hard to bear but at least putting a few heads on beds, but then August came and what should have been a month of recovery which set tills ringing was beleagured by covid outbreaks, travel restrictions and quarantines, the net result being a 76% fall in international tourist visitors during August.
The evolution of spending is just as dismal: falls of 98% in June, 79% in July and then 79% in August, concluding a difficult summer for a sector which has provided more than 12% of GDP in the past.
Number of tourists
During August only 2.44 million foreign tourists came to Spain, a fall of 75.86% compared to the same month of the previous year when over 10 million foreign travellers chose Spain for a bit of summer sun.
France was the country which supplied the largest volume of foreign tourists, accounting for 863,665 travellers, 35.4% of the total and “only” losing 57% when compared to last year. It is followed in volume by Germany (298,217) which lost 73% and the United Kingdom (256,528) which notched up a huge fall of 88%, due to the travel restrictions and quarantine imposed by the British Government at the end of July.
So far this year the collapse in the arrival of international tourists stands at 73%. Between January and August, almost 15.7 million foreign tourists have arrived in Spain compared to almost 58.2 million in the same period of the previous year, a loss of almost 42 MILLION travellers.
Amount spent (or not spent)
In the eighth month of the year, foreign tourists spent 2.456 million, 79% less than in 2019 when 11,764 million euros gave the tourism sector its busiest month of the year.
In the first eight months of 2020, tourist spending is close to 16,750 million, 73.8% less than in the same period of the previous year. Between January and August of a year ago, the figure exceeded 64,000 million.
Fall by region
By region, the main destination of visitors in August was Catalonia (popular with the French), where there were 459,271 foreign travellers (80% less than a year earlier). Catalonia is followed by the Balearic Islands, with 453,794 tourists (79.9% less), the Valencian Community, with 430,092 tourists (66.2% less), a fall of 74.1% in Andalusia, 76.9% in the Canary Islands and 88.8% in the Community of Madrid.
In the year to date Catalonia has received the most visitors with more than 3.2 million, 76.5% less compared to the same period in 2019. In second place is the Canary Islands (almost 3.2 million,) and in third, Andalusia with 2.3 million,(72.6% less).
Needless to say, the figures are disastrous and at the moment the new restrictions being imposed to bring coronavirus under control will do nothing to help the sector this autumn. Tonight at 22:00 over 5 million residents of Catalonia will be confined; Renfe has already offered to refund train tickets to the capital in full and the next two weeks are expected to cost businesses in Madrid millions in lost takings.
Although the rise in the number of new cases of coronavirus has slowed down a little this week, nobody is under any illusions that the tourist sector will continue to suffer for the remainder of this year and well into next.