ARCHIVED - Visitors from the UK to Spain spent 2.85 million euros PER HOUR in September

Fewer visitors but more money spent as the UK accounts for over 23 per cent of the total

As was the case in 2018, this summer was a relatively disappointing one for the international tourism sector of the Spanish economy, with data published on Monday by the central government’s statistics bureau showing that the number of people coming to this country from abroad was lower in September 2019 than in the equivalent month last year, the third consecutive decrease of this kind.

The total of 8.91 million visitors also represents the fourth year-on-year decrease in the last five months, with the figures for each of the three major sources of foreign tourists dropping in September. Top of that list, once again, was the UK with 2.1 million visitors (0.4 per cent fewer than in September 2018 but still 23.6 per cent of the overall total), far outstripping the figures for any other individual country.

The next highest figures after the UK relate to visitors from Germany (1.27 million after a drop of 7.1 per cent) and France (993,000 after a decrease of 4.8 per cent). Other noteworthy results include an increase of 18 per cent in in the number of people visiting from the USA (365,000) while there were also increases of 9.6 and 6.9 per cent in the figures for Portugal and Ireland. At the same time, Switzerland and the USA, and although the numbers relating to Scandinavian countries bucked the recent downward trend with a 3.9 per cent rise to 486,000.

The main features of the breakdown by the six main tourist regions are an 8.4 per cent decrease in the Canaries and a rise of 6.2 per cent in Andalucía: the Costa Cálida falls within the catch-all category of “other regions”, in which there was a rise of 2.2 per cent.

Underlining the importance of the British market to the sector, in September the UK was the largest source of foreign visitors to Andalucía (23.7 per cent of all foreign tourists), the Canaries (43.6 per cent) and the Comunidad Valenciana (32.2 per cent), and the second most important market in the Balearics (30.2 per cent) and Catalunya (13.3 per cent)

On the other hand, the amount spent by foreign visitors to Spain in September was 1.7 per cent higher than in the ninth month of 2018 at 9,706 million euros, while the contribution to the Spanish economy of those arriving from the UK rose by 1.1 per cent to 2,049 million euros. Average daily spending by the British was a healthy 7.1 per cent higher than a year previously at 134 euros per person, and despite the fact that there were fewer visitors arriving the UK still accounted for 21.1 per cent of all international tourist spending in this country.

In more easily comprehensible terms, of the 13.5 million euros spent EVERY HOUR in Spain by foreign visitors in September, 2.85 million of them came from the pockets of those coming from the UK!

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