ARCHIVED - International tourism decimated in Spain last year; 90 per cent drop in November

UK tourists spent 88% less in the first 11 months of 2020 than in the same period during 2019

Prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic early last year the tourism sector in Spain had enjoyed a prolonged period of growth, accounting for well over 10 per cent of the country’s GDP, but the extent to which the industry has been affected since March 2020 is graphically illustrated by figures published this week by the national government’s central statistics unit.

The latest international tourism data published this week relates to November, as this set of data is always published two months behind, and shows that in November last year the number of people travelling to Spain from abroad was only a tenth of the equivalent figure in the same month of 2019 at 457,000, with huge decreases in relation to all of the major sources of visitors. (Flights data, also published this week, supports these figures, Aena losing 200 million passengers this year) The UK was the largest single market, but the figure of only 88,000 coming from Britain again represents a drop of almost 90 per cent, and similar declines are reported for other sources of tourism: the catch-all category of “rest of the world” contained a mere 2,912 travellers, a decrease of 99.3 per cent!

Only the first two months of last year can be described as “normal” in terms of international travel, and it is due to the figures for January and February that the cumulative totals after 11 months of last year are marginally better. However, it is hard to draw any comfort from a fall of 76.9 per cent in the number of visitors from abroad (to 18.3 million) by the end of November, and although the domestic market is reported to have fared slightly better it is fair to say that international tourism was practically wiped out from mid-March onwards.

Most important for the sector, of course, is the fact that the fall in the number of visitors translates into a similar drop in the amount of money they spend in Spain. During November it is calculated that visitors from abroad spent 467 million euros in this country, which might seem like a lot of money but represents a decrease of 90.8 per cent in comparison with the same month in 2019.

Again the UK tops the list with spending of 99 million euros but a drop of 87.9 per cent, and in the same way the year-to-date figures after 11 months also mirror the trend in visitor numbers. By the end of November spending by foreign tourists amounted to 19 billion euros, 78.1 per cent less than in 2019, while visitors from the UK had spent 3 billion euros (82.3 per cent less than the year before).

One interesting aspect of the figures is that the drastic decrease in air travel last year led to France overtaking the UK as the main source of visitors from abroad during the first 11 months, due no doubt to the relative ease of reaching Spain by car during the summer, when most travel restrictions were lifted.

But this curiosity is little more than a distraction from the main issue, which is whether the sector will be able to recover in the near future, and to what extent. The hope must be that mass vaccination programs are implemented as rapidly as possible and with the maximum possible effect, and that by the summer international travel may begin to become feasible once again.

At that point it may be possible to evaluate any potential effect of Brexit on the number of people coming to Spain from the UK, and to plan ahead to restore the sector to its previous good health, but until then the Spanish tourist industry, like so many other elements of what was “normal life” until ten months ago, remains on hold.