ARCHIVED - Visitors from the UK to Spain spent 1.15 million euros per hour in November

Fewer visitors from the UK and Germany but a rise in the overall total of foreign tourists

As was the case in 2018 the summer of 2019 was a relatively disappointing one for the international tourism sector of the Spanish economy, but data published last week by the central government’s statistics bureau show that the figures recovered slightly in November as the number of people coming to this country from abroad was 2.8 per cent higher than in the equivalent month last year, only the second increase in the last six months.

The total of 4.66 million visitors was achieved despite the fact that the figure relating to visitors from the UK, the largest single source of international tourism in Spain, fell by 6.4 per cent to 875,000. This still accounts for 17.3 per cent of the total but it is a lower proportion than has generally been the case in recent years, and with the figure for Germany also falling by 0.4 per cent (to 573,000) the overall rise is due to more visitors from other sources. Prime among these was France, which saw an increase of 20.6 per cent in the take the total up to 576,000, while double-digit ruses are also reported for the USA, Ireland and the Netherlands.

The main features of the breakdown by the six main tourist regions were rises of approximately 10 per cent in the number of international visitors to Madrid and the Comunidad Valenciana, while the figures fell slightly in the Canaries and the Balearics: the Costa Cálida falls into the catch-all category of “other regions”, in which there was a rise of 2.1 per cent.

Underlining the continued importance of the British market to the sector, in November the UK was the largest source of foreign visitors to Andalucía (22.7 per cent of all foreign tourists), the Canaries (31.9 per cent) and the Comunidad Valenciana (31.4 per cent), and the second most important market in the Balearics (although with only 8.4 per cent, a long way behind the 59.6 per cent attributed to the German market).

Meanwhile, the overall increase in visitor numbers was accompanied by a similar rise of 3.7 per cent in the amount they are calculated to have spent in Spain in November, which reached 5,068 million euros. Again, the figure relating to the UK showed a year-on-year drop, this time of 7.9 per cent, reaching 825 million euros: average daily spending by the British was 1.7 per cent lower than a year previously at 133 euros per person, with the rest of the decrease being due primarily to there being fewer holidaymakers from the UK.

November is one of the least active months in the international tourist sector in Spain, but despite this the importance of tourism to the economy is such that of the 7.04 million euros spent EVERY HOUR in Spain by foreign visitors in November, 1.15 million of them came from the pockets of those coming from the UK!

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