Foreign Tourists Found Their Way Back to Spain

Spain’s tourism industry is experiencing exponential growth in 2023, marking a definitive recovery from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. This is further supported by recent data from the National Statistics Institute (INE), revealing an increase in foreign tourists number during the last quarter.

Spain welcomed 13.7 million international tourists in the first three months of the year, 41.2% more than in 2022.

In addition, it should be noted that foreign tourists spent more than 17.2 billion euros on their trips to Spain, 44% more than in the same quarter last year.

If we talk about March, which welcomes the most tourists in this first quarter, we see that Spain received 5.3 million international tourists, about 30.1% more than the same month in 2022. In the first quarter, half of the spending was generated in March alone, amounting to almost 6.7 billion euros – a 30% increase compared to last year.

Regarding the main source markets of foreign visitors, the United Kingdom’s citizens traveled the most to Spain, with almost 1.1 million tourists, representing 20.3% of the total and an increase of 29.4% compared to March 2022.

The Germans and the French follow the British visitors as the international tourists who visited Spain the most in the first quarter. Specifically, Germany contributed 673,584 (10.7% more in annual rate) travelers and France 613,323 (34.1% more).

Tourism in Spain is increasing in terms of both the number of visitors and higher quality. It means that tourists are spending more money and staying longer, bringing in more income for Spain.

The Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Héctor Gómez, assures that “we are witnessing the consolidation of tourism as one of the main engines of the Spanish economy, which is also reflected in the quality of employment in the sector and in an increasingly more varied and innovative offer.”

According to data from the INE Tourism Expenditure Survey, during the first three months of the year, foreign tourists in Spain spent 44.7% more than in the same period last year, thus reaching 17.2 billion euros.

Comparing this spending figure during this period with 2019 shows that tourists now spend 11.9% more than then.

In March, the average expenditure per tourist stood at 1,266 euros, with an annual increase of 0.7%. The average tourist’s daily expense in the first quarter stood at 168 euros, growing by 6.6%.