SPAIN. According to World Tourism Organization (WTO) figures, last year Spain was the second most-visited country in the world, with 51.7 million tourist arrivals. France topped the list with 77 million, while the US was third (41.9 million), followed by Italy (39.8 million), China (36.8 million) and the UK (24.2 million).
This year Spain is aiming for 53 million tourist arrivals, but to achieve this Spain has had to keep profit margins low, raising prices only in line with domestic inflation. While visitor arrivals have increased year-on-year, Spanish tourism industry figures show average spend per visitor has dropped -6% from 2001.
The government’s figures reveal that travel and tourism accounts for 12% of the country’s gross domestic product, although industry estimates suggest the contribution could actually be as much as 18%.
One-third of all European tourists on beach holidays go to Spain, with Germany, France, Italy and the UK its biggest source markets.
However, according to the Wall Street Journal Europe report, Spain’s success this year has been due in part to the misfortunes of other countries. Many European destinations rely more heavily than it does on US visitors, who post-11 September are less willing to travel overseas. Meanwhile North African and eastern Mediterranean destinations such as Morocco, Cyprus and Turkey have suffered recently from travellers’ fears of terrorism. WTO figures show tourism in Turkey is only now returning to growth in visitor arrivals and Cyprus is still declining.
