Tourism continues to grow in Spain: 4 million tourists arrived in March, eight times more than in 2021

The tourism sector is recovering more and more after the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic. It has been two very difficult years for tourism due to the health emergency and mobility restrictions to combat the virus. Last March, Spain received four million tourists, eight times more than in 2021, an increase of 720.5%.

The data have been published this Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), which ensures that the average spending of foreign visitors in March in Spain exceeded the prepandemia levels. These figures represent 71% of the tourists who arrived three years ago. The number of tourists is 1.6 million below that recorded in 2019, which allowed reaching a figure in spending of 5.069 million euros last month, an increase of 832% over the same month in 2021.

After the new upturn of tourists in March, the arrival of international visitors to Spain and spending, accumulate a total of ten consecutive months of year-on-year increases. As for the influx of tourists, the United Kingdom was the main emitting country with a total of 826,399 visitors, an increase of 4,084.7% compared to March 2021.

After the country of the United Kingdom, Germany and France have been the next countries that sent more tourists to Spain with 608,803 (482.2% in annual rate) and 456,592 (332%), respectively. Also noteworthy are the annual growth of tourists from Ireland (2,593.7%), the United States (1,976.5%) and the Nordic countries (1,292.8%).

The Minister of Industry, Comecio and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, said that “month by month the recovery of tourism continues to be consolidated. Spain closes its first quarter of 2022 with good data on international tourist arrivals and tourist spending, a trend that we hope will intensify in the summer period”.

In the first three months of 2022, the number of visitors arriving in Spain from abroad increased by 696.7%, approaching 9.7 million tourists. The Canary Islands was the favorite destination for tourists who arrived in Spain in March, with 27.9% of the total, followed by Catalonia (17.5%) and Andalusia (15.1%).

Written by BayRadio