The arrivals of foreign tourists on Spanish territory jumped in July over a year, while remaining very far from their pre-pandemic level, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) announced on Wednesday.
Over the month as a whole, Spain received 4.4 million foreign tourists, an increase of “78.3%” compared to “the same month of 2020”, strongly affected by the Covid-19 epidemic , specifies the INE in a press release.
Read also Covid-19 and travel: health pass, Delta variant, restrictions in Spain, Greece, Portugal ... what measures are applied to the French this summer?
The French were the first contingent of tourists, with 874,000 admissions, up 46.6% over one year, specifies the INE.
The Germans followed with 707,000 visitors (+ 64.5%) and the British, with 555,000 visitors (+ 46.5%).
The Balearic Islands were the main destination for foreign visitors (30% of admissions), ahead of Catalonia (18.5%).
Tourist spending also reached 5.2 billion euros, up 112% compared to 2020.
These figures show an improvement in the situation for the Spanish tourism sector, on which 13% of jobs depend.
They are nevertheless very far from those before the pandemic and cast doubt on the ability of the sector to regain its cruising speed.
In the first seven months of 2021, 9.8 million tourists came to enjoy the Spanish sun, against 47.9 million in the same period of 2019. Cumulative spending reached 11.9 billion, against 40.3 billion in 2019.
The government has set itself the goal of attracting nearly 45 million foreign tourists this year, about half of the volume reached in 2019. Spain was the second largest tourist destination in the world after France.