Spain received a total of 71.6 million tourists in 2022, which is 14.3% less than the number of tourists welcomed in 2019, the year before the pandemic broke out, official figures released on Thursday revealed.

The recovery of foreign tourism has been steady throughout 2022. After a very bad start due to the impact of the Omicron strain, figures began to pick up again from May 2022 onwards and since then the progression has been continuous, EURACTIV’s partner EFE reported based on official data from the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE) and Frontur.

However, the expenditure associated with these arrivals totalled €87,061 million, 5.3% lower than in 2019.

Tourism accounted for 12.6% of the Spanish total GDP in 2019. In 2021 it was 12.2%, and in 2020, only 5.8%.

The better evolution of spending was due to the rise in the average daily expenditure, which increased by 17.8% over 2021/22 to €162 (per tourist), but is still €8 above the record figure for 2019, Frontur/INE data revealed.

In 2022, the average tourist spent €1,217, 8.7% more than what was spent in 2021 and 10.4% more than in 2019. The average trip lasted 7.5 days, 0.7 fewer days than in 2021.

According to the INE, the majority of tourists in Spain came from the UK (15.1 million), followed by France (10.1 million), and Germany (9.76 million).

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.EURACTIV.es)