The pandemic has revealed

the excessive dependence of tourism on our country on the United Kingdom

, our first source market, although the sector does not see realistic that the vacuum of English can be compensated for these atures with other markets, as the Canary Islands proposed yesterday.

One in four tourists who visited us before the crisis had this nationality and in the case of some regions, such as the Canary Islands or the Balearic Islands, it was one in three travelers.

Now this is no longer the case and France is the country of origin

of the majority of foreigners in the main holiday destinations in Spain: Andalusia, Catalonia and the Valencian Community.

They are also in the Community of Madrid.

In the Balearic Islands, the German market still weighs more.

Spain has been aware for years that this excessive dependence on the British has its B-side. This became evident already in the autumn of 2019, when the tour operator Thomas Cook went bankrupt.

Yesterday the Canarian Minister of Tourism, Yaiza Castillo,

reiterated the need to limit

Canarian

tourism dependence

on this market and bet on others, mainly Europeans, where the archipelago has "a great capacity for growth".

A third of the tourism in the Canary Islands comes from the United Kingdom and this

means "leaving all the reactivation of the economy, jobs, public resources and social policies in the hands of a single country

, is to risk a lot," he said during a forum organized by Europa Press.

The minister of the industry, Reyes Maroto, has repeatedly stressed the need to focus on other markets, although

the question is whether this can be in the short term, at what price

and what alternative markets are capable of filling this hole .

"One thing is the desire to diversify and another thing is that this change in profile can materialize and compensate for the lack of British with other markets in just a few months. Doing this at this point in the season is impossible," says José Luis Zoreda, Vice President of Exceltur, the main tourist lobby.

World Market

In 2019, 19 million British travelers arrived in our country of the total of 83 million tourists who visited us.

It is 21% of the total, with almost 20% of the expenditure.

Spain, in turn, is the main holiday destination for British tourists (with a market share of almost 21.8%).

Last year just over three million did so, which means that 15 million stopped coming.

Not having the British only in the month of June means losing income of 386 million each week in June and 480 each week in July

, according to Zoreda. That is why "as of June 14, it is impossible to consider exchanging 18 million English for Germans or French."

In addition, as he explains, each nationality has its traditional destinations, so that Germans do not usually go to typical British places and vice versa. "You can try to increase the quota of French or Germans in their respective destinations, but not compensate with quotas from other countries. Suddenly Magaluf is not going to be filled with Germans," says Zoreda, who believes that in order to change these schemes, they need at least a couple of years.

The arrival of the British this summer is still in the air as

Spain is still on London's amber risk list

, forcing tourists to quarantine on their return.

Minister Reyes Maroto assured yesterday that the "good epidemiological data" of our country encourages Spain to enter the next review of the United Kingdom to enter its green list.

This will take place next week.

However, the fact that the United Kingdom is considering slowing down the pace of its de-escalation "puts the month of July in jeopardy, as it takes a couple of weeks to activate logistics, which means that they will not arrive until the end this month or August, "says Zoreda.

In 2020 France was the main issuing market for travelers, with 3.8 million (compared to 3.1 million British) and in the first four months of this year they have also been the ones that have arrived the most (with 418,409 tourists), followed by the Germans.

British barely 80,000, which gives an idea of ​​the disaster.

They are outnumbered by even Portugal and the Nordic countries.

Also America without counting the US, despite the fact that travel with these markets has not been allowed except for essential reasons.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Canary Islands

  • France

  • London

  • Sweden

  • Denmark

  • Spain

  • Portugal

  • Reyes Maroto

  • UK

  • Thomas cook

  • Balearics

  • ERTE

  • China

  • Germany

  • Andalusia

  • USA

  • Madrid

  • Madrid's community

  • Valencian Community

  • Catalonia

  • Stay at home

  • America

MobilityThe UK's decision to keep Spain in amber frustrates the start of the summer: "We are already losing June"

Wide Angle Morocco increases diplomatic belligerence to cling to Sahara

From Monday Opening to tourism: which countries can enter and which cannot?

See links of interest

  • Holidays 2021

  • Home THE WORLD TODAY

  • Podcast Economia

  • Eurocup, live: Scotland v Czech Republic

  • Eurocup, live: Poland - Slovakia

  • Live: Spain - Sweden