The world

Updated Friday, February 2, 2024-10:23

  • Interview Simón Pedro Barceló: "Spain can exceed 100 million foreign tourists without any sustainability problem"

In 2023, Spain

received a total of 85.1 million

international

tourists

who left 108,662 million euros in the country, its

best historical figures

, and disputes the first position in the world with France, which has not yet published its final annual data.

With these figures of international arrivals,

Spain could be, for the first time in its history, the world leader

above France, which will end the year between 79 and 85 million foreign tourist entries, according to what has been advanced by the French Government, which has not yet published its definitive data.

According to statistics on tourist arrivals (Frontur) and associated spending (Egatur) from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), arrivals to Spain increased by 18.7% over 2022 and exceeded the 83.5 million in 2019, before the pandemic.

Expenditure stood at 108,662 million

, 24.7% more than a year before and also above the 91,912 million in 2019. Expenditure figures have been setting consecutive historical highs since November 2022.

The main source of tourists to Spain,

the United Kingdom

, sent 17.3 million people, still somewhat below the 18 million in 2019;

France

was placed in second position, with 11.8 million and

Germany

, traditionally the second, registered 10.8 million. They are followed in importance by the Netherlands and Italy, with 4.9 million in each case.

In terms of spending,

the United Kingdom continues to be the first country, with 19,947 million

(16.3% more than in 2022), but the second position goes to

Germany

(12,978 million and growth of 12.6%) and the third, to

France

(9,767 million and increase of 19.7%).

In 2023,

the autonomous community that received the most tourists was Catalonia

, with 21.2 million, followed by the Balearic Islands, with 16.9 million; Canary Islands, 16.4 million; Andalusia, 14.3 million; Valencian Community, 12.3 million, and Madrid, 9.2 million.

The autonomous communities that concentrated the highest spending in 2023 were Catalonia (with 20,878 million, 26.7% more than in 2022), the Canary Islands (with 20,334 million and an increase of 16.5%) and the Balearic Islands (with 17,722 million, 16. 4% more).

BIG DECEMBER

The December figures reflect that

5.2 million international tourists entered, 26.2% more

than in the same month of 2022 and also 21% above that of the same month in 2019.

In that month,

spending totaled 7,093 million euros

, 35.4% more than in that month of 2022 and 41.6% higher than in December 2019.

The average expenditure per tourist was 1,362 euros, with an annual increase of 7.3% and the average daily expenditure grew by 2.3%, up to 149 euros.

Above the average are the United Kingdom (151 euros per day) and the 'rest of the world' aggregate, which includes countries with high tourist spending such as those in the Middle East or the United States, with 177 euros.