Pablo R. Roces Madrid

Madrid

Updated Tuesday, March 26, 2024-20:45

  • Tourism Formula 1 and luxury hotels intensify Madrid's commitment: spending has already grown by almost 30% in 2023

Tourism has become one of the fundamental sectors for the Community of Madrid. This is demonstrated by the fact that this area has reached a ceiling in 2023 in

the contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the region, reaching 8%, which sets the absolute record in the capital.

A contribution that occurs largely thanks to the increase in traveler spending (24%) which translates into greater average consumption and longer stays in all types of accommodation.

This maximum of 8% also shows an upward line in the weight that tourism has been gaining in the Madrid economy.

In 2019

, the year before the pandemic that many of the studies take as reference, the contribution of tourism to GDP

was 7.5%

. In the last four years, this has increased by half a point, which translates into a growth close to 7%, specifically 6.7%.

If the year taken as a reference was

2022

, when Covid restrictions had already eased, this increase is even greater. The sector's contribution to the regional economy

stood at 6.9%

, below pre-pandemic levels. In that case, the increase in its influence is close to 16% (15.94%). Precisely this situation was cataloged yesterday, during the evaluation of last year's data from Puerta del Sol, by the Minister of Culture, Tourism and Sports, Mariano de Paco, as "the great management achievement" of the regional Government.

"

The data known today highlight the positive consolidation of high-value tourism throughout 2023

, thanks to the intense work of both the regional Executive and workers and businessmen," the counselor remarked, positively evaluating the figures provided by the Resident Tourism Survey prepared by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

This survey, according to the regional government, reinforces the commitment to intensify efforts to attract tourism that is more focused on spending than on the number of travelers and with the focus mainly on high-ranking and international travelers. According to the INE study,

the total expenditure that tourists have left in the Community of Madrid was 16,675 million

euros in 2023, 24.2% more than in the year before the coronavirus crisis. However, the increase in arrivals was only 5% - 13.8 million in 2019; 14.5 million from last year.

This means that the number of visitors who came to the region last year is slightly higher than those who did so in 2019. However, their average outlay has grown substantially, especially that of those international. That is why the capital leads the national ranking in that sense. While,

in Spain as a whole, the expenditure of foreign travelers represents 24.8%, in the Community this figure rises to 38.4%

, almost four out of every 10 euros. Compared to the main regions in this index, Madrid surpasses them by around ten points: in Catalonia it is 28.9% and in Andalusia, 27.7%.

This predominance of arrivals from outside national borders also makes the capital the only region that has seen the average stay of these tourists increase to 5.8 days. In fact, for the first time since these data were collected, the Community of Madrid has surpassed Catalonia (5.58) in that comparison and has done so supported by the Ibero-American market.

Mexico and Colombia are in the second and third tier with the highest spending volume

, only behind the United States.

Although the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sports does not make future forecasts about the importance that the sector will have in the regional economy, the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso is confident that this influence will grow thanks to the strategy proposed to date. year 2026.