Tourism in Spain is heading for another record year

The 2015 figures, just out, represent a 4.2% increase on the same period last year and equate to some 1.2 million more tourists than in the first 6 months of 2014.

This means a record year with an unparalleled 29.2 million tourists visiting the country during its first half of 2015. Spain’s Minister for Industry, Energy and Tourism, José Manuel Soria, said that these figures, coupled with a highly positive outlook for the summer months would probably mean that there would be more ‘record- breaking’ figures by the end of the year. He also pointed out that holiday accommodation occupation rates for the summer months were at 90% in many places along the coast, 70% in rural areas and 80% in the state-run network of Paradores.

Almost 6.7 million foreign tourists visited Spain during June alone, that’s 1.4% more than in 2014 and surpassing all previous records for that month.

British tourists were the most numerous, with 6.7 million people coming between January and June, which was up 2.6% for the same period last year. Followed by the Germans 4.7 million – up 1.6% and the French 4.6 million – up 7.5%. The greatest increase in tourists from any one country were by the U.S.A. up by 15.7% with 661.612 visitors to Spain. Switzerland – up by 9.7% with 755.950 visitors; Belgians – up 7.8 with 974.398; Ireland – up by 7.4 with 624.761 visitors, and Italy 1.6 million tourists – up by 7.3%.

The most popular destination amongst Spain’s visitors was to Catalonia with 7.4

million tourists from January to June, 4.4% more than last year, whereas Madrid saw the biggest increase, jumping a whopping 8.2% to 2.5million visitors.

The Canary Islands saw the biggest increase for the first half of the year, with 5.6 million tourists, a 0.4% increase. But Andalucia was the region that saw the greatest increase for the first 6 months with 4 million visitors – up by 7.6%.

Although the majority of tourists stayed in hotels (65.1% of the total) non-hotel accommodation proved more popular than ever, with 10.2 million tourists choosing the type of accommodation, an 8.7% increase. More than half of these choosing to stay with friends or relatives.

With regard to travel arrangements, the number of visitors coming to Spain without a package tour made up 70.7% of the total, a year-on-year increase of 7.8%, compared with a 3.4% decrease in those choosing a package tour option.