Spanish Tourist Figures Increased By 10.7% in January 2017 Compared With 2016

15 per cent more British visitors to Spain in January

The boom in the Spanish international tourist sector shows no signs of slowing down as another year begins, with the figures released on Tuesday for the month of January 2017 showing that the number of people visiting this country from abroad was 10.7% higher than in the same month in 2016 at 3.9 million.

At the same time, the importance of the UK market to the sector appears to be growing still further: the number of British tourists was 15% higher than in January 2016 at almost 800,000, accounting for over one fifth of the total, and in the regions of the Comunidad Valenciana (including the Costa Blanca) and the Canary Islands UK nationals represented almost a third of all visitors. 

Similarly, the next two most important markets showed little growth if any: the number of German visitors in January rose by only 3.5% to 485,000, while the figure for France dropped slightly to 469,000. On the other hand, the figures for Ireland and the USA rose by 23% and 35% respectively.

In terms of the preferred destinations for these visitors the top-ranked region in January was the Canary Islands, as is to be expected during the winter, but the most significant increases reported were those in the Comunidad Valenciana (26.2%) and Madrid (22.3%). It is also interesting to note that the catch-all “other regions” category, while still accounting for only 8.8% of all visitors, grew by an impressive 22.7% in terms of foreign visitor numbers during the month. 

ref Spanish News Today