Record Tourist Numbers in August
September 22nd, 2011
According to the figures contained in the Frontier Tourist Movement Survey (FRONTUR) drafted by the Institute for Tourism Statistics of the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade, the figures for inbound tourists in August exceeded the previous monthly record of 7.63 million tourists in July 2007.
655,000 more inbound tourists visited Spain in August than did so in the same month of last year. Almost forty million inbound tourists came to Spain between January and August 2011, with an increase of 7.8% (or 2.9 million tourists) on the same period last year.
Once again, both the data from August and the increase seen in the accumulated figures underpin the positive outlook for 2011 as a whole, which could become the fourth most successful year for tourism in Spain following a recovery that began in the second half of 2010.
All the major destination autonomous regions posted growth in the number of inbound tourists, especially the Region of Madrid (which received 42.6% more foreign tourists due to the hosting of World Youth Day) and the Canary Islands (which posted growth of 16.1%).
The United Kingdom (with 23.7% of the total and 1.8 million tourists in August) was the top source of visitors, with year-on-year growth of 7.7% in August and 8.8% for the year to date. This was therefore the fifth consecutive month of year-on-year growth for the UK market. It was also the market to record the highest growth in August (with 128,000 more tourists), which was concentrated in the Canary Islands, the Region of Valencia, the Balearic Islands and Andalusia.
France, accounting for 19.7% of all visiting tourists, posted growth of 8% in August to a total of 1.5 million tourists, thus becoming the second-largest emitting market of tourists to Spain. This growth in the number of French tourists was especially noticeable in the Balearic Islands, Andalusia and the “all other autonomous regions” category. For the year to date, the number of French tourists visiting Spain grew by 4.2%.
Germany was the third-largest market in August, accounting for 14.1% of the total and more than one million tourists. This growth of 12.3% in August was particularly felt in the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands. 6.11 million German tourists visited Spain in the first eight months of the year, up 0.8% on the same period last year. From the remaining markets, the United States, Italy (up 10.5%) and Switzerland (up 7.2%) all performed particularly well.
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