In July, Spain received 2.5 million foreign tourists, 75% fewer than in July 2019. The National Statistics Institute's Frontur survey of foreign tourist movement shows that France, with 597,244 tourists, was the main market. This number represented a 58% decrease in French tourism. The UK, which is normally the largest market, contributed 377,886 tourists (down 82.5%) and was third behind Germany (432,302, a fall of 65%).
Fernando Valdés, the secretary of state for tourism, says that the data show that Covid-19 is negatively affecting tourism because of restrictions on international mobility and a lack of confidence in international travel. He did feel it was significant, however, that the average length of stay went up by 0.6 days to 8.1 days. "This demonstrates that for those who decide to travel to Spain, Covid-19 has not altered their plans in terms of the duration of the stay. This is indicative of the perception of Spain as a safe destination."
The Balearics had the greatest percentage of foreign tourists in July - 23.9% of the total, i.e. 588,431 tourists. The decrease compared with July 2019 was 75%. German tourism accounted for 42%, the UK 16%. Behind the Balearics were Catalonia (17.7% of the total) and Valencia 15.5%.
The Egatur survey of tourist spending indicates a 79.5% decrease compared with last July - a total of 2,450 million euros for the country as a whole. German spending was 18.7% of the total, followed by French (15.3%) and British (15.2%). Spending in the Balearics was 26% of the national total, the highest percentage in the country.
Over the first seven months of the year, there was a 72.4% decrease in the number of foreign tourists for the whole of Spain. The total was just over 13.2 million. The UK provided the most - 2.4 million, a fall of 77%. Total tourist spending fell by 72.6% to 14,291 million euros.
For the seven months, the Canary Islands attracted the most foreign tourists - just over 2.9 million, a decrease of 61.4%.