Spain’s International Passenger Arrivals Double In One Year To 4.4 Million
Spain News
Published: 24 August 2021 18:06 CET
The number of international passenger arrivals to Spain has more than doubled in the last twelve months reaching almost 4.4 million in July.
According to the recent data published by Turespaña, the figure was also 41.8% of the arrivals registered in the same month of 2019, the last year considered to be ‘normal’ due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
In July, 4,387,871 passengers arrived in Spain, representing the best figures since February 2020 when 5.5 million people arrived in the country by air.
The Secretary of State for Tourism, Fernando Valdés said, "the challenge now is to extend the season as much as possible to compensate for the fact that we have not yet been able to recover in 2021 what would be a normal summer in terms of international tourism."
"In just one month, arrivals from international airports have grown by 87.8% thanks, among other factors, to the full effectiveness of the EU COVID certificate, of which more than one million one hundred thousand have been validated in Spain, facilitating transit to these international passengers. If June marked the best record since the beginning of the pandemic, the July data show that the recovery in international mobility continues to consolidate, placing us in a better scenario than last year, despite the restrictions derived from the fifth wave,” he said.
Where did the visitors come from?
Unsurprisingly, the number of arrivals from the UK saw a fourfold increase second only to Germany.
In July, 605,897 Brits visited the country, up 287% on June. This is despite the fact that Spain continues to sit on the UK’s amber travel list which has deterred many from travelling to the country.
German tourists accounted for the most visitors with 861,629 arrivals equating to 19.6% of air passengers arriving in the country.
France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium also continued to visit the country, all generating more than 200,000 visitors.
Compared to 2019, there were a number of countries that saw a fall in visitors which were Poland (-23.6%), Denmark (-25.2%) and Switzerland (-30.1%).
The most popular regions
It was the Balearic Islands that received the largest number of arrivals with 30.4% of the total or 1,332,029 passengers. This was due to an upsurge in arrivals from the two biggest markets, the UK and Germany.
The capital Madrid also saw an increase with 17.8% of the visitor numbers or 782,044 arrivals. Catalonia was next with 16.1% (704,530), Andalusia had 12.4% (545,200), the Valencian Community 11.5% (506,793) and the Canary Islands with 9.7% (425,685).
Looking at numbers by airport, it was Palma de Mallorca that received the most passengers with 958,027 representing 21.8% of the total figure.
Madrid’s Barajas airport received 782,044 (17.8%), Barcelona 663,706 (15.1%) and Malaga with 459,685 (10.5%).
Source: La Moncloa
