ARCHIVED - Spain lost 90 per cent of tourists in January
Coronavirus causes international tourism to plummet across all of Spain
Since last January Spain has “lost” 76.6 billion euros in revenue and 68.3 million visitors.
Traditionally popular regions such as the Balearic Islands, Andalusia and Madrid have all seen their visitor numbers drop by more than 85 per cent compared to this time last year.
The third wave of the coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating effect on tourism, with visitor numbers plummeting across the country during the last 11 months.
Last January, when the Covid-19 pandemic was still “something happening in China”, 4.1 million tourists came to Spain, but just a year later, that figure has fallen nearly 90 percent, with most of Europe locked down or facing severely restricted movement due to the virus.
Official statistics are produced monthly by the National Statistics Institute and the latest set of data show that just 434,362 international tourists came to Spain in January, down 89.5 per cent from January 2020.
International visitor numbers have been falling for 11 months in a row now, with Covid-19 related restrictions and closures making travel almost impossible for anything except work and the most essential of journeys, so it’s hardly surprising that tourism is being decimated in such a brutal fashion.
Of course, fewer visitors also meant less money, with foreign tourists spending just 452 million euros in January, a whopping 90.5 per cent less than in January 2020 when they spent 4.8 billion euros. On average, each visitor spent 1,040 euros (9.8 per cent less than a year ago) with their average daily spending falling 26.7 per cent to 106 euros.
The most popular destination proved to be the Canary Islands, accounting for 20 per cent of the total. Yet there were still just 86,600 visitors, down 92 per cent from a year beforehand in what has always been the peak season for the islands, which welcomed more than a million foreign visitors back in January 2020. Next on the list of preferred destinations in times of Covid-19 was Catalonia, with 19.6 per cent of the total number of visitors but still down 90 per cent from last year, and Valencia with 11.4 per cent of the total representing 88 per cent fewer tourists than in 2020. Notoriously popular regions like the Balearic Islands (-85.4 per cent), Andalusia (-91.8 per cent) and Madrid (-92.5 per cent), have also all registered significant drops in visitor numbers.
By nationality, the biggest group of visitors was French (118,000), accounting for 27% per cent of the total, due principally to the ease with which the French can drive across the border into Catalonia, but still down 75 per cent from January 2020. Next on the list came Germans (51,000), down 90 per cent, and Portugese (28,800) down 78 per cent.
Only 23,200 British nationals crossed into Spain during January, 96.7 per cent less than during the same month last year.