ARCHIVED - Spanish tourism has lost 4 billion euros due to lack of UK visitors so far this year
Just 24,000 visitors from the UK in April as opposed to 1.5 million in April 2019
The international tourism sector in Spain has still to resume anything resembling normal activity despite the first post-pandemic flights now operating between the Costas and northern Europe, and the latest government data for April 2021 illustrate graphically the scale of the loss to the national economy.
During the month a grand total of 630,647 visitors are reported to have arrived in Spain from abroad: an infinite increase on the figure of zero for last April, during the initial coronavirus lockdown, but almost insignificant in comparison with the same month in 2019, when over 7.1 million sunseekers flocked to Spain.
The number of tourists from the UK, traditionally the most important market, was just 23,919 in April as flights were still largely inoperative, whereas two years ago the figure was reported as being almost 1.5 million! In this context the largest single source of foreign visitors this April was Germany, with 144,000, although this is still a long way from levels considered normal prior to the pandemic.
In economic terms, the sector remains at a bare minimum level of activity. Two years ago it was calculated that international tourists spent over 7 million euros while in Spain during April but this year the figure is just 671 million euros – a decrease of over 90 per cent.
During the first four months of 2021 it is estimated that spending by British visitors amounted to just 89 million euros as opposed to almost 4 billion in 2019, equating to a 97.7 per cent loss in economic activity derived from UK tourists!