Alex Trelinski
SPAIN welcomed 6.1 million international tourists in April who spent €6.9 billion on their holidays.
Figures published on Wednesday by the National Statistics Institute show tourism recovering after over two years of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Foreign visitor numbers were at 85.4% of the pre-pandemic levels of April 2019 and were ten times higher than a year ago.
Spending of €6.9 billion was just shy of the total three years earlier of €7.1 billion.
20% of international tourists came from the United Kingdom, accounting for 1.2 million visitors.
UK arrivals mirrored the overall figure with 85% of the market recovered compared to April 2019.
The next largest market was from Germany at 989,807 tourists and 826,193 visitors from France.
Countries like Ireland, the Netherlands and Switzerland actually brought in more tourists than before the pandemic.
Tourism Minister, Reyes Maroto, said: “The figures have exceeded our expectations with an intensive revival of the tourism sector.”
“We are welcoming tourists who stay longer in our country and, as a consequence, spend more on their trip, which indicates that we are moving towards a higher quality and more profitable tourism model,” she added.
Three regions- Catalunya, the Canary Islands, and the Balearic Islands- each received over a million international tourists.
The British preferences were the Canary Islands, the Valencian Community, Andalucia and the Balearic Islands.
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