Alex Trelinski
RECORD foreign tourist numbers are good news for the Spanish economy but visitors from some countries spend a lot more than others.
The biggest number of overseas visitors, according to the National Institute of Statistics(INE), continue to be the traditional favourites of the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
But the problem is that they tend to be the smallest spenders per head as confirmed by the latest INE study.
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Meanwhile those from the Nordic countries, the Americas and Asia spend a far deal more- leading to more attempts to woo those kinds of tourists.
The average spend of a French visitor in July was the lowest of all foreign tourists coming at €927- 1.9% less than a year earlier.
On average they spend €131 per day (a figure similar to that of a year earlier), but their stay is down 2% to an average of 7.1 days.
The data is worrying because France is the second largest source country by volume after the UK.
Of the 53.4 million international tourists who visited Spain in the first seven months of the year, just over seven million were French- 10.6% more than in the same period last year.
In July alone, 1.6 million arrived from the neighbouring country, some 3.4% more.
The French are below the average spend of international tourists in Spain, which was €1,432 in July.
Behind them were the Germans with an average outlay of €1,340, followed by the UK with €1,389.
But the low spenders are helping to push up the foreign tourist figures.
So far this year, a total of 10.5 million Brits have come to Spain, 8.6% more than in the same period last year, while 6.8 million Germans have visited the country- up 10.1%.
Italians are also below the average spend levels with €995 per tourist, though only 2.9 million tourists from Italy have travelled to Spain up to July.
At the other end of the table are figures for visitors from the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) whose average outlay is €1,668 according to data from the INE, which also sets the average spend for tourists from the rest of the world at €1,666..
This section includes visitors from Asia and the Americas, who are in high demand in cities such as Madrid due to their high spending.
Chinese tourists on average spent almost 3,000 euros in Spain last year, according to data from Turespaña.
The government’s objective for years has been to try to attract this type of traveller with greater purchasing power with less reliance on low-cost tourism.
Nevertheless, all indicators point to a another record year for foreign arrivals.
It is expected that 2024 will close above 90 million (compared to 85 million in 2023), according to a tourism report from CaixaBank Research.
