Spain ratifies the boom in foreign tourist arrivals and manages to convert 2023 in a record year for the sector. The Minister of Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu, has anticipated that the country exceeded the 84 million international travelersa new historical maximum above the 83.7 million arrivals reached in 2019, the last year before the pandemic.
Hereu has revealed the new record during his speech at Spain Investors Day (SID), the international investors forum held this week in Madrid. While waiting for the National Institute of Statistics (INE) to confirm the exact data within a few weeks, the government estimate validates in advance the forecasts that the tourism sector managed that 2023 would achieve exceed the business levels of 2019 precovid.
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After the total collapse caused by the pandemic due to restrictions on mobility and the economic stoppage, in the last two years the sector had begun reactivation until now recovering and exceeding the maximum levels prior to covid. In 2022, Spanish tourism has already started a strong recovery with 71.5 million arrivals of foreign travelers, recovering 85% of pre-covid levels, and catapulting by 130% the figures of only 31 million tourists in 2021. Now 2023 is confirmed as a record year.
The INE had already confirmed that between January and November a total of 79.85 million tourists came to Spain, a figure above pre-covid 2019 levels (0.8% more) and that shoots up by 18.2% the accumulated of the same period last year, which was considered on track the possibility of setting a new maximum for the year as a whole. Tourism companies already anticipated that arrival data had also increased in December thanks to the good behavior of demand on the great bridge at the beginning of the month and during Christmas.