Spain shatters tourism records once again

Spain is on course for another record year in tourism, with international visitors arriving in their droves.

The Spanish summer is already proving a scorcher, and recent data from the country’s Tourism Ministry has revealed that there is no hotter destination in the world right now than Spain…

Between January and May this year, Spain welcomed 22.5 million tourists – a 5.1 per cent increase on last year’s record-breaking performance.

The Ministry also revealed that 2015 has so far been a record year for international and long-distance tourists, with their numbers up 6.8 per cent since last year, reaching 6.5 million arrivals so far.

Tourists from the UK have once again played the most significant role in this increase, with more than five million visitors to Spain arriving from Britain in the first five months of the year – an increase of 3.3 per cent since 2014.

However, French tourists have grown in number most significantly, by 8.2 per cent, and accounted for 3.7 million visitors to Spain in the first five months of the year.

Large increases were also recorded among Italian visitors (up 11.3 per cent) and tourists from the US (up 13.2 per cent), while Russian visitor numbers are down by more than 28 per cent.

Across Spain, Madrid received the highest increase in visitor numbers, growing 11.7 per cent since 2014, while the coastal regions all posted increases above the nationwide average.

It is widely expected that Spain will smash its summer tourism figures over the coming months, particularly in the wake of the devastating terrorist attack last week on a Tunisian beach, in which 30 sunbathing Brits were killed.

Many tour operators have begun offering alternative destinations to those holidaymakers who have already booked to visit Tunisia, with Spain proving a popular alternative. An increased threat level in countries such as Egypt and Turkey has also seen a larger number of Brits and other nationalities choose the resorts of Spain instead.