The more than 3.3 million tourists who visited Spain in November represent an increase of 54% compared to 2020 and bring to 28.2 million the accumulated figure in the first 11 months of the year. Spending in November increased at a higher rate, 63.8%, reaching 31,274 million euros between January and November.
For the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, these data “confirm that the recovery of international tourism continued its gradual advance in November, despite the increase in infections in our main European markets. Month after month we see how Spain is getting closer to the volumes of tourists and spending that it had in 2019, although the uncertainty associated with the new wave could delay the recovery of the prepandemic levels in international tourism, which will depend on its duration as we have seen in previous waves. Confidence in travel to Spain is higher due to the high levels of vaccination in our country, which makes us predict a total of international tourist arrivals in the fourth quarter of 2021 between 10.2 and 10.6 million, which represents between 62% and 64% of those received in the same period of 2019 “.
Seven times more tourists than last year
Seven times more tourists arrived in Spain in November than a year ago. The United Kingdom was the main source market, with 597,458 tourists, (17.8% of the total), followed by France, with 496,579 tourists, and Germany, with 479,403 tourists.
The main destination for foreign visitors was the Canary Islands (it received one million foreign visitors), where three out of ten tourists went, mainly British and German. Catalonia was the second main destination Autonomous Community, with 604,925 tourists coming mostly from France and other European countries; and Andalusia, with 485,504, coming mainly from the United Kingdom and the Nordic countries.
Longer and more expensive stays than in 2019
Tourist spending in November already represented three-quarters of the values of the same month of 2019. Tourists who visited Spain in November stayed on average one day longer than in 2019. Specifically, the average duration of trips has risen from 6 , 8 days in November 2019 to 7.9 days this year.
As a consequence, the average expenditure per tourist also increases to 1,119 euros compared to 1,086 euros in November 2019.