Spain received 82 million international tourists in 2017, an increase of 8.9% compared to the previous year. This is a new record that has led Spain to overtake the USA and position itself in second place in the world in terms of tourist arrivals, surpassed only by France.

The total expenditure made by tourists visiting Spain amounted to 87,000 million euros, a figure that exceeds the levels reached in 2016 by 12.4%. Among the main markets of origin of tourists, in the period January / November 2017, the United Kingdom with a total of 18 million tourists (+ 7% compared to the first 11 months of 2016) followed by Germany (11.4 million tourists / + 6.1%) and France (10.7 million tourists) / + 0.4%).

All the Spanish tourist areas, with the exception of Aragon, La Rioja and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, have increased the number of international arrivals. Catalonia dominates the ranking of the most visited regions with 18.2 million followed by the Balearic Islands (approximately 13.7 million) and the Canary Islands (around 13 million). To highlight the excellent performance of areas such as Extremadura which, with a total of 350,026 tourists, showed a 50% increase compared to data for the period January / November 2016; also double-digit increases for Galicia, Castilla y León, Madrid, Valencian Community, Navarra and the Basque Country.

Source: medNews