Spanish tourism closes darkest summer despite growth in foreign visitors

“Atypical” and “mirage” are the words with which Jorge Marichal, president of the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation (CEHAT), defines this year’s summer tourist season. The “atypical” is not only the 25.8% reduction in the number of international tourists compared to last year, but also in the pre-pandemic season but also to the resulting drop in income. So far in 2021, With over 9.8 million international visitors, only 10,996 million euros were entered from foreign tourism. Data confirming the depression suffered by the Spanish tourism sector, which has just ended the blackest summer in decades.

In 2020, sales over the same period amounted to 14,322 million; and in 2019, 52,193 million euros, according to data published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). Thus, the year 2021 represents barely 21% of total revenues for 2019 and the mirage that worries the sector points to a drop in data for the start of the school year, which marks the end of the national tourism season. In July alone, Spain received around 4.4 million international tourists, 78.3% more than in the same month of 2020, but almost 55% less than in the same period in 2019 . The improvement is supported by visitors from France (874,189), Germany (707,331) and the United Kingdom (555,183), who posted figures up from the same month a year earlier.

“The covid passport designed by the European Union was of little use. The expected trust was not generated which was to provide a single document for mobility between countries. On the contrary, each country has set its own rules and this has generated a lot of uncertainty and has greatly harmed us ”, assures Carlos Abella, secretary general of the Tourist Office.

The preferred destinations in July were the Balearic Islands (30.0%) of the total, Catalonia (18.5%) and the Valencian Community (13.8%). On the other hand, in the first seven months of 2021, the communities that received the most tourists were the Balearic Islands (with almost 2.6 million and an increase of 152% compared to the same period in 2020) , Catalonia (with nearly 1.8 million and a drop of 34.9%) and Andalusia (with more than 1.2 million, 35.4% less). 60% of total spending in July was made by tourists who spent the night in hotel rooms, with an increase of 162%.

For Marichal, there is good news: the Spanish family who took their car back and traveled the country. The president of this association considers that “it was a great contribution” and that it produced “a strong occupation compared to the numbers before the pandemic”. However, in the case of the islands, the businessman considers that “it is a pity” that they could not receive so many domestic tourists due to the inability to travel in their own vehicle and the ” high price “of flights. . The problem is that the strength of domestic tourism does not compensate for the precipice through which the incomes of international tourists, the key to the balance of payments, have fallen. An international tourist spends on average three times as much as a local tourist.

“International customers have stayed in their own country due to restrictions,” Marichal says in a video statement. In this direction, Data from the lNE show that tourism is still in the doldrums compared to previous years, something he considers “very bad news for the Spanish tourism sector” and worries for fall, winter, Christmas and Easter next year. Especially its effect on small complexes.

The pessimism of the sector contrasts with the optimism of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, who says that data on arrivals and expenditure of international visitors in July released by the INE “show that the ‘Spain has succeeded in being perceived as a safe destination for millions of travelers ”. From the opposition, the deputy sectorial secretary of the Popular Party, Elvira Rodríguez, declared herself satisfied with the recovery of international tourists last July, although she assures that the data “are still far from reaching the levels recorded the other years “.

The end of the tourist season will lead to a “drastic” drop in occupation, warns the president of CEHAT. According to him, September will be “complicated” and the industry is eagerly awaiting the evolution of the virus, collective immunity and the elimination of restrictions which hold back international customers in choosing a holiday destination.

In this context, employers’ associations and tourism lobbies are asking for the extension of the ERTE as the only way to avoid massive layoffs faced with a scenario in which the recovery is only in sight in the summer of 2022. José Luis Zoreda, Executive Vice President of Exceltur, calls for this mechanism to be maintained until the end of 2022 and also demands that the temporary hiring is not abolished in future labor reform negotiations.

“Temporal is essential for the sector, because it affects tourism in a very different way from other sectors.” In the same vein, Emilio Gallego, secretary general of the hotel industry in Spain, remarks that the uncertainty in which the sector lives obliges to extend the ERTE in 2022. “They have been the real direct aids that the sector has not received. It must be maintained until a certain level of normality is regained. There is still a very high base of inactivity in the hotel industry: the bars do not work, there is no service in the interiors and there are still limited capacities and hours ”, summarizes- he. According to him, the ERTEs are the only mechanism which currently guarantees the maintenance of employment and the survival of companies.

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