Spain is looking forward to a vibrant summer after a “dazzling” rush of visitors – AFR

Spain said on Wednesday it hopes to match its record attendance figures of 2019 after two years of pandemic restrictions, although rising inflation figures suggest hard times will return after the season ends.

Before the pandemic in 2020, Spain was the second most popular holiday destination in the world, and this year it appears to be reclaiming its place, tourism board Exceltur said.

Thanks to the “travel fever sweeping across Europe”, Spain has experienced a “dazzling increase in tourist numbers”, it said.

According to the Spanish Ministry of Tourism, 22.7 million tourists visited the country in the first five months of 2022, seven times more than in the same period last year, with the trend set to continue into the summer.

“The number of bookings confirms Spain as a popular international travel destination and shows good prospects for the high season,” Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto said on Monday.

“After two long years…we are finally going to have a summer like the years past,” said Fernando Valdes, a top tourism ministry official.

This year, Spain’s tourism activity is expected to “reach levels similar to 2017, when the sector did very well,” said Caixabank analyst Javier Ibanez.

“The industry indicators paint a very positive picture.”

Exceltur said July and August could even be “similar” to 2019, which was a record year for Spain in terms of visitor numbers.

“European and national demand is very high,” with the surge in activity expected to impact “the entire (tourism) sector,” said federation vice-president Jose Luis Zoreda.

And this view is shared throughout the sector, especially by those along the coast.

“Everything indicates that this is going to be one of our best summers ever thanks to the post-pandemic syndrome,” said Diego Salinas, head of Abreca, an association representing bars, restaurants and cafes in Benidorm, a mass tourism hub on Spain’s southeast coast.

For the tourism sector, which accounted for 13 percent of jobs and 12.5 percent of Spain’s GDP before the pandemic, this long-awaited revival is a great relief, even if many players have struggled to hire staff, particularly on the coast and in major cities.

Exceltur expects tourism to generate about 151.8 billion euros ($155 billion) this year — a full 10 billion more than originally expected.

Such a figure would be slightly lower than the €155 billion achieved in 2019, but well above the €52 billion generated in 2020 or the €88 billion generated a year later.

The destinations that should benefit the most from this influx of visitors are the Andalusian coast, which expects 7.4 percent more visitors than in 2019, with a 3.5 percent increase in the Canary Islands and a 3.6 percent increase in the Canary Islands Balearic Islands.

Among the subsectors with the most optimistic prospects are theme parks and car rentals.

This strong recovery is not without concerns, however, particularly in the context of the overcrowding of several airports in recent weeks, which has reignited controversy over Spain’s mass tourism model.

This “intense and unexpected explosion of demand” could lead to moments of “saturation” that could lead to tensions between residents and tourists, Exceltur’s Zoreda acknowledged, warning that this could “damage the reputation of the sector”.

There’s also the uncertainty created by spiraling global inflation, which has pushed up food and energy prices and is severely constraining company margins, Exceltur said.

And will this price hike also impact the sector’s recovery by eroding consumer purchasing power?

While the sector has shown resilience so far, the economic slowdown caused by the war in Ukraine will “affect” tourism, says Caixabank’s Ibanez.

It’s a view shared by Exceltur as well.

“There are many geopolitical and economic uncertainties for tourism in the medium term,” she admitted.

“The extraordinary start this summer has to coexist with the turbulence felt in the autumn.”