Spain Welcomes Record 42.5 Million Tourists This Year, Which Spending Over €55 Billion

Spain welcomed a record 42.5 million international tourists in the first six months of 2024, up 13.3% on the same period last year. Tourists spent more than €55,000 million in Spain, up 20.6% on last year's spending.

The average spend per tourist was €1,329, up 4% year-on-year, and the average daily spend was up 1.9%, reaching €196 per day.

The UK is the country that exported the most foreign tourists to Spain in these six months, with almost 8.5 million. This is 10.1% higher than the previous year, the Spanish data agency INE reported on Friday.

In June alone, Spain welcomed 9.3 million international tourists, an increase of about one million (12% more) compared to the same month in 2023, according to data released by the Statistical Movements of Tourists at the Borders (Frontur).

The United Kingdom stood out as the main country of origin for visitors, with more than 2.1 million tourists and an 8.8% increase compared to June 2023.

Germany, mired in an economic cycle that is once again caressing recession, contributed 1.1 million visitors (down 1.8%).

France sent one million tourists, an increase of 11.7%. 

The United States provided 570,000 people.

INE data on tourism expenditure (Egatur) shows that tourists from the UK were the ones who opened their wallets the most in June, accounting for 20.1% of the total, followed by Germans (11.1%) and French (6.8%).

Earlier, thousands of people marched in the Catalan capital and called on tourists to "go home". The angry crowd of protesters was against excessive tourism and used water pistols to wet foreign visitors in restaurants in Barcelona.