Nine million foreigners visited Spain in July, arrivals in Portugal surpasses pre-COVID levels

MADRID (Reuters) – More than twice as many tourists visited Spain in July than in the same month last year, a number only slightly below pre-pandemic levels, National Statistics Institute data showed .

The 9.1 million visitors in July spent close to 12 billion euros ($12 billion), more than twice as much as in 2021. Tourism earnings are a significant component of Spain’s gross domestic product.

Before COVID-19 put a halt to international travel in 2020, Spain received a record number of foreign tourists in 2019, with 9.9 million visiting in July of that year.

Asian visitors were the only group who have not returned to the country in the same numbers, secretary of State for Tourism, Fernando Valdes told national broadcaster TVE.

“(Asian tourists) are probably the ones we are missing to reach 100% of the 2019 figures,” he said.

He said the absence of Russian tourists since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was compensated for by more travellers from other countries.

Spain’s government expects tourist arrivals to reach 90% of pre-pandemic volumes during this year’s summer season, as northern Europeans shrug off concerns over inflation and book even more trips than in 2019

Foreign tourism to Portugal surpasses pre-COVID levels in July

Similarly ,  the number of foreign tourists visiting Portugal slightly surpassed pre-pandemic levels in July for the first time since the end of most COVID-19 restrictions, data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) showed .

More than 1.8 million foreigners stayed in Portuguese hotels last month, up from around 600,000 a year ago, when the country still had some restrictions in place, and slightly above 1.78 million in July of 2019, which was a record year for tourism.

Portugal’s tourism sector accounted for almost 15% of gross domestic product before the pandemic that broke out in early 2020, crippling global travel.

Still, the cumulative number of foreign visitors in the first seven months of the year, at 8.1 million, was still about a million short of the same period of 2019.

Visitors from neighbouring Spain accounted for the largest share of total arrivals in July with 285,900, followed by Britain and the United States, which has recently grown as a source of tourism to Portugal.

Tourism has been recovering not least thanks to Portugal’s location on Europe’s southwest tip far from the war ravaging Ukraine, and people’s general perception of it as a safe place. Still, the sector faces the same challenges of staffing shortages and rampant inflation as most other European countries.

September 6 , 2022

Photo : People enjoy the weather on a beach in Malaga, Spain, April 30, 2022. REUTERS/Jon Nazca/File Photo