Two years after the first positive coronavirus in Spainthe pandemic leaves a devastating trail in the sector tourist of the country, with losses that add up to at least 150,000 million euros (US$ 172,000 million) and some 117 million foreign travelers lost, although the forecasts for 2022 are better.
This will not be the year of full recovery, agents in the sector agree, but it will give a strong boost to tourist movements to return to normality between 2023 and 2025, depending on the activity segments.
The reports of the National Institute of Statistics (INE) on foreign tourist arrivals (Frontur) and the expenditure they made (Egatur) reflect that, between 2020 and 2021, almost 117 million tourists stopped arriving in Spain, compared to the previous records.
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In terms of spending, in the two years of the pandemic, around 125,000 million euros (US$143,000 million) were lost from foreign tourists, and some 25,000 million euros (US$29,000 million) from nationals on domestic trips.
To make this comparison, the spending data of Spaniards abroad have not been used, although part of it is done in Spain (if a tourist package is purchased, for example).
From the best year to the worst
In 2019, 83.5 million international travelers arrived in Spain, a world tourist power, a historical record, while in 2020 there were barely 19 million; and in 2021 31.13 million entered.
In economic terms, the damage is also very striking. In the absence of knowing the data for last year, tourism represented 12.4% of the Spanish Gross Domestic Product (GDP) before the pandemic, to collapse to less than half, 5.5% in 2020, according to the INE.
Now, after an end to 2021 and an uncertain start to 2022, as a result of the strong expansion of the omicron viral variant, the sector is confident that it was just a bump in the road to tourism recovery.
