Spanish tourism grows 8 per cent despite crisis

Jan 10, 2012, 12:46 GMT

Madrid - Tourism remains one of the mainstays of Spain's crisis-hit economy, growing by 8.1 per cent in 2011, preliminary figures showed Tuesday.

About 56.9 million tourists visited Spain in 2011, Tourism Minister Jose Manuel Soria said. That was 8.1 per cent more than in 2010. The largest numbers of tourists came from Britain and Germany.

Spain's best tourism year so far was 2007, when the number of visitors rose to 59.2 million.

The global crisis affected tourism, making it decline by 8.7 per cent in 2009. The sector began growing again in 2010, as Spain's European tourism markets recovered economically. Unrest in competing Arab destinations is also believed to have boosted Spanish tourism.

The upward trend was expected to continue, Soria said.

Seasonal tourism helped to create temporary jobs last year, when unemployment rose to the record level of 21.5 per cent.

Spain receives the world's fourth-largest number of tourists after France, the United States and China, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

If measured by tourism income, however, Spain is the world's second-largest tourist destination after the United States.