More than 6.5 million British visitors headed to Spain in the first six months of the year, up 5.8%.
The UK remains the country’s strongest inbound market and accounts for 23.3% of international tourists going to Spain, with expenditure from UK visitors making up 19.8% of tourism spend.
In the first half of the year UK expenditure went up 10.2% to EUR5.2bn.
Overall Spain saw 28m international visitors in the six months, up 7.3%, while expenditure has grown 7.8%to EUR26.3bn.
All the regions saw an increase in international visitors, with Madrid and surrounding area seeing the largest at 14.5%. The Catalonia region saw the largest number of visitors accounting for a quarter of arrival at 7.1m, up 6.7%. This was followed by the Canary Islands with more than 5.6m international visitors, 4.2m in the Balearics while Valencia welcomed more than 2.7m visitors in the first half.
The average tourism spend per tourist remained relatively unchanged at EUR944 each, with UK visitors spending 1.9% more than last year at EUR806 each.
Air travel remains the most popular access point with 67% staying in hotels while 23.8% stay in rented accommodation. Around a third travelled as part of a package holiday in June, while 67% travel independently.
The country has continuously appeared as a top-seller for many travel companies this summer, including Travel Counsellors.
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