Spain confirms 2023 as the year of tourism recovery

08-08-23

• Tourism would explain half of the growth registered by the Spanish economy during this last year.

The report, signed by Unidema Research researchers Santiago Calvo and Eduardo Blasco, highlights that 2022 has been the year of the recovery of Tourism in Spain by surpassing pre-pandemic levels and marking 159,490 million euros, in nominal terms of GDP. This figure represents some 5,003 million more than in 2019 when the sector reached its maximum level with 154,487 million euros.

They comment from the report that "tourism would explain half of the growth registered by the Spanish economy during this last year" although it is worth highlighting the negative role that inflation has played, as, "if the figures are considered in real terms (not nominal), the contribution to GDP would still be 5% below that registered in 2019".

If in 2019 tourism accounted for 12.2% of national GDP, 2022 was the year of recovery of pre-pandemic values and confirms the positive trend.

The study carried out by Unidema highlights that 2022 "has generally been a good year for the sector", although there is still room for improvement in the level of occupancy. In terms of employment, the average number of people employed in 2022 reached 2.4 million, which represents a creation of around 160,000 jobs.

However, the employment figure (average number of employed) is far from 2.7 million workers in 2019, which means that only about 50% of the employment lost during the pandemic has been recovered.

The sector's unemployment rate is 11.5%, which is 1.4 percentage points below the national economy's average rate of 12.9%.

Data from the last quarter of 2022 confirm the strong growth of the sector in the last half of the year. At that time, the total number of workers in the sector was 2.9 million, of which 300,000 were unemployed at the end of 2022.

The outlook for 2023 is positive. Leading indicators suggest that demand will again exceed 2019 levels.

International tourism rises compared to domestic tourism which stagnates

The INE confirms the positive trend for the current year, although it obviously remains to be seen whether inflation will remain at current levels.

Although the war between Ukraine and Russia looks set to drag on, the economic outlook for the HORECA sector, which includes Tourism, Catering and Cafeterias, is encouraging.

With the data in hand, the number of travellers in 2023 is identical to that of 2019 (18.8 million), with a very positive trend compared to 2022 (14.9 million).

In terms of expenditure, the first quarter of 2023 already exceeds the same period in 2019, reaching 17.1 billion compared to 15.2 billion five years ago. The average expenditure was 1,252 euros, also higher than before the pandemic when it was 1,082 euros.

By way of summary, the study concludes that 2023 will be the year of the definitive recovery of the tourism sector in Spain, but that attention must be paid to several aspects. These include inflation, the increase in international tourism compared to the stagnation of domestic tourism, as well as the rise in prices in the sector and a greater presence of low-cost alternatives.