Tourism definitively leaves the pandemic behind and as soon as once more contributes 12.6% of GDP to Spain | Economy | EUROtoday

In 2024, tourism regained the burden it had within the Spanish financial system earlier than the outbreak of the pandemic. Tourism exercise contributed 12.6% of the gross home product (GDP) over the last yr, equaling the extent recorded in 2019, the final full yr earlier than the well being disaster. In financial phrases, this contribution translated into 200,699 million euros, which represents a rise of two tenths in comparison with 2023, when the sector represented 12.4% of the nationwide GDP, based on the Spanish Tourism Satellite Account printed this Monday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

The comparability with earlier years permits us to obviously measure the affect of the pandemic and the next restoration of the sector. After reaching its finest historic report in 2019, with a contribution of greater than 157.3 billion euros, the outbreak of covid-19 triggered an unprecedented collapse in exercise. In 2020, the sector was virtually paralyzed for a number of months – with zero exercise information in April and May – and its contribution to GDP collapsed. A yr later, in 2021, nonetheless marked by restrictions on mobility and the gradual reopening of worldwide markets, the burden of tourism within the financial system stood at 7.8%, one of many lowest ranges within the historic collection.

Starting in 2022, with the progressive normalization of journey, the sector started a sustained restoration. Its contribution to GDP rose to 12.1% that yr, superior to 12.4% in 2023 and culminated in 2024 with 12.6%, a proportion an identical to that recorded earlier than the pandemic. In this manner, 5 years after the outbreak of the well being disaster, tourism closes a cycle of restoration that returns it to its structural place inside the Spanish financial system and consolidates its function as one among its essential drivers. As the financial system has grown since then, in absolute phrases the greater than 200,000 million it contributed is a report.

The progress is defined as a result of tourism exercise has grown at a quicker price than the financial system as an entire. In 2024, the ultimate demand related to tourism — which measures the direct spending made by guests on items and providers equivalent to transportation, lodging, eating places or leisure — elevated by 8.2%, in comparison with the 6.4% progress recorded by that very same element of the nationwide GDP. In observe, which means that travel-related spending grew extra strongly than the remainder of the financial system, driving general progress.

Furthermore, the INE displays that this progress has been accompanied by an enchancment by way of productiveness. The comparability between the evolution of tourism GDP and employment exhibits that the sector is rising above the Spanish common with out a proportional improve within the variety of staff, which factors to a larger technology of added worth per worker. This sample, based on the manager vice chairman of Exceltur, Óscar Perelli, “evidence that the growth of tourism responds to positive structural factors and not only to an increase in the volume of activity.”

Perelli additionally factors out that the true affect of tourism might be even larger than present figures replicate. In his opinion, if the INE harmonized the calculations and homogeneously utilized the methodological standards in drive since 2022 to your entire historic collection, the contribution of tourism to GDP would already be above 2019 ranges in comparable phrases, reaching historic highs. Exceltur additionally calls for larger pace within the publication of information – which is at the moment disseminated with a few yr’s delay – and a whole harmonization of statistics. On this foundation, sector forecasts recommend that the contribution of tourism might attain 13.1% of GDP in 2025.

Foreign prominence

Within the evaluation of vacationer spending, the prominence as soon as once more belonged to worldwide tourism. Consumption by overseas guests accounted for 55.6% of complete home vacationer consumption in 2024, 1.2 proportion factors greater than in 2023. Since the start of the post-COVID restoration in 2021, this contribution has elevated by 15.4 factors, reflecting the rising weight of inbound tourism within the sector’s exercise.

This larger function of worldwide tourism is supported by report numbers. In 2024, Spain acquired 93.76 million overseas vacationers, 10% greater than the earlier yr. The expenditure related to these guests amounted to 126,143 million euros, a determine that’s anticipated to be exceeded in 2025, provided that as of October 118,600 million had already been collected. Added to that is the sharp improve in common day by day spending per individual, which has gone from round 140 euros in 2019 to round 200 euros thus far this yr.

The sector attributes this improve each to the final improve in costs and to a change within the profile of the customer and within the vacationer provide. On the one hand, the rise in the price of vacationer providers has been marked by the rise in inflation after the pandemic. On the opposite hand, there was a repositioning of the provide, with a transparent dedication to merchandise with larger added worth, particularly within the lodge phase, the place 4 and 5 star institutions and vacationers from markets with larger buying energy, such because the United States, Asia or the Middle East, have gained weight. Perelli additionally recollects how experiences with larger added worth have gained prominence at a social stage, putting tourism in an advantageous state of affairs over sectors extra targeted on materials items.

The restoration of the burden of tourism within the GDP additionally had a direct reflection on the labor market. In 2024, employment within the financial branches attribute of the sector reached 2.78 million jobs, 12.3% of the whole Spanish financial system, one tenth greater than the earlier yr. After the collapse attributable to the pandemic – when tourism employment fell by nearly one million positions to shut 2020 at 1.74 million staff – the sector has not solely recovered the misplaced floor, however has surpassed the degrees of 2019, when it employed some 2.67 million individuals.