Spanish Tourism sets records in 2023

More than 85 million tourists visited Spain last year and spent 108.662 billion euros
Spain closed 2023 with record tourism figures, according to data collected by the Spanish Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, INE). A total of 85.1 million international travellers visited our country between January and December. The increase over the previous year was 18.7%, although the real benchmark was 2019, the last year with records unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The number of foreign tourists grew therefore by 1.9% compared to 2019, when 83.5 million travellers were registered. December 2023, with 5.2 million visitors, helped to leave that benchmark behind after increasing by 26.2% with respect to the last month of 2022 and 21% with respect to the same month in 2019.
Growth in tourism expenditure
Spending per tourist grew even more exponentially in 2023. Foreign exchange increased by 24.7% compared to 2022 and by 18.2% compared to 2019. Non-resident tourists in Spain actually spent 108.662 billion euros in our country last year.
The United Kingdom was the main country of origin of travellers, with 17.3 million (up 14.6%), followed by France, with 11.8 million (up by 17%), and Germany, with 10.8 million (up by 10.6%). The British were also the biggest spenders, up to 19.947 billion euros (+16.3%). They were followed by the Germans with 12.978 billion (+12.6%) and the French with 9.767 billion (+19.7%).
Most visited communities
In 2023, Catalonia was the autonomous community most visited by foreign tourists, with 18 million travellers, 21.2% more than in 2022. It was followed by the Balearic Islands, with 14.4 million visitors (up 9.1%), and the Canary Islands, with 13.9 million (up 13.1%).
Catalonia was also where they spent the most, up to 20.878 billion euros (26.7% more than in 2022). It was followed by the Canary Islands, with 20.334 billion (16.5% more), and the Balearic Islands, with 17.722 billion (16.4% more).
These figures, which have been provided by the INE, are provisional and will be reviewed next March.