Spain's tourism sector is doing so well that it set a one-year record in only the first 11 months of the year, despite drops in the Catalonia region resulting from political turmoil over independence.
Frontur, the tourism branch of the national statistics office, reported 77.8 million foreign visitors by the end of November, a figure sure to go over 80 million when Christmas numbers are added in. Even the lower figure is 5 million more than in 2016.
The UK and Germany continue to be the biggest source of visitors, with 18 million Brits visiting, for a 7% rise, and 11 million Germans, up 6.1%. After that comes France, with 10.7 million travelers.
The drops in Catalonia, which gets about 25% of Spain's visitors, came after bad publicity around a turbulent independence referendum. They now seem to be abating. While October showed a 15% drop, November shows only a 2.3% drop from the previous November. Perhaps when December figures are available they will show a further recovery.
Photo: Philip Larson/Wikimedia
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