Record summer means tourism will be worth 178.8 billion euros to Spain this year

Travel ·
The tourism boom that the couuntry has experienced in recent months has allowed the sector to recover the level of Gross Domestic Product it had before the Covid-19 pandemic

Edurne Martínez

Madrid

Friday, 14 July 2023, 17:48

The tourism boom that Spain has experienced in recent months has allowed the sector to recover the level of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) it had before coronavirus the pandemic. Tourism will close the year representing 12.6% of the national GDP, matching the figures for 2019, according to an Exceltur report presented on Thursday (13 July).

These figures mean that tourism activity will amount to 178.8 billion euros, almost 14% more than the income of 2019, according to the tourism employers' association's forecasts. "Tourism will contribute to the economy at the same level as before the health crisis," said José Luis Zoreda, executive vice president of Exceltur, during the presentation of the report.

Despite these great figures, if inflation is discounted, real tourism GDP will close the year 1% below the 2019 level, when the rest of the Spanish economy is already 1% above. Exceltur said the pandemic losses of 160 billion with almost zero activity for two years must be taken into account.

But companies are still far from reaching the profits they had in 2019, despite the fact that their revenues are well above those figures. This is because margins are limited by the high costs they are suffering, with supplies or labour costs growing "at double-digit rates", Zoreda pointed out. In fact, prices have risen in line with these costs and the head of Exceltur predicted that once this inflation is contained, "prices will not necessarily continue to rise".

Fuel has risen by more than 35% in the last two years, electricity by 31%, supplies by 30% and labour costs by 15%, according to the tourism employers' report.

But undoubtedly one of the improvements that the sector has experienced in the last year is in the field of employment. The good economic figures have led to a 6% increase in job creation in the sector, which means that June closed with 126,800 more workers in tourism.

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Record summer means tourism will be worth 178.8 billion euros to Spain this year

Travel · The tourism boom that the couuntry has experienced in recent months has allowed the sector to recover the level of Gross Domestic Product it had before the Covid-19 pandemic

Travel ·
The tourism boom that the couuntry has experienced in recent months has allowed the sector to recover the level of Gross Domestic Product it had before the Covid-19 pandemic