Spain Welcomed Over 9 Million International Air Passengers in August This Year
A total of nine million passengers arrived in Spain this August from international airports, representing 87 per cent of those arriving in the same month of 2019.
The latest data published by Turespaña, which is the national tourism body responsible for marketing the Spanish destination in the world, also reveals that this year the entry of air passengers has reached 53 million so far, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
“Very positive because they confirm the intense recovery of the tourism sector, which is resisting the uncertainty generated by the war and inflation. Our forecasts for the autumn are good, although within the prudence that is necessary to have in such complex moments,” the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, pointed out in this regard.
According to him, the government prioritizes the control of inflation and energy prices to protect families and businesses, and thus an ambitious package of measures has been approved, such as the reduction of VAT for electricity from 21 per cent to five per cent, which will be extended to gas, bonus of 20 cents per litre of fuel or free for four months on Renfe Rodalies and medium-distance trains.
“In August, the number of passengers issued from all the main countries increased. One in four passengers came from the United Kingdom and mainly went to the Balearic Islands. 78.6 per cent of UK passengers flew with a low-cost airline. In total, Spanish airports received 2,240,299 passengers from this market. The British market reached a recovery of 84.6 per cent compared to 2019,” the statement shows.
The data provided by Turespaña also revealed that over 1,338,855 passengers arrived from Germany, while 14.9 per cent of the total mainly went to the Balearic Islands.
In this regard, the percentage of passengers coming from Germany who choose traditional companies over low cost is 50 per cent. As a result, the German market represents a recovery rate of 87 per cent of pre-pandemic arrivals.
On the other hand, about 831,581 passengers travelled from Italy to Spain, mainly flying to Catalonia. The data also show that eight out of ten passengers from Italy travelled on low-cost airlines. In addition, 711,189 passengers from France went mostly to the same destinations.
Such data explain that the highest level of recovery has been marked in the Canary Islands from the autonomy community, exceeding the arrival data for 2019 by 1.7 per cent. Second place was taken by the Balearic Islands, which recovered 94.4 per cent of pre-pandemic arrivals.
Considering that in the six communities with the most arrivals or 97.1 per cent of the total, the volume of international passengers reached 87.1 per cent, close to the figure in 2019. As a result, among the autonomous community Illes Balears was the one with the most arrivals, around 2,214,670 passengers, Madrid with 1,783,043 and Catalonia with 1,775.12.
