Spain's tourism could fall 15% because of Catalonia crisis

The reputation of Spain among Europeans has fallen 3.1 points since March, with six out of ten survey respondents agreeing that the "Marca España" (Spain brand) has been harmed by the crisis.

The intention to invest has gone down by four points, with 43% of chief executives with European companies indicating that Spain has lost its appeal; this percentage goes up to 49.3 for Catalonia specifically.

A decrease of five points in the intention to visit Spain is, concludes the report, the real concern. This would translate as a fall of 15.3% in tourism and therefore the figure of 12,000 million euros.

The country's reputation has dropped most in Germany, where the rating has gone down 7.6 points since March. The French mark Spain down by 4.4 points.

The managing director of the Reputation Institute, Enrique Johnson, notes that 86% of those surveyed were familiar with news related to the independence process, but adds that not all of this news has been well reported. He explains that a "bullish trend" with Spain's image has been broken by the Catalonia crisis.

As to support for regional independence in their own countries, this is strongest among Italians, albeit only 16.5%. The UK ranked second in this regard with 12.5%, then Belgium with 11%. In Spain, there was just 5.5% support.