Economic recovery helps mainland tourism to Balearics

The Spanish, adds the minister, have become more active in the tourism market, with travel both domestically and overseas.  According to the ETR/Familitur survey of tourism activity among the Spanish, 92% of trips between May and June were domestic, and so 8% were overseas, while during the second quarter as a whole, Spanish residents made a total of 46.8 million trips with an average stay of 3.2 nights.

A half of these were for holiday, leisure or recreational purposes with 35% having been for visits to friends and family. Soria describes the summer’s tourism as having been “extraordinary” with “millions of consumers” opting to make purchases from large stores or to eat out. As for foreign tourism spend, this increased by 7% to a total of 46,590 million euros over the eight months to August. Spain beat all records this summer with 6% more international arrivals up to mid-September.

For the year as a whole, Soria says, the number of foreign tourists will exceed 68 million, beating the 65 million in 2014. As for jobs, a higher level of employment will continue into the final quarter, thus sustaining a positive trend since the second quarter of 2013.