Bad weather limited tourist consumption during Easter, although sales grew by 4%

Holy Week ended worse than expected, with a growth of 4.1% in tourist income compared to 2023, affected by bad weather that discouraged last-minute sales, as reported this Thursday by Exceltur in its quarterly report.

Consequently, tourists did not limit their levels of mobility, but gave preference to the use of their second homes and rental apartments on their trips through Spain, so that the sales of transport companies maintained the growth that they had been observing at the beginning. of the year (11%).

The rest of the value chain experienced Easter a “notable slowdown” in sales with respect to the records of the preceding weeks of this first quarter of 2024, standing below 5%, showing the effects of bad weather.

Thus, its impact was felt “especially” in coastal hotels and travel agencies, which were not able to enjoy the surge in last-minute sales.

The positive start to 2024 manifested itself in a growth of 12.4% in the sales of Spanish tourism companies in the first quarter of 2024, mainly driven by the strong increase in spending by foreigners, in a very favorable weather context (except during Holy Week) and a favorable calendar, with the month of February leap year and the celebration of Holy Week at the end of March.

Therefore, at the beginning of 2024, the tourism sector maintained the positive performance with which it concluded 2023, registering a notable year-on-year increase in tourism GDP by a nominal 13.8%. With all this, the tourism GDP in real terms (8.9%) continues to grow during this period well above the Spanish economy (1.8%).

The most determining sectors between January and March were car rental companies (24.8%), passenger transport (15.6%), leisure (16%) and accommodation (12.7%), in a context of moderation of price increases (5.9%), in line with market normalization.

Stable employment

Tourism companies maintained their commitment to creating more and better jobs in 2024, since in March the number of affiliates in tourism branches It was 5.3% above March 2023, which means 106,000 more employees.

The new tourism employment is concentrated in indefinite contracts (96.8% of the total), with full-time contracts prevailing (55.6% and 57,000), compared to discontinuous permanent contracts (16.2% and 16,000) and permanent permanent contracts. partial (25% and 25,000), while new temporary contracts barely grow by 3,000.

Compared to 2019, in March 2024 tourism employment was 11.5% higher, favored by the celebration of Holy Week, being higher than the 11.2% with which the rest of the sectors of the Spanish economy close.

Foreign demand grows

Foreign demand towards Spain emerged as the main driver of sales in the Spanish tourism sector in the first months of 2024, characterized by a strong increase in spending at destination (25.7%)increasingly driven by an increase in influx, although average daily spending at the destination slowed its growth to 5.9%, in line with the increase in prices.

In addition, the large European markets, the Polish market, together with the American long distance (USA and Latin American markets), and the rapid recovery of the Asian ones, with China in the lead (already above 2019 values ), explain the strong increase in foreign demand in Spain.

On the other hand, Spanish tourist demand also consolidated at the beginning of 2024 the symptoms of normalization in its tourist consumption. Thus, the strong increase in the mobility of Spaniards continued, especially in the Peninsula. for the offer of new high-speed railway operators -passengers grew by 31.3% year-on-year between January and February-, as well as reflected in passenger registrations on intercity buses (20.7%) and, to a lesser extent, on internal flights (7.9%).

By region, the Valencian Community (23.5%), Andalusia (18.1%), Murcia (16.7%), the Canary Islands (12.4%), Asturias (14.7%) and Madrid (13.2% ) led the growth in tourism income in the first quarter of 2024.