Tourism in Spain

Tourism in Spain is a major contributor to national economic life, with foreign and domestic tourism contributing to 12.3% of Spain's GDP (in 2023).^[1] The international tourist expenditure in 2024 was around 126 billion euros.^[2] Since 1959, the tourism industry has become one of the key sectors of the Spanish economy.^[3] The country has been a popular destination for summer holidays, especially with large numbers of tourists from the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, the Benelux, and the United States, among others. Accordingly, Spain's foreign tourist industry has grown into the second-biggest in the world.^[4]

In 2024, Spain was the second most visited country in the world, recording around 94 million international tourists, which marked the eighth consecutive year of record-breaking numbers.^[5][6] Due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, only 18.9 million tourists visited Spain. These dramatic figures were devastating for the tourism sector and were a reflection of what would become the worst year for this industry, in terms of income, ever recorded.^[7] However, by 2022 the industry had mostly recovered, with 71,659,281 international tourists and increasing.^[8]

Spain ranks first among 140 countries in the biannual Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index published by the World Economic Forum in 2019,^[9] matching the top position already achieved in 2017^[10] and 2015.^[11] The World Tourism Organization has its headquarters in Madrid.