Ana M. López
Research expert covering travel, tourism and hospitality
COVID-19 impact on travel and tourism in Spain - statistics & facts
Mobility restrictions imposed by governments were one of the major disruptions to people’s daily lives around the world amid the COVID-19 outbreak. With it, travel and tourism, whose essence is determined by the possibility of people moving around freely, was one of the industries most affected by the health crisis.
Though almost no corner of the globe was left untouched by this situation, countries that rely heavily on the mentioned service sector undeniably felt a greater impact. Among them was Spain, which is among the top three most visited countries worldwide. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, international tourism in the Iberian country plummeted by roughly 90 percent in 2020 and 60 percent in 2021 versus 2019 taking into account overnight and same-day visitors. Despite the significant improvement registered in 2022, the Spanish international tourism segment remained below pre-pandemic levels.
Though almost no corner of the globe was left untouched by this situation, countries that rely heavily on the mentioned service sector undeniably felt a greater impact. Among them was Spain, which is among the top three most visited countries worldwide. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, international tourism in the Iberian country plummeted by roughly 90 percent in 2020 and 60 percent in 2021 versus 2019 taking into account overnight and same-day visitors. Despite the significant improvement registered in 2022, the Spanish international tourism segment remained below pre-pandemic levels.
Spanish domestic tourism amid COVID-19
Spain suffered one of the world’s most dramatic crises at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, which pushed the country’s healthcare system to its limits. For this reason, the Spanish government and the autonomous communities imposed strict quarantines on its inhabitants for weeks, allowing them only to leave their homes for essential activities. Thus, in March and April 2020, Spain recorded monthly drops in the movements of domestic tourists of 63 percent and 88 percent, respectively. However, when restrictions were lifted for the summer season of that year, domestic tourism volume picked up sharply. Noticeable declines were observed again in the fourth quarter of 2020, though not as striking as the ones experienced at the onset of the pandemic. Since then, the recovery of the Spanish domestic tourism sector was almost steady, with monthly figures getting closer to 2019 levels month by month.How did COVID-19 affect the tourism economy in Spain?
Between 2020 and 2021, the Spanish gross domestic product (GDP) lost more than 150 billion euros in inflows from the tourism sector. Nonetheless, the country had already fully recovered from the global health crisis in 2022, with the tourism GDP reaching nearly 160 billion euros that year. Meanwhile, around 445 thousand people lost their jobs in tourism in 2020. In the following year, the employment sector registered a slight improvement but still had a significant way to bounce back to the more than 2.6 million employees recorded at the end of the 2010s.
