Ever since it reopened to international tourists, tourism in Spain has been seeing a big rebound in foreign arrivals and taking the country rapidly towards pre-pandemic figures.

Spain welcomed almost 10 times more tourists in April 2022 than in the same month in 2021, says a monthly survey published by the Spanish Statistical Office (INE). INE says that around 6.1 million foreign tourists arrived in Spain in April, as against only 629,000 in the same month 2021, when several Covid-19 restrictions were still in place, according to the survey. The country had received 7.14 million international visitors in 2019.

The survey goes on to say that revenues from tourism, in the form of tourists’ expenditure, is recovering even more strongly as the 6.1 million tourists spent EUR 6,900 million euros (USD 7,345 million) during their stay, which is close to the EUR 7,056 million spent in April 2019.

The recovery is due in part to a significant increase in the number of visitors from the United Kingdom as almost 20.4 pc of all international visitors or around 1.2 million British tourists, a staggering 5,122.8 pc more than in April last year. Germany with 990,000 visitors was next largest source market for Spain, registering a growth of 589 pc.

With 826,000 tourists, France was the third biggest market and it grew by 614 pc over the year. Other markets include the Netherlands and Nordics, with former at 317,000 and latter 389,000 visitors in the period, says INE.

In total, 15,777,565 people spent their holiday in Spain in the first four months of 2022, with the Canary Islands, Catalonia, Andalusia and the Balearic Islands their main destinations. A record 83.9 million tourists had visited Spain in 2019. With the main holiday months still ahead, 2022 could see almost a full recovery for a sector that usually contributes around 11 pc of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).