Foreign Tourist numbers increase during January

The Balearics and Valencia were the only regions of Spain to see a continued fall in the number of foreign tourist arrivals in January, compared to the same month last year, falling by 32.7% and 3% respectively.

All the other regions of Spain have broken the tendency of 18 months of falls by registering increases last month, according to the data from the Survey of Tourist Movements, FRONTUR.

The total number of foreign tourist arrivals across Spain in January was up 1.1% this year compared to last at 2.5 million.

In terms of nationalities there French market was up 5.5%, the Italian was up 19.1%, the Belgian up 5.9% and the Swiss up 16.5%.

The largest number of foreign tourists come from the UK. and January this year saw a fall of 8.1% compared to last year, but that reduction is the first one in single digits since October 2008.

The number of German visitors has also slowed down in its reduction, down 6.3% in January.

As can be expected most foreign tourists coming to Spain in January went to the Canary Islands, where numbers were 31.3% of the total and up 1.6% on last year.