Spanish Villa Rentals Up 36 Pct in August

 

A recent FRONTUR survey has detailed how the 7.64 million foreign tourists that visited Spain in August of this year was a 9.4% increase August 2010, and set a new record.

FRONTUR - the organisation responsible for monitoring the movement of tourists is and out of the country - have been keeping records since 1995, and report to the Ministry of Industry.

Figures for the year to date are 8% up on 2010, with Madrid in particular seeing a massive 42.6% increase due to August's World Youth Day.

With regards to the nationality of the tourists visiting Spain in August, there was a 16.7% in the number of American visitors, a 12.3% increase in Germans and a 10.5% increase in Italians.

The British still accounted for the largest percentage of visitor numbers overall with over 9.5 Million British tourists visiting Spain up to the end of August.

Catalonia had the most foreign visitors with 1.9 million in August (an increase of 2.9%), followed by the Balearics with 1.8 million tourists in August (a 8.5% increase); Andalucía, 1 million (5% more); the Canaries, with 821,000 visitors (16.1% more); the Valencian Community, with 737,000 foreign tourists (9.4% more); and Madrid, with 550,000 (42.6% more).

The number of visitors arriving by air increased by 12.7%, reaching 5.5 million, compared with the 1.7 million tourists who drove into the country this summer (2.6% more).

Of the total foreign tourists who came to Spain in August, 4.1 million stayed in hotels (a 6.4% increase), whilst 1.6 millions stayed with friends or family in private homes (a 5.1% drop), 1.1 million rented a villa or apartment (a 36.9% rise) and 823,358 used some other form of accommodation.