Judit Montoriol Garriga (Caixabank Research) | Global international tourism has grown very significantly in recent quarters and is very close to recovering pre-pandemic levels: in Q1 2024 it was only 3% below 2019 levels, according to the UN tourism barometer. The Spanish tourism sector was among the first to recover: among the world’s top 10 destinations, Spain was the second country, after Turkey, to surpass pre-pandemic international tourist numbers. Thus, with 85 million tourists, Spain beat its own historical record and was in second place in the international ranking of tourist arrivals in 2023, behind France (100 million) and ahead of the USA (66.5 million).
Beyond the number of visitors, the main challenge for the tourism sector is to continue to grow in a sustainable and balanced way. To this end, it is important to pay attention to other areas of a structural nature, which allow a good diagnosis to be made of the strengths of the sector, in order to continue to strengthen them, and those weaknesses that need to be addressed in order for growth to be sustainable in the long term. A good starting point for such a diagnosis is provided by the Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI), a benchmark index that measures the set of factors and policies that enable the sustainable and resilient development of the tourism sector on a comparative basis across 119 countries. According to the 2024 TTDI, the Spanish tourism sector occupies a very prominent position in the world ranking, with the second position, behind the USA and ahead of Japan and France, and up one position compared to the previous edition of 2022.
- See UN Tourism World Tourism Barometer | Global Tourism Statistics (unwto.org).
- See the article ‘Spain’s tourism sector will continue to grow strongly in 2024-2025’, in the 2H 2024 Tourism Sector Report .
- In terms of international tourism expenditure, Spain is also the second country in the world ranking , behind the USA and ahead of the UK.
- The TTDI is an index produced by the World Economic Forum. The second edition of this index, which is an evolution of the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), published since 2007, was published in 2024.
The TTDI is structured into five sub-indices which, in turn, cover different pillars (17 in total). Among them, Spain stands out positively in cultural and natural resources, in the enabling environment (especially in health and hygiene, safety and security, ICT connectivity and workforce) as well as in most of the infrastructures related to the tourism sector (the quality of airport infrastructures and the quality of the hotel plant stand out). On the other hand, the travel and tourism enabling conditions sub-index is penalised by the price competitiveness pillar, a pillar in which Spain ranks 94th, similar to France (102nd), Italy (105th) or Portugal (93rd), due to the presence of highly price-competitive countries (for example, Turkey ranks 40th in this dimension).
According to the TTDI, the main area where the Spanish tourism sector has most room for improvement is in the area of sustainability (Spain ranks 42nd in this sub-index). Among the different aspects of sustainability considered (environmental, socio-economic and demand sustainability), the area of demand is the one with the lowest score. Specifically, the aspects to improve would be the still high seasonality (an improvement compared to 2019, but still high in international comparison) and the high geographical concentration of tourism in cultural and natural attractions.
