The consulting and professional services firm BRAINTRUST, a leader in the tourism sector, has issued a new industry report, in this case on the seasonality of foreign tourist spending, thanks to a new wave of its Tourism Barometer, for which it has excluded the first three months of 2022 from its comparative analysis, as they were atypical due to the Omicron wave.
This analysis shows that Spain as a country urgently needs a plan to reduce seasonality, since the four months of high season, from June to September, account for almost 60% of total foreign spending in Spain.
Only the Canary Islands and Madrid have a more stable influx of foreign tourism throughout the year, according to data provided by the consulting firm.
BRAINTRUST states that in some cases, such as Catalonia or the Balearic Islands, spending is even more seasonal, reaching 67% in the Balearic archipelago, which leads to a very precarious model in terms of economic sustainability, and above all in terms of employment, an aspect that is becoming increasingly important in an era of talent shortage in the tourism industry.
Even with fewer tourists in 2022, the seasonality analysis is similar to 2019, showing that the pandemic has not yet improved the model.
In the search for an objective comparison, BRAINTRUST excludes the first three months from the comparative analysis between 2022 and 2019, due to last year's omicron wave, which kept foreign tourism to our market at bay.
In this context, it notes that last year, a total of 61,886,065 foreign tourists arrived in Spain between April and December, which compared to 69,283,430 in 2019, represented 89% of pre-pandemic levels, confirming an unprecedented recovery in the last nine months of the year.
In terms of spending, the consulting firm reports that from April to December, total foreign tourist spending in 2022 amounted to €75,208,598,893, which compared to €91,911,973,022 in 2019, represented 81% of pre-pandemic levels.
Comparing both years, we can see, according to the consulting firm, that seasonality has remained virtually unchanged, with spending during the four-month high season from June to September accounting for 55% in 2022, compared to 56% in 2019, demonstrating that the pandemic has not yet served to improve the model, which suffers from marked seasonality that could jeopardize the sustainability of the economic model and employment if a quick and consistent remedy is not found.
The Canary Islands and Madrid enjoy a steady influx of travelers throughout the year.
Two communities enjoy a stable seasonal pattern: the Canary Islands and Madrid, which for different reasons experience a continuous influx of visitors throughout the year. The Canary Islands, thanks to their climate and gastronomy, and Madrid, thanks to their cultural and leisure attractions, are successfully channeling their offerings throughout the different seasons of the year, promoting a model of tourism that secures the economic model and promotes solid, quality employment, with the benefits fully reverting to the local community, which welcomes the arrival of international tourists who leave money in their coffers that is reinvested in the destinations.
Andalusia, Valencia, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands suffer from marked seasonality.
The other regions that complete the top six destinations preferred by foreigners, however, suffer from marked seasonality, with a large proportion of tourists concentrated in four months. These are regions where desseasonalization plans must be carefully defined and developed if a more sustainable tourism model is to be achieved, and if we want to avoid the potential rejection that tourists provoke in the local population, who view with suspicion how places become overcrowded in the high season, while in the low season they are closed up tight, leaving behind a more precarious economic model and lower quality, discontinuous employment.
According to José Manuel Brell, Partner in charge of Quantitative Studies and Models, and the Tourism and Leisure Industry at BRAINTRUST: "The abrupt recovery of foreign tourism once again highlights that the model remains precarious and that the pandemic has not served to establish different policies. Therefore, we continue to suffer from a very pronounced seasonality that jeopardizes the sustainability of our country's largest industry. Those responsible for tourism organizations at the national, regional, and local levels should take note of this. We cannot miss this opportunity to transform our model in order to remain world leaders in a form of tourism that is different from what we have seen to date, which has been heavily based on 'sun and beach'.
Six communities account for 93% of foreign tourist spending, showing a lack of diversification that should be addressed with the PSTDs.
On the other hand, BRAINTRUST once again highlights a poorly diversified model, specifying foreign tourism spending in 2022, again excluding the three months of omicron from January to March. Thus, in 2022, Catalonia would account for 20% of foreign traveler spending, followed by the Balearic Islands with 19%, the Canary Islands with 18%, Andalusia with 14%, and finally the Valencian Community with 12% and the Community of Madrid with 11%, with these six autonomous communities accounting for 93% of total foreign spending, leaving the rest of the Spanish communities with a meager 7% of the total. The Destination Tourism Sustainability Plans (PSTD) have allocated a large part of their budget to communities, regions, and localities outside the usual foreign tourism circuit. These PSTDs should therefore serve to decentralize the flow of international travelers from the most crowded areas to attractions in other areas of interest, helping to transform the tourism model in our country.
The same six communities account for 90% of the number of foreign travelers.
In the case of travelers, the data tells a similar story, as these same six communities account for 90% of international travelers, with the following breakdown:
For Angel Garcia Butragueño, Co-Director of the Tourism Barometer, and Director of Tourism at BRAINTRUST: "We face an even greater challenge than before the pandemic. While the Next Generation funds were designed to transform the tourism model in our country, and tourism sustainability plans have been implemented in many places in Spain, international visitors continue to choose the same areas, showing little diversification, with the danger that these PSTDs will only serve to spruce up the places. Without different communication and promotion strategies, whose specific plans have not been included in most PSTDs, tourists coming to Spain will not be aware of our tourism capital, leading to overcrowding in some already mature destinations and promoting an outdated system that we must urgently move away from if we want to be an international benchmark for tourism in the world. We must take advantage of this opportunity to innovate and renew our vision of tourism in the coming years, avoiding the usual short-termism of politics and laying the foundations for a future that is thought out, planned, and executed with a sense of statehood and business perspective, where all regions of Spain with unparalleled and unbeatable tourist capital benefit from the tourism sector, helping to mitigate the effects of depopulation and aging..”
