Tourism has been the key driver of the recovery of the Spanish economy and employment generation

Tourism in 2015 has been the main factor generating income and employment in Spain, driving for the third consecutive year the recovery of the Spanish economy. This has resulted in: 0.5 points of additional growth of Spanish GDP, thanks to 5,600 million euros for the largest tourist activity generated in 2015, which has allowed us to close the year with an estimated 124 billion Euros overall. This represents 11.7% of the Spanish GDP.

Tourism GDP finally closed 2015 with a 3.7% Growth

The remarkable pull of tourist activity during October, November and December 2015, led by a strong growth in the foreign demand, increases the annual growth of tourism GDP in the last quarter to 4.0%.

Such a behavior, better than expected for the fourth quarter leads us to review upwards one tenth on the growth of the tourism GDP for the whole 2015 up to 3.7%. This means half a point above the GDP growth in the Spanish economy and to approach the maximum tourism growth rates from the last decade achieved in 2006.

Spanish tourism entrepreneurs raise their sales and improve their results in 2015.

The strong increase in activity and a gradual recovery on the prices, has allowed 84.7% of the Spanish tourism companies to improve their sales in 2015, with a percentage of 56.0%, where the improvement is over 5%.

This increase on the sales, combined with the outcome of the operational efficiency policies implemented in the years of crisis and the significant reduction in energy and financial costs during 2015, has led to a significant improvement in margins and final results for 83.4% of Spanish tourism companies.

So far the business improvements perceived in 2015 yields the best results since 2002 when we started with this survey.

SOURCE: EXCERLTUR