In March 2017, 4.9 million tourists visited Spain, 6.1% higher than in March 2016.

Spain closed the first quarter of 2017 with a record number of 12,930,065 inbound tourists, according to FRONTUR - Tourist Movements at Borders survey, prepared by the National Statistics Institute (Spanish acronym: INE), released on Friday by the State-secretary for Tourism, Matilde Asián. This figure represents an increase of 9.3% on the corresponding quarter of 2016.

Spain receives 13 million tourists in the first quarter of the year

​Among the main emitting markets, the United Kingdom stands out with the arrival of more than 2.8 million tourists, (up 11%).This is followed by Germany, with more than 1.7 million tourists (up 2%) and France, with close to 1.7 million tourists (up 8.3%).

The Canary Islands maintained their leading position in terms of inbound tourists with more than 3.6 million arrivals for the first quarter (up 6.8%), followed by Catalonia, with almost 3 million inbound tourists (up 4%) and Andalusia, with 1.8 million tourists (up by 12.2%).

In March 2017, 4.9 million tourists visited Spain, 6.1% higher than in March 2016.

Forecast for occupancy during the May bank holiday

The State Secretary for Tourism also released the forecasts prepared by Turespaña for the May bank holiday. Total occupancy is forecasted (for hotels and rural houses) at 76.9%, which represents an increase of 11.3% on the same bank holiday in 2016, when occupancy stood at 69.1%.

Furthermore, the forecast for hotel occupancy for this bank holiday stands at 80.5%, an increase of 10% on the corresponding bank holiday last year, which stood at 73.2%.

In terms of autonomous regions, the forecast for the Basque Country is the highest, at 86.3% hotel occupancy. This is followed by Andalusia at 84.7%, Catalonia, at 84.3%, and the Region of Valencia, at 83.5%.

The State secretary also mentioned the major cities which are expecting high occupancy: with 92% in Granada and Seville, 91.8% in Barcelona and 89.8% in Malaga.