Decrease in tourism figures for the Canary Islands during October 2012

Spain received 5.1 million international visitors during October 2012, which represents a drop of 3.2% when compared to the same period last year (2011), breaking the growth trend since the beginning of this year (2012). The same happened in the Canary Islands where last month there was also a decrease (of 2.5%) in the arrival of foreign visitors which totalled 933.880, according to a figures released by ‘The Survey of Frontier Tourist Movement’ (Frontur) which were made available yesterday by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism.

José Manuel Soria, who leads this department, said that the fall is “relative” due to the “exceptional” growth of 9.4% in October last year. Between January and October more than 52 million foreign tourists arrived in Spain, an increase of 3.1% over the first ten months of 2011, with the UK, Germany and France being the main source markets. Russia was among the countries with the highest increase recorded, so far this year the amount of tourists from this country has surpassed the 1.1 million, an increase of 41.3% during October.
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The UK, which is Spains main source market of tourism with 24% of all arrivals, saw an increase from January to October of 0.6%, with more than 12.5 million visitors, while in October this figure fell by 3.4% to 1.2 million tourists. Germany follows as the second source market, with an increase of 4.3% through October, after receiving 8.4 million tourists, equivalent to 16.2% of total visitors and 1.2% fewer arrivals in the last month with 932.541 arrivals. Third in tourism arrivals is France, whose market grew by 6.3% to 8 million tourists in the first ten months of the year, 15.4% of all entries. In October, French arrivals were also down 1.2% to 822,209 visitors which represents 13.2% of the total. Italy follows France with 6.2% of all entries until October, and 3.7% fewer visitors in the first ten months of the year and by 26.4% in October. Among the other major markets, there is a 9.3% increase in the number of tourists from Switzerland with over 1.3 million visitors. In October, this increase was 5.5% to 167,243 visitors.
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The Canary and Balearic Islands were the regions with the highest occupancy for hotel rooms in October throughout Spain, with 68.72% and 58.91%, respectively. According to a ‘Hospitality Tourism Situation Survey’ released yesterday by the National Statistics Institute (INE), the overnight stays in Spanish hotels in October 2012 totalled 23.9 million, 3.6% less than the same month of 2011. As for the duration of each tourists stay, this was higher in the Canaries, with 7.13 days, and the Balearic Islands, with 6.79 days, followed by Valencia, with 3.50 days.