Madrid (AFP) – A record 97 million foreign tourists visited Spain in 2025 as the economically vital sector set a new benchmark for the second year running, the tourism minister said on Thursday. The first estimation represented a 3.5-percent increase on the 2024 figure of 94 million, while spending climbed 6.8 percent to 135 billion euros ($157 billion), Jordi Hereu told a press conference in Madrid. “This is a collective success by the whole country that perfectly demonstrates Spain’s enormous attractivity, because Spain is a country that seduces the world,” he said.
Most visitors are European, with British, German and French holidaymakers accounting for around half of the arrivals, said Pedro Aznar, a professor at Esade business school. Like southern European neighbor Portugal and Greece, Spain has rebounded from harsh austerity measures and heavy debt in the early 2010s, with a tourism rebound following the Covid-19 pandemic playing an important role. Tourism represents around 13 percent of the economy in the world’s second most-visited country after France, whose dynamic growth has outstripped EU peers. The Bank of Spain has predicted growth of 2.9 percent in 2025 for the European Union’s fourth-largest economy, more than double the average expected in the eurozone.
– Overtourism backlash –
But as elsewhere, a backlash against the social and economic consequences of mass tourism is growing as Spain grapples with a persistent housing crisis. Locals have protested in their thousands, complaining that surging visitor numbers are changing the fabric of their neighborhoods, particularly in hotspots including Barcelona, the southern region of Andalusia, and the Canary and Balearic Islands.
Although the sector’s growth generates wealth and jobs, the high numbers have “a clear impact on residents” in specific destinations as tourist accommodation “offers higher profitability,” Aznar told AFP. Barcelona and the popular southern coastal city of Malaga have announced measures to clamp down on short-term tourist rentals in a bid to tame popular discontent at rampant housing prices. The leftist government, under pressure to find a solution to one of the population’s main concerns, has ordered online holiday accommodation giants Airbnb and Booking.com to take down tens of thousands of adverts deemed to have breached the regulations for short-term rentals.
“The impact on environmental sustainability is also relevant,” Aznar said, in a country that suffers persistent water supply stress and emerged from a years-long drought in 2025.
© 2024 AFP
