The Canary Islands have become Spain’s first destination, and Autonomous Community, to exceed the numbers of international tourists visiting prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and have been joined by the Balearic Islands and, to a lesser extent, the Community of Valencia who are very close to matching pre-pandemic figures recorded in the fourth month of 2019.
Catalonia received -30.75% fewer international visitors in April, Andalusia -19.79% and Madrid -14.78%, which almost the same as the national average (-14.61%), while the rest of the communities altogether remained 23.57% below.
In absolute data terms, the Canary Islands welcomed 4,627 tourists more from other countries than in April 2019, the Balearic Islands 11,362 fewer, the Valencian Community 42,171 fewer, Madrid received 94,719 fewer, Andalusia 223,887, Catalonia 513,900 and the remaining Spanish Communities 162,480 fewer as a whole.
Compared to 2021, however, all the communities understandably multiplied the arrival of foreign visitors in April: Catalonia by a factor of 12, the Valencian Community and Andalusia almost by 11x, the Canary Islands by more than 10x, the Balearic Islands and Madrid by around 8.5x with the rest of the regions seeing 6.5 times more people than the year before.
Catalonia was the community that received the largest number of international visitors in the fourth month of the year, 1,157,526, followed by the Canary Islands (1,110,097), the Balearic Islands (1,070,195), Andalusia (907,596), the Valencian Community (783,987), Madrid (545,975) and the rest of the territories (526,765).
