The number of seats booked on international flights to Spain for October already exceeds 10.5 million. This represents a 9.8% increase in air traffic compared to 2022 and is higher than pre-pandemic levels. Back then, 10.1 million seats were booked, 393,552 fewer, according to data from Spain’s tourism agency, Turespaña.
For the month of October this year, the rising numbers of air traffic from the following countries stand out in particular:
- Poland (47.4% more planned seats than in October 2022)
- Czech Republic (+26.6%)
- Portugal (+21.2%)
Among countries outside Europe, the year-on-year growth in seats on scheduled flights from Mexico is noteworthy. The number of bookings here increased by 20.5%.
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Decline in bookings
There are also countries showing declines. At the other end of the spectrum, we see Norway, Austria and Switzerland showing a year-on-year decline in seats of -4.3%, +0.9% and +3.3% respectively.
Travellers from the UK booked the most seats for trips to Spain, totalling 2.38 million (22.7% of the total). This was followed by Germany with 1.56 million (14.9%), Italy (8.9%) and France (8%), with 935,224 and 836,470 seats each.
Extraordinary year for toursim
According to outgoing industry, trade and tourism minister Héctor Gómez, Spain is closing an “extraordinary” year for tourism with this last quarter. And all indications are that the same will be true next year. Moreover, Gómez stressed that the figures show that, in addition to growth in European markets, there are also good results from faraway destinations, such as Mexico and the United States. A total of 238,232 seats were booked in the US, 2.3% of the October total and 8.7% more than in 2022.
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