The full recovery of Spain's tourism sector appears to be close at hand, as per a recent Reuters report. In April 2022, 6.1 million foreign tourists visited Spain, spending 6.9 billion euros, just shy of the 7.1 bln euros spent in April 2019. This is great news as Spain's tourism sector accounted for 12% of its economy before the pandemic.
The interesting bit is that this appears to be a "different" kind of tourism compared to pre-pandemic overtourism that ravaged places like Barcelona. Now it looks like visitors had on average spent more and stayed longer than before the pandemic. "We are moving towards a higher-quality and more profitable tourism model" per Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto.
She continued "Our outlook for the coming year is very positive. The war (in Ukraine) and its economic consequences are not affecting the tourism recovery, but we have to be vigilant."