Catalonia visited by 19 million foreign tourists in 2018

Catalonia continued to be the main destination for foreign visitors to Spain in 2018, with a total of 19.1 million visits, matching the number for the previous year.

In all, Catalonia accounted for 23.1% of all visits by foreign tourists to Spain, followed by the Balearic Islands (16.7%) and then the Canary Islands (16.6%).

The figures from the National Statistics Institute also show that Catalonia is the destination where foreign visitors spent the most, some 20.6 million euros, a 7.2% rise on 2017.

The average spending by foreign tourists was 1,078 euros, 7.2% more, with average daily spending per person amounting to 185 euros, an increase of 9.7%.

For Spain as a whole, foreign visitors spent a total of 89.8 million euros, at an average of 1,086 euros per person (up 2.2%), with each person spending an average of 146 euros a day, a rise of 7.4%.

The foreign visitors who spent the most were the British, at 17.7 million euros, up 2.8%, followed by 12 million spent by Germans (down 1.9%) and then the French, at 7.3 million euros, or 4.7% more.