Catalonia welcomed 27M tourists in 2023, tripling its inhabitants
Half of visitors arrive between June and September, a steady figure during last 20 years
Catalonia welcomed 15.6 million international visitors in 2023, according to a survey by the Spanish Statistics Institute regarding hotel occupancy. The figure doubles the number of inhabitants in the territory, around 8 million, but triples it if we add Spanish residents, as it increases to 27.2 million.
Compared to 2003, overseas visitors doubled the 7.7 million that traveled to Catalonia. The figure considers all people who have spent at least one night in the territory, either in hotels, campsites, tourist apartments, or rural experiences.
Almost half of these visitors travel to Catalonia between June and September, a figure that has remained steady during the last 20 years.
"It is very difficult to move off-season visitors who come for the beach and the sunny weather," some experts asked by the Catalan News Agency (ACN) said.
This uptrend has increased the debate regarding tourism's sustainability in recent times. Back on July 6, around 2,800 people, according to local police, took to the streets to protest against mass tourism. During the protest, many rally-goers squirted water using colorful water pistols at tourists.
Data confirms the increase in international visitors to Catalonia during the last decades, with two exceptions: 2009, which coincided with the global financial crisis, and 2020, the year of the Covid -19 pandemic.
In 2023, Catalonia welcomed around 15.6 million international visitors, a figure similar to that of 2019. While all forecasts say 2024 will surpass all records, up to May, the territory had already received 5.5 million visitors from abroad, around 11% more than in 2023 and 2019.
450 million visitors since start of 21st-century
In total, 27.2 million visitors, including international and nationals, traveled to Catalonia in 2023.
Meanwhile, according to the statistics from the same survey, which started counting in 2001, there have been 450 million visitors in total.
National visitors, including Catalans traveling around the territory, increased in 2006 before falling in 2011 and 2013. It later increased from eight to ten million visitors annually, and after the 2020 pandemic, the number reached an all-time high in 2023, with 11.6 million.
So far, during the first five months of 2024, the figure was 3.6% below that of 2023.
Anna Torres, a geography researcher and professor at the University of Barcelona, said that one of the "positive impacts" of local tourism, compared to international tourism, is that it "tends to reduce CO2 emissions" and is" less culturally disruptive," while neighbors' "discontent is smaller."
Tourists multiply by seven number of Barcelona residents
Barcelona is the city with the most visitors, mainly because it is the capital of Catalan. According to the city council's annual survey on hotel occupancy, in 2022, there were 7.3 million people spending at least one night. It does not include tourist apartments.
The figure multiplies by four the number of inhabitants, and it is still lower compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Twenty years ago, around 3.6 million visitors traveled to the city, while in 1992, coinciding with the Summer Olympic Games, there were 1.9 million travelers.
Other local data says that 7.8 million visitors spent a night in any hotel in the Catalan capital. In contrast, 2.9 spent a night in tourist apartments and over one million in hostels and other related sites. Overall, 12.2 million visitors, seven times more than the number of inhabitants in the city.
Spaniards (21%) are the nationality with the most visitors, followed by US citizens (11%), French travelers (9%), UK visitors (7%), and Italians and Germans, who register around 6% in both cases.
In Girona, north of Barcelona, there has been a similar situation to the one experienced in Barcelona years ago.
The "glamor in Girona" is attracting visitors, while "Tarragona [in the south] has been difficult to place internationally," Jaume Font, geography emeritus professor at the UB, told ACN.
Girona "could be a representation of what Barcelona is in some years," Anna Torres added.
In total, 342,600 people spent a night in Girona in 2023, the highest figure since 2010, with 144,100 visitors. Six of every ten visitors who spend a night in Catalan come from abroad.
Listen to this Filling the Sink podcast episode from 2020.