Spain’s tourism sector benefits from turmoil in North Africa
April 14th, 2011 - 11:29 am ICT by IANSMadrid, April 14 (IANS/EFE) Spain’s tourism sector registered a 2.4 percent surge in the first quarter of 2011, the largest increase among all sectors of the Spanish economy due to the diversion of foreign tourist flows from Egypt and Tunisia.
The president of the alliance for tourist excellence Exceltur, Sebastian Escarrer, told a press conference Wednesday that the sharp shift in foreign demand had almost exclusively benefited the Canary Islands, the Spanish archipelago off the coast of West Africa.
The Canaries registered 89 percent of the increase in foreign tourists during this year’s first quarter.
In contrast, domestic tourism, which represents 50 percent of the total, has fallen off substantially due to the deterioration in Spaniards’ disposable income and confidence in the economy.
Exceltur believes that the diversion of tourists to Spain will increase in the summer and it has increased its forecast for growth in the tourism sector to 2.2 percent for 2011, double its earlier prediction in January and almost triple the average expected growth for the Spanish economy as a whole.
–IANS/EFE
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Tags: april 14, archipelago, canaries, canary islands, confidence, deterioration, disposable income, diversion, domestic tourism, efe, egypt, first quarter, north africa, sebastian, sectors, spanish economy, tourism sector, tourists, turmoil, west africa