MADRID, 14 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –

In recent months, the United States has positioned itself as one of the main markets for tourists to Spain. With an emerging tourist profile with high purchasing power, and with great interest in local experiences, culture or gastronomy, Spanish companies are now preparing to welcome this constantly growing visitor.

During the first months of the year, largely the result of greater connectivity between both sides of the Atlantic, a total of 2.3 million people from the United States have visited Spain, 55% more than in the same period in 2022.

For all these reasons, tourism from the United States is positioning itself as being of high interest to Spain, both due to its volume and its level of spending.

The data shows that this issuing country has recovered quickly. As is already happening, according to the latest figures available from Euromonitor, by 2023 and 2024 there is a forecast that the United States tourism market will reach and even exceed the volume of tourism demand in 2019.

During the past year, 2.8 million American tourists visited Spain, which represented 3.9% of the total number of visitors received, who spent 5,250.2 million euros, 6% of the total expenditure, which which placed the United States in sixth place as a source market for tourists to Spain, and also in sixth place with respect to spending.

This trend of rapid recovery and strong growth has been consolidated so far this year with the arrival in Spain of 2.3 million Americans until July, compared to 1.9 million who did so in the same period of 2019.

The strong interannual growth stands out, for example, 28.9% more in July than the same month last year, according to data from Frontur and Egatur of the National Institute of Statistics (INE), and it has increased almost 55% more compared to to the first half of 2022 throughout Spain according to data from Turespaña.

Spending is also much higher than in 2019, before the pandemic. In the first months of 2023, it exceeds that generated in the same period of 2019 by 29.1%: with a total of 1.7 million euros, also experiencing a growth of 61% in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year.

More than 60% of American travelers, who have an average stay of more than 6 days during their trip to Spain, prefer activities related to culture and gastronomy, according to Turespaña executive files.

Behind the connection with culture, shopping, active luxury, outdoor experiences, physical exercise and visits to green spaces, are the activities that are most popular among American tourists, who travel especially as a family. , but also as a couple or alone.

Regarding their profile, half of these visitors are over 35 years old, have an average salary of more than 75,000 dollars (71,200 euros) and university studies.

With the mission of analyzing the opportunities that the US market represents in the tourism ecosystem, understanding how the tourism industry will evolve in the future and promoting its transformation as an indispensable engine for productive development and social inclusion, Jorge Brown, president of the Global Institute for the Future of Tourism (GIFT) and vice president of Advance Leadership Foundation (ALF) will participate next week at the HIC Summit Ibiza.

The event, which will be held from October 18 to 20, will bring together, for the fifth consecutive year, in different thematic hubs, a central forum and several parallel activities on the island of Ibiza, renowned professionals, destinations, scientists and companies.

HIC Summit is the fifth forum in a cycle of conferences to debate and disseminate cross-cutting aspects of the contribution to sustainable development and the happiness of people, companies and tourist destinations.

Through the participation of various experts, the aim is to promote tourism as a fundamental piece of the recovery towards a new social, environmental and economic model that focuses its efforts on understanding the indicators, dimensions and opportunities of circularity, innovation and regenerative culture. .

Since 2019, HIC has had more than 100 speakers and 3,500 attendees, in person and virtually, who have contributed to getting the message to more than 22 countries in the world.