Latest figures for foreign tourism in Spain

Number of foreign tourists visiting Spain this year increases

The sun and beaches continue to attract foreign tourists to Spain. In the first 6 months of this year the number of foreign tourists visiting Spain went up by 2.6% to 26.6 million compared to figures for the same period last year.

According to the Survey on the Movement of Tourists published today by the Ministry for Industry, Tourism and Commerce Spain received 5.7 million foreign tourists which is 0.7% less than for the same month in 2007.

Catalonia is the most popular destination for foreign tourists and received 6.6 million tourists between January and June this year which accounts for 24.8% of the total followed by the Canary Islands which received 4.7 million tourists (15.6% of the total). Andalucia was in third place with 3.7 million foreign tourists (14.1% of the total). The Comunidad Valenciana received 2.6 million foreign tourists (10.1% of the total) and the Comiunidad de Madrid received 2.3 million foreign tourists (8.7% of the total).

The survey found that 7.3 million tourists were from the United Kingdom (27.5% of the total) which is 1% more than for the same period last year. Germany is in second place with 4.7 million of its citizens visiting Spain during the first 6 months of this year which is 2.8% more than for the same period last year. French visitors numbered 3.6 million and Italians visiting Spain number 1.5 million.

Out of all the foreign tourists visiting Spain this year between January and June 18.4 million tourists visited independently (7% more than for the same period last year) and the number of tourists visiting Spain which were not on package tours continued to decrease. In fact the number of tourists coming on package tours went down by 6.8% during this period.

Arriving by air continued to be the most popular form of travel with 20.9 million tourists arriving this way (78.5% of the total) an increase of 2.8%. The preferred type of accommodation continues to be hotels (65.9% of the total) which is an increase of 3.8% while the number of people not staying hotels remained the same at 8.8 million which is the same as 2007.

Train delays in Barcelona

Thousands of People Affected by local train delays in Barcelona

A landslide in a railway tunnel in Barcelona caused by work on the AVE high speed train link to the Catalan capital has resulted in many local trains being cancelled. To replace the local train service RENFE is offering a bus service instead. However, although things appeared to be running smoothly first thing this morning as the day has progressed transport chaos seems to have prevailed. Around 160,000 passengers have been affected.

Many buses are not running on time and some users have complained that the bus drivers, many of whom are not from Barcelona, are not familiar with the bus routes. Another complaint by passengers is that they still have to pay the same ticket prices as a train journey although RENFE is offering a less efficient service.

There have also been problems on the roads in and around Barcelona. It has been estimated that there are at least 10% more vehicles on the road than usual. Since first thing this morning around 220 buses have replaced the train routes that have had to be cancelled which has further increased the volume of traffic adding to the travel chaos. The B204 in Viladecans, the B210 in Gavá, the C31 and the C32 have all been affected by long traffic jams today although traffic circulation hasn’t collapsed entirely.

Passengers on long distance train journeys have also been affected by train cancellations. Trains to Valencia have been replaced by a bus service that takes them as far as Tarragona where they can then catch the Euromet train to Valencia. So far this service is experiencing delays of up to 25 minutes.

The most optimistic forecasts estimate that delays and cancellations to train services will last at least a week on the El Prat-Sants line although on the rest of the lines cancellations and delays could last up to one month.

Car thefts in Spain

In Spain a car is stolen every 3 minutes

According to ‘Detector’, a company specializing in locating stolen vehicles, for the past two years a car has been stolen every 3 minutes in Spain. In total 175,200 vehicles per year were stolen in 2005 and 2006 of which over 50,000 have never been found.

Madrid comes top of the list for places where the highest number of vehicles are stolen with around 35,000 car robberies per year. Andalucia comes next with 30,200 followed by the Comunidad Valenciana (Costas Blanca and Azahar) with 24,000, Catalonia (Costa Brava) with 19,100, the Canary Islands with 8,120, the Balearic Islands with 6,020, Murcia (Costa Calida) with 4,300, Galicia with 3,829, Castilla La Mancha with 3,090 and Aragón with 2.280 stolen vehicles.

According to figures released yesterday by Detector the regions where your car is safest are the Rioja with 340, Navarra with 440, Cantabria with 730, Extremadura with 1,428, Asturias with 1,490 and the País Vasco with 2,000 vehicles stolen per year.

37% of all car robberies take place during the Summer when drivers are advised to be especially careful about locking their car properly, and to never get out and leave the key in the ignition, even if it is just for a few minutes and there are other occupants inside. According to information provided by the government in a reply to a parliamentary question last year the number of stolen vehicles dropped by almost a quarter (23.1%) between 2000 and 2005.

Related: Driving in Spain, Roads in Spain

Price of mobile calls from Spain to Europe

Last month the European Parliament passed new laws on the cost of using mobiles abroad which will in theory make using your mobile abroad around 70% cheaper than before this law was passed. Under the new law calling an EU country from any country with the EU should not cost more than 49 cents per minute (this includes the charge for establishing the call) and receiving calls from within the EU should cost no more than 24 cents per minute.

The new charges were supposed to come into effect on 30th June 2007. However, the EU gave mobile phone operators 2 months grace to adapt to the new charges and (surprise surprise) all of them with no exceptions have decided to take this time in full before applying the new tariffs. Clients of Movistar, Vodafone and Orange will all have to wait until the 1st September before they can begin to enjoy cheaper mobile calls while elsewhere in the EU.

Sending text messages while abroad is a good option when you are on holiday abroad, although you also need to be aware that they cost more to send, receiving texts costs you nothing. For example the standard charge for sending a text message in Spain is 17 cents but this can rise to 52 cents if you are sending a text message to someone in Spain from another EU member state.

So it is still best to be cautious when using your mobile while on holiday abroad, at least until September when the phone operators will be forced to drop their prices dramatically in accordance with the new Eurotariff terms.

Related: Mobile phone operators in Spain ## Mobile phone operators in Spain