- 2019 sees the Community lose almost 42,500 visitors from the United Kingdom
The number of International tourist holidaying in the Valencia Community reached a new high in 2019 with more than 9.5 million visitors and an increase in spending to 9.620 million euros.
The figures were provided by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) in its latest data which also shows an increase at the state level reaching 83.7 million travellers, 1.1% more than in 2018.
However, and contrary to the trend, visitors with British passports, which constitute the main tourist market of the Community, do not contribute to those improving the figures with 42,486 fewer tourists visiting the Valencian territory last year, the first decline since the INE began producing statistics in 2016. At that time, the volume of British tourists grew at an interannual rate close to 15%.
This decrease, which is also observed nationally as well as in the figures produced for other autonomies, is thought to be related to the uncertainty in the British tourism sector, according to the Professor of Marketing and Market Research at the University of Valencia, Enrique Bigné . “Holiday tourism is more sensitive to Brexit and prices, and in that sense the strongest destination at the regional level is Benidorm, which still has a high dependence on the British market,” he says.
However, Bigné argues that the United Kingdom data does not show “a substantial change in terms of trend”, as its situation “is thought to be temporary”.
