Barcelona closed 2022 with 9.7 million tourists staying in hotels and tourist-use homes, a volume equivalent to 81.2% of that registered in 2019, before the pandemic. These visitors made 29.8 million overnight stays, 90.9% compared to 2019.
Last year, the average length of stay increased to 3.1 nights, 11.9% more than the 2.7 recorded three years earlier. International tourism represented 79% of last year's visitors, but domestic tourism grew by 6.8% compared to 2019. The main source markets were the United States (802,545) and France (664,972), followed by the United Kingdom (548,277), Italy (440,858), and Germany (433,972). China, Russia, and Japan continue to see a drop in visitors, reports ACN.
According to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) released by the Barcelona City Council, Barcelona maintains its leadership in the arrival of international tourists among the main urban destinations in the state, ahead of Madrid, Palma, or Seville.
The Councilor for Tourism and Creative Industries of the Barcelona City Council, Xavier Marcé, has favorably assessed the data and highlighted that "although the first quarter of 2022 still shows a scenario affected by covid-19, the overall figures for the year are very positive." In this regard, he said that Barcelona has achieved almost full occupancy of tourist accommodations with a lower volume of visitors. "We need to consolidate the trend towards a greater presence of national visitors, as it is a profile that shows great complicity with local life," he pointed out.
In the same vein, he referred to the impact of tourism on the city's economy as a whole. "It has contributed to consolidating local commerce, so the contribution of tourism is very important and has also had a decisive impact on the cultural sector and museums, which have registered figures above 50%, which has helped their normalization and recovery of activity."
Tourist spending grows
According to the survey of tourist profiles and habits from the Barcelona Tourism Observatory, visitor spending during their stay in the city in 2022, not counting arrival transport, was more than 7.6 billion euros, 9% lower than in 2019 (8.437.5 million euros) and 195.4% higher than in 2021 (2.596.5 million euros).
On the other hand, Marcé has assured that although the labor market in the tourism sector was one of the most heavily impacted by the pandemic, since mid-2021 it has consistently shown more favorable behavior than the economy as a whole. Social Security affiliation in the hospitality sector in the city at year-end shows, along with the information and communications sector, a more favorable evolution than that of all sectors, 10.4% compared to 3.6% of the total, and translates into more than 8,000 new jobs compared to 2021.
Regarding hiring, in 2022, more than 157,000 employment contracts were signed in Barcelona in the tourism sector, 45.3% of which were permanent. Temporality has fallen from 88.4% of contracts in 2019 to 54.7% in 2022. Likewise, in 2022, the lowest unemployment rate in the tourism sector in Barcelona since 2007 was recorded (-23.5% compared to 2019), with 6,703 unemployed people, while in 2019 it closed with 8,751 unemployed people.
Furthermore, the survey Perception of Tourism in Barcelona, prepared by the Opinion Studies Department of the Municipal Data Office of the Barcelona City Council, shows that tourism is seen as an economic engine for the city and is clearly associated with recovery. 67.1% of respondents consider tourism to be the sector that generates the most wealth, and 66.9% state that it is rather beneficial for Barcelona.