Travelling numbers (1)

The Spanish economy is sustained on two pillars, construction and tourism, that, according to many experts, are fragile pillars and causes that the economy is equally fragile, because both sectors are very sensitive to general recessions. Nautilia is not capable of further analysis more and we are sure that blogs like 'Economing' or 'Recordant el present' can explain this issue better.

But it can be useful to see, superficially, some figures of the tourism in Spain. Nautilia has used the new edition of a small and fascinating book called 'Pocket World in Figures 2008' , that compiles a series of very interesting statistics on many scopes. The majority is already known, but it is useful to have them collected in a small book, published and updated every year, since 1991, by 'The Economist', a prestigious British weekly magazine.

The chapter dedicated to the transportation and tourism leave Spain in an apparently good situation. It is the second country that receives more tourists (in millions) :

• 1.- France: 76.0
• 2.- Spain: 55.6
• 3.- US: 46.1
• 4.- China: 41.8
• 5.- Italy: 36.5
• 6.- United Kingdom: 30.0
• 7.- Germany: 21.5
• 8.- Mexico: 20.6
  

It is also the second country that receives more incomes from tourists (in million dollars) :

• 1.- US: 81,680
• 2.- Spain: 47,891
• 3.- France: 42,276
• 4.- Italy: 35,398
• 5.- United Kingdom: 30,669
• 6.- China: 29,296
• 7.- Germany: 29,204
• 8.- Turkey: 18,152
  

If it is possible to link these data (it is not in the book), each tourist leaves (not all countries):

• Japan: 2,026 dollars
  
• US: 1,772
• Switzerland: 1,527
• Germany: 1,358
• United Kingdom: 1,023
• Italy: 969
• Greece: 962
• Turkey: 895
• Spain: 861
  
• China: 701
• France: 564

Spain is in the low zone of the classification, what fits with the traditional worries that say that the tourists that arrive are 'low cost'. Politics try to attract more business tourism (fairs), perhaps more health and 'cosmetic surgeries' tourism or even a more cultural one. But the majority looks for 'botellón', sun and/or beach. And, in addition, Spain is perhaps stopping being competitive against places like Croatia, Greece or Turkey.

Here it is good to remember a study (press release) of the 2007 World Economic Forum (an annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, to analyse the world economy) that analysed the countries with more attractive environments to develop a tourist industry according to infrastructures and the economic, social, and political environment. Spain was in the 15th position. On the top, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Iceland and US. (Italy was the 33rd)
Spain scores low in the regulatory framework, the security and the environment. And scores very low in the competitiveness of the prices (position 105th!)

In the same way, also is well to recall a comment of the publishers of the red Michelin guide (hotels and restaurants) when they were presenting the 2008 Spain edition. In response to the criticism that Spain felt mistreated by the distribution of stars, editors said that Spanish restaurants "lack in regularity and severity".

The question that arises could be: What does offer Spain that deserves that tourists do a greater expense? And also: Is it necessary more seriousness in the sector?

In the following delivery of 'Travelling numbers', we will spoke about transportation.