Vice-President of the Government highlights Spain's leadership of economic growth table

The Vice-President of the Government, Minister for the Presidency and for Regional Administrations highlighted, in her speech at this event, the fact that Spain heads up the list of countries to enjoy the fastest rate of growth in the OECD (as shown in the reports issued by this organisation) and that this growth is very healthy because it is transforming into jobs, with the tourism sector providing a major contribution.

The fact that 400 sector professionals are gathered together these days in Madrid, an organisational success in itself, is proof of the profound transformation experienced by the Spanish economy in recent years, stated Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría.

In her opinion, shopping tourism is an emerging concept, an example of a traditional sector that is undergoing renewal and reorientation and hence modernising to maintain its growth. Furthermore, it contributes added value and new resources to the Spanish tourism sector and helps make it more competitive, and hence can now be considered to be a high potential activity.

The Vice-President of the Government highlighted that Barcelona and Madrid stand in 10th and 11th position, respectively, of favourite cities to go shopping for non-EU citizens, which clearly evidences the modernity, added value and potential for growth of this sector in our country.

Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría highlighted that Spain, for the first time, heads up the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index drawn up by the World Economic Forum (WEF), after jumping eight places in the last four years.

Lastly, the Vice-President of the Government pointed out that this year is expected to close with an absolute record of close on 74 million inbound tourists, coming from increasingly diverse countries.