The President of the Government of Spain predicts that 2023 will be "the year of the great boost" for tourism, which will return to record figures in terms of arrivals and spending

International Trade Fair (IFEMA), Madrid

The Chief Executive highlighted the fact that, last year, the sector had already reached its highest ever number of jobs, with over 2.4 million national insurance contributors. "Thanks to the application of the labour reform, the sector has reduced temporary employment by 21 points", he said at an event attended by the Minister for Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto.

An exemplary vaccination process

In this way, the President of the Government of Spain highlighted the measures adopted during the pandemic to protect the business fabric thanks to the Temporary Redundancy scheme (ERTE) and the extraordinary benefits for the self-employed, the OCI guarantees and other direct aid. "Our national commitment to science played a major role in this strategy. Because nobody travels where they don't feel safe. Today, thanks to an exemplary vaccination process, Spain will close 2022 with more than 80 million international passengers, spending over 87 billion euros in our country", he said.

Pedro Sánchez has opted to modernise a key sector, which represents 8% of Spanish GDP, through deseasonalisation, diversification, territorial deconcentration and digitalisation. "We have recovered nine out of ten foreign tourists compared to pre-pandemic figures. And we are going for ten out of ten", he proclaimed.

The sector looks to the future

"Despite having gone through a pandemic, a volcano on the island of La Palma and the consequences of a war at the gates of Europe, we also deserve to imagine what we will be able to do when the wind blows in our favour", he stated.

The Government of Spain has the Plan to modernise the competitiveness of the tourism sector, funded with 3.4 billion euros from the Recovery Plan, which will make progress in terms of the social and environmental sustainability of the sector by means of the Spain 2030 Sustainable Tourism Strategy and the Tourism Sustainability Plans in Destinations, which last year mobilised 720 million euros across 196 projects. The plan also advocates a transformation towards quality tourism with initiatives like the digitalisation and intelligence programme for tourist destinations, with 390 million euros, and the Smart Destination Platform.

Pedro Sánchez has also welcomed the approval by the European Union of the European Agenda for Tourism 2030, promoted by the Government of Spain. He also highlighted the opportunity of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which Spain will hold from 1 July 2023. "We are going to tell the story of our country as never before, taking the most important events and meetings to all the autonomous communities", he said in reference to this event.

Non official translation