Encouraging headline with 56.91 million international tourists visiting Spain during 2011, representing an increase of 8.1% over 2010, but as ever the devil is in the detail before British businesses across Spain go getting all excited!
The Canary Islands is the region where tourism grew most in 2011, with an 18.4% increase, followed by the Balearic Islands, with 10.4%, Valencia, 7.5%, Andalucia, 6%, and Catalonia, 4, 6%, while the Community of Madrid saw a 1% drop in tourism.
Which is very much a case of the strong getting stronger and those that had hoped to benefit from previous years growth continuing to suffer.
The United Kingdom and Germany continue to head the list as source markets, with growth of 9.1% and 3% respectively. Last year the number of tourists from Italy increase by 8.5%, Scandinavia (8.4%) and France (4.6%).
Not so good was the amount spent by the tourists with the average expenditure per tourist 929.5€, a decrease of 0.3%, although the average daily expenditure of 101.6€ was 4.1% more than in 2010.
And in case it ever comes up in a pub quiz: 2011 ranks as the third best year ever in number of tourists visiting Spain, behind 2007, when the figure reached 59.2 million international tourists, and 2006, with 58.4 million.