Keynote Address "Efforts to Promote Tourism in Spain (Case Study & Report)"
Alvaro Renedo
Tourism Counselor, Spanish Embassy
Before I get on with my presentation for today, I would like to briefly explain my background in tourism. I am currently the resident Tourism Counselor at the Spanish Embassy here in Japan and the Head of the National Tourist Office for Japan, Asia and the Pacific region.
I have been working in tourism for the past 40 years, having served as Spain's Territorial Tourism Delegate in Burgos, where I am from the Deputy Director General of Spain's Lodgings Network, and the Director of the Tourist Office of Spain for the southern and western regions of the US.
As you well know, Spain is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, which implies that tourism is also very important to Spain as a country. And so, the Spanish government has been and is very interested in tourism.
I think it can be said that Spain has occupied a very large share of the world tourism market in these past few years. More specifically speaking; if we look - for example - at 1997, Spain ranked number three in the world in both the number of tourists and the amount of revenue gained off of tourism. This shows how big tourism is in Spain.
Looking at where these tourists come from, we find Europe, and in particular, Western Europe - to name West Germany, England and France as the major countries of departure. Tourists from Western Europe account for 94.5 % of all tourists to Spain. In 1997, 60 million persons visited Spain. Of these, 43 million were considered tourists. This is the third highest number of tourists in the world behind first-ranked America and second-ranked France. I believe, though this is only an estimate, that the number for 1998 will be 45 million.
Next, I would like to talk about revenue from tourism. In 1997, Spain earned 3 .9 trillion pesetas from tourism. When converted into US dollars, this comes to about 28.147 billion dollars. Spain is also ranked third in the world in tourism revenue, behind first-ranked America and second-ranked Italy. It is estimated that revenue from tourism will rise to 4.2 trillion pesetas in 1998.
Judging from these figures, Spain is believed to draw 8.2% of all tourists around the world and earns the equivalent of 6.4% of the world profit drawn from tourism.
With tourism on this scale, Spain requires and has 5 .2% of the world's lodging capacity in hotels and other lodging facilities. When coupled with the tourism revenue I just mentioned, this can be
