considered a high percentage of the world's hotels as well.
As you can understand from these figures, very many people come to Spain for leisure. Both in terms of the number of tourists and the number of days that these tourists stay in the country, Spain is one of the largest tourist countries in the world.
The tourist industry accounts for 10.6% of Spain's GDP. If compared to the 7 % average of the European Union, this 10.6% is rather high. However, we of Spain's tourist industry are not interested in increasing our share of the nation's GDP but, more so, in differentiating ourselves from other countries by improving the quality of tourism in Spain.
As I mentioned earlier, revenue from tourism was 3.9 trillion pesetas in 1997. The public expenditure for the tourist industry that produced this revenue was 658.4 billion pesetas. If you compare these two figures, you can see the large profit made and thus understand the extremely good state of Spain's tourist industry. Furthermore, both the number of tourists and revenue from tourism are growing at a year-on-year rate of 4.2% .
From another perspective, tourism is important for the jobs is creates. And, Spain is no exception. The number of persons with jobs directly related to tourism is 686,000, while another 500,000 persons work indirectly for the tourist industry. This is a high 9.5% of Spain's working population and 8.1 % of all persons in Spain who are economically active. This reiterates the fact that the tourist industry is very important to Spain as a country.
I believe there to be two basic reasons for the success with tourism that Spain has had.
The first is domestic travel. As with Japan, many Spanish people take trips within Spain. This domestic tourism is of big importance.
The second is that those visiting Spain from abroad leave very satisfied with their time in Spain. Our local hospitality has proven very much one of the most rewarding aspects of a trip to Spain for the foreigner.
Therefore, Spain can, without a doubt, be said a tourist country. Now, let us take a closer look at Spain's tourist industry.
For example, where do tourists go most? 41.4% go to the Balears Islands, 21.9% to the Canaries Islands, 15.7% to Catalunya, 11.0% to Andalucia, 5.2% to Valencia, while no more than 5.6% to the other 12 provinces of Spain.
This tendency to visit selected areas indicates that Spain has many tourist areas of world importance and that the entire country is not a tourist haven.
Next, let us look at tourism by season. In terms of how many travelers visit Spain in each season, 15.5% come in the first quarter, 24.8% in the second quarter and 40.4% in the third quarter. This 40.4% is the highest percentage for any season and corresponds to July, August and September. The forth and final quarter sees 19.3% of all tourists. The seasonal fluctuation being so high is one of the problems facing Spain's tourist industry.
