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Foreign tourists. By reason for travelling Catalonia
Foreign tourists Leisure and vacations Personal (relatives, health and shopping) Professional reasons Others
2023 18,182.6 15,627.8 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available 1,290.4 1,264.4
2022 14,852.0 12,645.5 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available 1,310.4 896.2
2021 5,787.8 4,803.4 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available 469.5 515.0
2020 3,870.3 3,126.7 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available 329.8 413.7
2019 19,375.2 16,552.2 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available 1,611.3 1,211.7
2018 19,196.3 16,382.3 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available 1,361.9 1,452.1
2017 19,118.4 16,092.9 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available 1,524.1 1,501.4
2016 18,139.2 14,885.8 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available 1,682.6 1,570.7
Units: Thousands.
Source: Idescat, based on data of the INE's Tourist Movement on Borders Survey and Tourist Expenditure Survey.
Notes:
Up until the third quarter of 2015, the Spanish Institute of Tourism was in charge of producing the Survey of Tourist Movement on Borders (Frontur) and the Survey of Tourist Expenditure (Egatur). Starting in the last quarter of 2015, the body in charge of said operations is the INE. Said shift of responsibilities also entailed a change in the design and methodology of the surveys, which means the data will not be entirely comparable to previous series.
A partir del 2016 les dades de motiu del viatge personal (familiar, salut i compres), estan incloses a altres.
It considers information of trips of foreign tourists whose main destination is Catalonia.
Between 14 March and 21 June 2020, it is in force the Royal Decree 463/2020, of 14 March, which declares the state of alarm for the management of the health crisis situation caused by Covid-19.
(..) Confidential data, low reliability or not available.

Last update: March 13, 2024.

Methodological note

Definition of concepts

Tourist
People who travel to a main destination outside their usual environment, involving at least one overnight stay, for a duration of less than one year and when the main reason for the visit (including business, leisure and other personal reasons) is not connected with a job in a company established in the location visited.

Methodological aspects

Statistics are drawn up on trips made by foreign tourists in order to quantify and describe flows of visitors to Catalonia.

The data are obtained from the Survey of Tourism Movements at Borders (Frontur) produced by the Institute of Tourism Statistics (ITS). Using the restricted access databases provided by ITS, Idescat expands the results with a greater disaggregation of the variable for Catalonia and provides quarterly information about tourists and overnight stays by country of origin. Moreover, the information referring to tourists is classified by different variables: accommodation, reason for travelling, country of residence and type of transport.

Frontur is a continuous monthly survey which uses a mixed data gathering system. It uses administrative registers for all types of transport used, takes a manual count at border points and carries out sample-based surveys at entry and exit points in Spain. This statistical operation generates information about the number of travellers and the number of overnight stays.

Up until the third quarter of 2015, the Spanish Institute of Tourism was in charge of producing the Survey of Tourist Movement on Borders (Frontur) and the Survey of Tourist Expenditure (Egatur). Starting in the last quarter of 2015, the body in charge of said operations is the INE. Said shift of responsibilities also entailed a change in the design and methodology of the surveys, which means the data will not be entirely comparable to previous series.

Note that the results provided by Idescat could be different to other sources due to the different methodologies used at the times when the data was produced.

Until 2015, data are always provisional.