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The report of the Wine Routes of Spain states that the number of visitors last year doubled the figure for 2020.

The economic impact in 2021 was 130% more than in the previous year.

The wine tourism sector experienced a significant increase in visitors and turnover last year, which has allowed it to recover a good part of the business volume lost as a result of the covid crisis and to glimpse a full recovery. This is one of the main conclusions of the Report on visits to wineries and wine museums for the year 2021 that has just been published by the Spanish Association of Wine Cities (Acevin) through the Spanish Wine Routes Tourism Observatory.

The report collects and analyses data from a total of 33 wine routes throughout Spain, including the Rías Baixas Wine Route, with the aim of providing useful information for companies and all agents in the sector. On this occasion, according to its promoters, the data are of even greater interest because they make it possible to quantify the rate of recovery of the sector after the pandemic and the conclusions are very positive. The report shows that after the sharp fall in 2020 due to the covid restrictions, the sector experienced a spectacular increase in the number of visitors to the wineries and museums of the Wine Routes of Spain in 2021, rising from 814,323 to 1,640,800 people, which represents an increase of just over 100%. As for the economic impact of these visits, the increase has been even greater, since the 54 million euros of impact that these visits had on the wineries and museums last year is 130 % more than the 23.5 million euros in 2020.

In both cases the figures are still below those recorded in 2019 (3 million visitors and 85.5 million euros of economic impact), but they do allow us to glimpse full recovery if the growth rate of 2021 is maintained in 2022.

As for the specific figures of the only Galician wine route included in the report, that of the Rías Baixas, the dynamics are slightly better than average. Thus, the number of visitors last year increased by 125.8% compared to 2020, rising from 32,000 to 72,000, which allows it to maintain its seventh place among the routes with the most visitors out of the 33 analysed.