INE

Galicia gets a new historical record of tourists in the first half of the year with 1.8 million

The number of travelers staying at hotels in the Community between January and June grew by 4.5% to over 1.8 million, a record figure for the community, according to data recently released by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) . The number of overnight stays in this period also improved, which increased by 7.6% to 3.2 million overnight stays at Galician hotels. These figures confirm the positive trend of the tourism sector in recent years, which makes it expect a good summer season.

Especially noteworthy was the growth of international tourism, with a rise of 6.1% in the number of travelers and 9.7% in overnight stays compared to the same period of 2016. After five consecutive years, the segment of travelers Foreigners get their historic maximum in the Community, with about 533,000 passengers and 851,000 hotel nights. Thanks to this, the international segment gains market share and already accounts for 26.5% over the first six months, another record, while in June it accounted for 37% of the total.

On the other hand, the national tourism also deepened in its positive line, with 4.9% more travelers staying and 7.9% more in the volume of overnight stays, which with 1.4 million obtains the highest figure of the Last seven years. In terms of domestic tourism, the increase of 2.5% in the number of travelers, with 524,000 achieved its highest figure since 2008; And 5.2% in overnight stays, with more than 923,000, the highest figure in the last six years.

The best month of June

The month of June also left good records, with improvements in the number of travelers staying and overnight stays, which increased by 8.5% with respect to the month of June 2016. This made hotel nights have grazed The 860,000, a historic high for the Community after chaining four consecutive years of growth. There was also an absolute record of tourists staying with more than 460,000, in addition to an improvement of the average stay of 8%.

Again this good behavior occurred in the international tourism, as well as in the national and the internal. In the case of foreign travelers, increases of 1.7% in the number of travelers and 7.8% in overnight stays lead to historic highs of demand in the sixth month of the year. On the other hand, the national market exceeded by 6.3% overnight stays in the same period of 2016. In the case of domestic tourism, this mark shoots up to about 14%.