MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto said on Monday that she hoped the number of foreign tourists coming to Spain could rebound this year to half pre-pandemic level.
“Maybe the ideal goal is … to get half of the tourists we had in 2019. This, for the industry, would be an achievement,” she said in an event held by Europa Press news agency.
In 2019, Spain had the world’s second highest number of foreign visitors at more than 80 million. This plummeted by 80% to 19 million tourists in 2020 as a result of the travel restrictions imposed to curb the pandemic.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro; Editing by Ingrid Melander)
