SPAIN expects to welcome a record number of tourists from Japan not seen since direct flights between the two countries were scrapped 16 years ago.
The numbers were up 21 per cent year-on-year to over 290,000 in the first eight months of 2014, with Beatriz Marco, counsellor for tourism at the Spanish embassy in Tokyo, optimistic about them “reaching the 400,000 mark”.
Marco said equally important for Spain and its battered economy is the increased spending by Japanese tourists, which showed 35 per cent growth in the first seven months of 2014.
Speaking ahead of the opening of JATA Tourism Expo Japan last week, Marco said the previous record of 377,000 incoming Japanese was set in 1998, the same year Spanish flag carrier Iberia stopped operating the only direct service between the two countries’ capitals.
Since then, numbers had been falling until 2010, after which average yearly growth hovered around five per cent.
Matilde García de Oro, coordinator for the Hispanic Japanese Tourism Association, said the increase corresponded with projections, given the events held in both Spain and Japan between June 2013 and July 2014 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
“Figures have also been boosted by the recent recovery of the Japanese economy,” she said, but highlighting that the figures did not necessarily bring in more business for tour operators as “many people, especially younger ones, are now making their own travel arrangements”.
Similarly, María Jesús Vicente, operations manager, Japan Travel Bureau’s Madrid office, said although the Japanese market has been growing since 2011, the figures quoted by the embassy for 2014 didn’t correspond with the growth expected by her company.
“It’s true we are up on last year, but we are expecting lower figures this winter because of the increase in value-added (sales) tax in Japan,” she said.
Despite growth in other markets, Japan is still the leading Asian tourism market for Spain, she added.
The autonomous region of Andalucía in southern Spain has also seen high demand from Asia over the last year, said director of Spain Leisure and Culture, Irene Muñoz.
She observed: “These (Asian) countries are the outbound markets that have grown most in recent years and at the same time are taking up hotel rooms in what is our low season, especially in winter.”
