By 2021 and according to the balance sheet for Catalonia and the country as a whole, the recovery of the tourism sector in Barcelona was observed.
The report on the evolution and future of the sector included data on overnight stays in hotels and tourist housing in the city.
He also stressed that thanks to the sustained growth trend of the sector during the second half of 2021, there is “reasonable optimism” about the recovery and future of tourism in the city.
The balance sheet was presented on January 27, 2022 by the president of Barcelona Tourism, Eduard Torres, and the councilman of Tourism and Creative Industries, Xavier Marcé.
The performance of the tourism sector in Barcelona
During 2021 Barcelona hosted a total of 4.5 million tourists who spent 3.7 billion euros.
Although the figure is far from that recorded in 2019, it is 65.5% higher than that observed in 2020. This is a sign of recovery in the sector.
On the other hand, Barcelona has 70% of its hotels open, which represents 77.6% of the city’s total available vacancies.
For the year-end festivities and coinciding with the Christmas campaign, in December Barcelona exceeded the estimated targets for domestic visitors to the city and which were higher than those recorded in 2019.
Along with Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, Barcelona leads the index of hotel bookings recovery at the international tourism level.
And in Spain, it was the first city in the country to reduce unemployment in the tourism sector in the second half of 2021.
