Long-distance visitors make up 50% of total tourist revenue

Last year, some five million so-called “quality” long-distance tourists, mostly from Asian countries, made up a quarter of all foreign visitors to Catalonia (19.1 million in all). However, while they were here the same tourists spent some 10 million euros, or 49% of the total revenue from foreign tourism (which was 20.601 million). That is according to the Shopping & Quality Tourism Institute, a think tank dedicated to promoting quality tourism and shopping in Spain.

This pressure group (which includes, among others, CaixaBank, Iberia, El Corte Inglés, Global Blue and Mastercard) has organised four editions of the Summit Shopping Tourism & Economy, a convention for debating quality tourism and its benefits, which will hold its fifth edition in Barcelona on April 8 and 9. The Summit Barcelona: Quality Tourism vs. Mass Tourism will take place in CaixaForum.

One of the aims of the Shopping & Quality Tourism Institute is to “increase the number of these so-called quality travellers to 7.5 million,” something the organisation claims will raise annual tourism revenue in Catalonia to 26 million euros. What’s more, the think tank believes that the extra five million can be raised “without encouraging massification” because “it is about tourists who travel at all times of year.”