Madrid City Council expects a record year in terms of tourism. Their optimism is based on the data for August when they registered an increase of 17.4 percent (640,965) of tourists coming to the Spanish capital. It was the best August followed by 2011 August, when the celebrations of World Youth Day attracted crowds of tourists.
The increase in tourist numbers overwhelmingly exceeded Barcelona and Palma with annual variations of -0.4 and -8.3 percent respectively. Spain as a whole recorded a moderate growth of 5 percent.
During the first eight months of 2014 the number of visitors to Madrid was 5,418,925, which is a cumulative growth of 12.3 percent, while in the whole Spain it was only 4.3 percent. It has also exceeded the increase in tourist numbers in Barcelona (2.6) and Palma (-7.5 percent).
Domestic travelers also traveled to Madrid in greater numbers – there were 22 percent (306,970) more Spaniards in August than in the same month last year. According to the City Council "There have never been so many domestic tourists in the city in August".
The number of tourists from abroad has also risen by 13.5 percent. The traveler growth from abroad was even more remarkable comparing to cities like Barcelona or Palma, with negative variations of -1.2 and -9.1 percent, respectively.
The number of visitors to Madrid in the last 12 months totaled 8,116,007, an increase of 8.2%. It represents an acceleration of 1.7 points from the previous month. The Community of Madrid welcomed 7.3 percent more tourists while the whole Spain attracted 4.2 percent more tourists.
There were recorded 1,243,865 overnight stays in Madrid in August. It was the second best August since 2011. It represents 13.5 percent increase compared to August 2013, and more than two points acceleration compared to July.
This increase is lower than Community of Madrid (16.8 percent) but higher than the whole Spain (2.7 percent). Also, it beats Barcelona (2.7 percent) and Palma (-1.7 percent).
Overnight stays of domestic tourists in Madrid grew by 15.6 percent, more than Barcelona (7.6), but lower than Palma (30.6). The variation of the city also outperforms those of Spain (3.6) and Community (19.3). Foreigners’ overnight stays in the capital grew by 12.1 per cent, with acceleration of nearly ten points compared to last month statistics. The region as a whole grew by 14.5, while Spain registered a drop of 2.2 percent.
The number of overnight stays in the city totaled 10,669,864 in the first eight months of the year, an increase of 12.4 percent. Madrid variations were 12.5 percent and in Spain 2.7 percent. It exceeded the growth of Barcelona (5.5 percent) and Palma (-4.6 percent).
Travelers spent a total of 16,032,045 nights in Madrid in the last twelve months, up 8.7 percent from a year earlier, an improvement of 1.2 compared to July numbers. This variation is greater than Spain as a whole, where overnight stays in the last annual period grew by 3.4 percent.
The number of accommodation providers open in August has decreased by 94 over last year to the total of 690. The number of hotel rooms was reduced by 3.1 percent to 76,650. The room occupancy grew 6.5 points compared to a year ago, representing 54.8 percent in August. Employment in all establishments decreased by 4.8 percent to 10,604 workers, but it is still improving by 2.4 points compared to the data from last July.