First month of decline in tourist arrivals to Catalonia since the pandemic

BarcelonaAfter years of record-breaking results, the tourism sector is beginning to show signs of slowing down. In Catalonia, the number of international visitors fell in May, down 5.6% compared to the same month last year, to 1.9 million, according to data published this Wednesday by the INE (National Institute of Statistics and Census). This decrease was also detected in another prominent tourist destination, the Balearic Islands, where arrivals fell by 0.2%, to 1.9 million.

In the case of Catalonia, this breaks with a trend of continued growth since the pandemic, but the fact that a year ago, the number of foreign tourists exceeded two million in May for the first time has a significant impact on the figure. For this reason, and despite the decline, the figure is the second-best figure for international tourist arrivals to the country in a month of May, according to INE data since the end of 2015.

Despite the decrease recorded in May, in the first five months of 2025, the arrival of international tourists reached 7.3 million visitors. This makes it the autonomous community that has received the most tourists this year, ahead of the Canary Islands, with 6.8 million visitors (+4.1%), and Andalusia, with 5.4 million (+9.6%). The Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands follow closely, with 4.4 million (+6.3) and 4.1 million (+4.7%). In Spain as a whole, the number of foreign tourists exceeded 35 million, a 5.5% increase compared to the first five months of the previous year.

Catalonia also saw a decline in tourist spending in May, and in this case it was the only autonomous community to experience this decrease. It fell by 1.3% to €2.297 billion. This change is accompanied by shorter trip durations, which averaged 4.4 days, while average spending per tourist increased. The decrease in May does not prevent Catalonia from being one of the regions in Spain with the highest spending in the first five months of the year, accounting for 17% of the total.

The Trump Effect

These data confirm the analyses of other entities such as CaixaBank Research, which predicts a moderation in the tourism sector in 2025 after the post-pandemic euphoria that boosted travel. The new reality in the United States, with American families worried about their future, is seen as one of the main threats to the sector, and it is estimated that it could subtract up to 1% of Spain's tourism GDP this year.

The INE survey, for now, only shows that tourists from the United States neither grew nor decreased this May, with 500,551 arrivals, but in Barcelona the decline has already begun to be felt, with fewer hotel reservations.