September gave wings to the Andalusian destinations, that were situated top of the peninsula’s touristic areas in the increase of arrivals of foreign tourists, with a rise of 11.6%. In the country’s overall, only the Canary Islands achieved a higher increase, specifically more than 20%, according to the results of the Touristic Movements in Frontera (Frontur) survey, that is published every month by the Industry, Tourism and Trade Ministry.
The good streak of the British market, which is the main country for supplying international visitors to the region, has been the key factor in this activity’s upturn in a month that, for the past years has marked the end of the high season. In this occasion, not only has it been a period of immense activity, but has also turned into a fundamental bridge to extend the intensity of this industry.
Frontur’s statistics show that Andalusia received 822.000 international tourists in September and they say that this is due to an important raise favoured by the positive advance of arrivals coming in from GB and France. In this sense, they clarify that one more month, the British market, with a 28.0% of the tourists received in Spain, has been the first supplying country, with an interannual growth of 11.4%. It has been now six consecutive months of growth and was the one that, in September, experimented the highest rise in absolute values, with 167.000 more tourists than the same month in 2010, concentrating, specially, on the canary Islands, Andalusia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencia region.
The increase of international tourists in the Andalusian region has surpassed the average of the country’s overall, that in this same period, it has increased by 9.2%. This brief shows a total amount of 5.843.621 international travellers that chose the Spanish destinations in September to spend their vacations. This figure means an increase of almost half a million more than during the same period in 2010.
“This month we are able to emphasize the spectacular increase of trips with tourist packs and the access via airway. In relation to the destinations most visited by the international tourists, all the main destination regions experienced increments in volume of arrivals, except Madrid, specially the two Archipelagos and Andalusia”, gathers the Ministry’s brief.
The best summer
Also, the central government considered: “When the touristic summer season of the year ends -July, August and September- we can affirm that, in terms of international entrances, it has been excellent, with an increase of 8.5% and a total of 20.9 million non-resident tourists”. From January to September in 2011, a total of 45.8 million international tourists arrived to Spain, almost 3.4 million more than in the same period in 2010, which translates to an interannual growth of 8.0%.
In this case, Andalusia registers a slight less evolution. During the first nine months of the year, the destinations of this region received 6.4 million foreign travellers, in other words, a 6.5% more than in the same period last year.
The tourism councillor, Luciano Alonso, affirmed that the figures reflected increments in Andalusia, last september, of almost four per cent in the number of overnight stays and 11.6 per cent in arrivals of foreign tourists. “These figures close a great summer”, he pointed out in Lisbon. He also insisted that from June to September, the amount of 20.5 million overnight stays have been surpassed, a figure that had never been reached in this period. “Andalusia accumulates as many stays as the rest of 2011 and has increased by 3.2%, above the most optimistic forecasts that predicted between 2.5 and 3%”, he stated.
Alonso sustained that this behaviour injects optimism into the Andalusian touristic industry to end the year as best as possible and consolidate this growth.
The industrial, tourism and trade minister, Miguel Sebastian, declared that Spain has registered its third best summer in foreign tourist arrivals. As far as he explained: “We can affirm that in Spain we will be around that 12% of the PIB again, given that the high season is equivalent to three quarters of the year in arrivals. Last month’s figures also belonged to the third best September in history”.
Many things happened during these 48 hours of fire inferno of 10 to 15 meter high flames fanned by a strong wind and devouring everything in its wake; many things the world will not know because they might not be mere information. More than 8.000 hectares (80.000000m²) burned land are a vast space for many sad stories and a large human response which arose mainly in the accounts of social networking, where people called for help, organized volunteers, the victims relate the event, where you can see heartbreaking photos, people offer accommodation for homeless families, others call for clothes collections or for afforestation in the affected area.
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