Spain added 160,000 new jobs in tourism in 2022

The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Commerce, Reyes Maroto, has announced that employment in the tourism sector will have closed 2022 with 2.4 million jobs in Spain, with a growth of 160,000 in the fiscal year, in record numbers.

The specific data will be published next Wednesday, but the minister has advanced these large figures in addition to the arrival of 80.4 million passengers by air, at levels close to those prior to the pandemic, in 2019.

At the closing of the IX Hotusa Innovation Forum, organized by the hotel chain, Maroto also pointed out that, pending the December data on international tourist arrivals and associated spending - which the National Institute of Statistics will publish at the beginning of February - in 2022, 95% will have been recovered of the 2019 volumes, that is, nine out of ten people who came then and the corresponding spending.

For 2023, the forecasts are also optimistic judging by the hotel and plane seat reservations of the first weeks, which leads the minister to advance that this year the figures for foreign tourist arrivals and spending will mark new records, above those of the previous maximum, of 2019.

The minister explained that of the 3.4 billion euros with which the Recovery Plan for the tourism sector was endowed, as of December 31, 2,412 million euros had been authorized, investments that will "soon" translate into results.