The Canary Islands were the preferred destination for international tourists to spend their holidays in Spain in 2022. The archipelago accounted for 27.5% of the more than 200 million hotel overnight stays in Spain by non-residents during the past year, according to the Hotel Tourism Situation of the INE.
The next destination in the country was the Balearic Islands, where 25.2% of the total were recorded. This was followed by Catalonia, where 17.9% of international tourism overnight stays took place.
Particularly positive for the archipelago was the behavior of international tourists in December. Last month, the Canary Islands accounted for 52.6% of the total overnight stays by non-resident travelers in Spain. The next destinations in December were Catalonia and Andalusia, with 15.1% and 10.0% of the total, respectively.
Among residents in Spain, the Canary Islands were the fifth destination in the country
With 7.7% of the total hotel overnight stays by residents in Spain during 2022, which amounted to 120 million nights, the Canary Islands ranked fifth, behind Andalusia (26.3%), Catalonia (33.0%) and Valencia (37.4%) and Madrid (9.1%).
The total number of overnight stays in hotel establishments in Spain, both by residents and non-residents, totaled 320.7 million in 2022 as a whole, an increase of 85.6% compared to 2021.
Nationally, overnight stays by residents grew by 32.1% and those by non-residents by 144.7%. If the data are compared with those of 2019, before the pandemic, overnight stays in 2022 are 6.5% lower than those of that year.
Looking at the origin of the travelers, overnight stays by residents in Spain have reached in 2022 a level 0.3% higher than those of 2019, while those of non-residents have been 10.1% lower. 59.1% of overnight stays in 2022 were concentrated between the months of May to September, with an increase of 75.4% compared to the same period of 2021.