Race to the top

A new study by Google and Deloitte predicts that by 2040 Spain will be the world’s most-visited country. According to the report, 110 million tourists will be visiting Spain annually by then, five million more than will head to second-placed France. The study also forecasts that the total number of tourism arrivals globally will increase from 1.5 billion to 2.4 billion over the same period. The largest proportion of those new trips, almost 40 per cent, will be to European destinations.

As a tennis fan, I think of the Spain-France tourism rivalry in terms of Federer-Nadal or, now, Sinner-Alcaraz: the top two players in the field, swapping the Number One spot back and forth. No one else has much of a chance of challenging their dual hegemony.

The only thing that surprised me about the report’s forecast is that it will take so long for Spain to move in front of France. For almost a decade, Spain has consistently beaten its own tourism records and is on track to do so again in 2026, with a projected 100 million visitors. Last year it attracted 97 million tourists, just behind France, which defended its title with 102 million arrivals. If these were ATP ranking points (to persist with the tennis analogy), there’d be hardly anything in it.

The tourism forecast, of course, is good news for Spain. Tourism drives the Spanish economy, accounting for 13% of GDP and around the same proportion of jobs. But it also presents challenges in a country which has seen several demonstrations over recent years against what residents call “overtourism”. In response, some regional administrations have enacted measures to control visitor numbers, ranging from a three-year moratorium on new hotels in Malaga to Barcelona’s promise to eliminate private-let tourist apartments by 2028.

Residents’ concerns mustn’t be ignored, but it will take more than bans and restrictions to ease the strain on coastal hotspots. Spain’s tourist board is rightly focused on re-marketing the country, broadening out from its historic focus on sun, sea and sangria. Its new slogan - “Think you Know Spain? Think Again” - is designed to lure visitors away from coastal resorts to quieter regions such as Castilla-La Mancha, Asturias and Cantabria. The message is not dissimilar to the “Spain is different” campaign with which the country launched its tourism sector in the 1960s (although that highlighted beaches, bullfighting and flamenco rather than the charms of the countryside): Spain is mysterious, deep, endlessly varied.

In the race to the top of the tourist rankings, France has been a worthy victor and competitor. But there can be no doubt that the amazing country in which we live deserves the crown. I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens before 2040.