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TOURISM

Spain’s pandemic-ravaged Seville hopes for Euro tourism boost

Seville's pandemic-hit tourism sector is hoping to get a shot in the arm from UEFA's last-minute decision to name the southern Spanish city as a host for Euro 2020 matches.

Published: 5 June 2021 11:52 CEST
Spain's pandemic-ravaged Seville hopes for Euro tourism boost
Seville, with its sunny weather, flamenco dancing and historical landmarks such as its gothic Cathedral, is Spain's third most visited city. Photo: CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP

While thousands of football fans are set to flock to the city later this month, hotels, restaurants and bars warn the event won’t be enough to make up for the collapse in business brought on by the health crisis.

“It is a first-class showcase,” said Antonio Munoz, the city councillor in charge of tourism.

“It is a draw to recover the appeal this city has always had to attract tourism.”

READ ALSO: Spain’s Costa del Sol braces for tourists’ return, but will they come?

European football governing body UEFA in April picked Seville to replace Bilbao in northern Spain as a host city for the rescheduled football tournament.

Bilbao was dropped because it was unable to guarantee organisers it could host fans in the stadium for matches due to the strict virus measures in place in the region.

Seville’s 64,000-seat La Cartuja stadium is set to host all three of Spain’s Group E games against Sweden, Poland and Slovakia, plus a last-16 match during the second half of June.

Capacity at the venue will be limited to around 25 percent, or 16,000 people.

Seville city hall expects the matches will draw around 70,000 visitors, providing a direct economic impact of 61 million euros ($75 million) in business.

Antonio Luque, the head of the Seville Hospitality Association, said tourists will be greeted “with open arms” but the money they will spend will pale in comparison to the income the sector has lost.

Beyond the Euro, 2021 will be “complicated”, added Luque, who does not expect hospitality sector revenues to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2023.

‘It’s dead’

Seville, with its sunny weather, flamenco dancing and historical landmarks such as its gothic Cathedral, is Spain’s third most visited city.

The tourism sector accounts for 18 percent of the city’s economic output.

But the hospitality sector’s revenues plunged to 640 million euros in 2020 from 1.6 billion the previous year, as the pandemic put the brakes on travel around the world.

READ ALSO: Has Spain backtracked on its plan to welcome all vaccinated tourists in June 2021?

This drop in business led about one in five businesses to close their doors, according to the hospitality association.

The fall in visitor numbers can be felt in the narrow streets of Seville’s old Jewish quarter, the Santa Cruz neighbourhood.

“Here half of the businesses have closed. It’s dead,” Maria Menendez, who runs a tea shop in the neighbourhood, said as she pointed to a boarded-up shop across the street.

“The Euro is a boost that will last three days,” she added.

A few steps from Seville’s famous cathedral, chef Rafael Sanchez has recently reopened his tapas restaurant, Las Columnas, after a 15-month closure due to the pandemic.

With nostalgia he recalls the European, American and Asian tourists who ate at his venue in the past.

“I hope they will all come at once, and that we can return to normality,” said Sanchez.

READ ALSO: Why international residents in Europe will travel this summer despite Covid

‘Lost year’

Just over half of Seville’s hotels are currently open but city hall expects that by mid-June 70 percent of hotel beds will be available.

The local hotel association was optimistic about the future, but declined to give a forecast for reservations which will depend on the recovery of flights to the city.

Seville airport currently operates 67 routes, two-thirds of the pre-pandemic amount.

“What matters is that Ryanair flights resume,” said Diego Zanoletti, an Italian who runs a bicycle rental shop.

Like other business owners, he believes the Euro is “a positive thing but it remains a one-off event which will not make up for our lost year or what we will lose in 2021”.

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TRAVEL NEWS

Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Almost 800,000 fewer UK holidaymakers have visited Spain in 2023 when compared to 2019. What’s behind this big drop?

Published: 23 August 2023 11:36 CEST
Updated: 26 August 2023 18:32 CEST
Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Spain welcomed 12.2 million UK tourists between January and July 2023, 6 percent less when compared to the same period in 2019, according to data released on Monday by Spanish tourism association Turespaña.

This represents a decrease of 793,260 British holidaymakers for Spain so far this year.

Conversely, the number of Italian (+8 percent), Irish (+15.3 percent), Portuguese (+24.8 percent), Dutch (+4 percent) and French tourists (+5 percent) visiting España in 2023 are all above the rates in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. 

German holidaymakers are together with their British counterparts the two main nationalities showing less interest in coming to Spanish shores.

Britons still represent the biggest tourist group that comes to Spain, but it’s undergoing a slump, with another recent study by Caixabank Research suggesting numbers fell particularly in June 2023 (-12.5 percent of the usual rate). 

READ ALSO: Spain fully booked for summer despite most expensive holiday prices ever

So are some Britons falling out of love with Spain? Are there clear reasons why a holiday on the Spanish coast is on fewer British holiday itineraries?

According to Caixabank Research’s report, the main reasons are “the poor macroeconomic performance of the United Kingdom, the sharp rise in rates and the weakness of the pound”.

This is evidenced in the results of a survey by British market research company Savanta, which found that one in six Britons are not going on a summer holiday this year due to the UK’s cost-of-living crisis.

Practically everything, everywhere has become more expensive, and that includes holidays in Spain: hotel stays are up 44 percent, eating out is 13 percent pricier, and flights are 40 percent more on average. 

READ ALSO: How much more expensive is it to holiday in Spain this summer?

Caixabank stressed that another reason for the drop in British holidaymakers heading to Spain is that those who can afford a holiday abroad are choosing “more competitive markets” such as Turkey, Greece and Portugal. 

And there’s no doubt that the insufferably hot summer that Spain is having, with four heatwaves so far, has also dissuaded many holidaymakers from Blighty from overcooking in the Spanish sun. 

With headlines such as “This area of Spain could become too hot for tourists” or “tourists say it’s too hot to see any sights” featuring in the UK press, budding British holidaymakers are all too aware of the suffocating weather conditions Spain and other Mediterranean countries are enduring. 

Other UK outlets have urged travellers to try out the cooler Spanish north rather than the usual piping hot Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol destinations.

Another UK poll by InsureandGo found that 71 percent of the 2,000+ British respondents thought that parts of Europe such as Spain, Greece and Turkey will be too hot to visit over summer by 2027.

There’s further concern that the introduction in 2024 of the new (and delayed) ETIAS visa for non-EU visitors, which of course now also applies to UK nationals, could further compel British tourists to choose countries to holiday in rather than Spain.

READ MORE: Will British tourists need to pay for a visa waiver to enter Spain?

However, a drop in the number of British holidaymakers may not be all that bad for Spain, even though they did spend over €17 billion on their Spanish vacations in 2022. 

Towns, cities and islands across the country have been grappling with the problem of overtourism and the consequences it has on everything from quality of life for locals to rent prices. 

READ ALSO: ‘Beach closed’ – Fake signs put up in Spain’s Mallorca to dissuade tourists

The overcrowded nature of Spain’s beaches and most beautiful holiday hotspots appears to be one of the reasons why Germans are visiting Spain in far fewer numbers. A recent report in the country’s most read magazine Stern asked “if the dream is over” in their beloved Mallorca.

Spanish authorities are also seeking to overhaul the cheaper holiday package-driven model that dominates many resorts, which includes moving away from the boozy antics of young British and other European revellers.

Fewer tourists who spend more are what Spain is theoretically now looking for, and the rise in American, Japanese and European tourists other than Brits signify less of a dependence on the British market, one which tends to maintain the country’s tourism status quo for better or for worse.

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