Spain will stop receiving more than 935,000 Russian travelers in this summer tourist campaign (May-October), due to the sanctions derived from the invasion of Ukraine, which also means losing more than one in 100 tourists in a pre-pandemic year and more than 83 million euros in income. The loss could be offset by the arrival of British tourists.

The figures from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) for foreign tourism collected in the Frontur survey show that the high season for Russian tourism coincides with the summer, somewhat extended, between the months of May and October.

In that period of 2019, the last year before the pandemic, a total of 936,825 tourists from the Russian Federation arrived in Spain, with monthly figures exceeding 100,000 people in all cases. In the rest of the months the figures drop considerably from that level.

The entries of Russian tourists, however, barely represented 1.2% of the arrivals of international travelers to Spain in 2019, which recorded 83.5 million entries with them, its historical record, reports Europa Press.

Russian tourism -which now after the invasion and the sanctions has more difficulties to move around the European Union- opts above all for Levante and Andalusia, more specifically for the Costa Dorada, around Salou, and the Costa del Sol, around Marbella, areas in which 70% of card spending by these travelers is concentrated, according to an experimental survey by the INE.

In any case, Exceltur did not foresee a clear recovery of the Russian market even before the start of the invasion of Ukraine. In fact, in January and February the influx from the Russian and Ukrainian markets (even more residual) fell by 72.9% compared to the same period in 2019.

The tourist alliance warns that there could be a redistribution of European tourists from some competing markets that are closer territorially to the conflict zone, especially Turkey, for which it considers capital to carry out marketing campaigns that counteract the “more than predictable” price policies to the Get off those destinations.

Absences from the Russian market could be offset by strong growth in British tourism, which, although not yet at pre-pandemic levels, is increasing at stratospheric rates over last year.

Last April, tourist arrivals from the United Kingdom grew at rates higher than 5,000% over the same month of the previous year, once the country has lifted the strong restrictions on movements that it imposed to try to stop the Covid.

The United Kingdom is the traditional main source of tourists to Spain, a position that it lost during the pandemic in favor of the French, but that it has already recovered. Flows from the British Isle are now returning to normal, as seen in the strong rates of increase since the beginning of this year, which are up to 52 times higher than the figures recorded a year earlier.

The absence of the Russians, therefore, will not prevent the Government’s objectives from being achieved, which has advanced that pre-pandemic levels will be reached this summer to close the entire year at 80% of 2019 activity. Exceltur in its latest report raises this percentage to 91.6%

The improvement in the health situation and the elimination of restrictions on travel between European countries and some long-haul countries (the United States, an increasingly important market for Spain) also contribute to this optimistic climate, which is also reflected in the strong growth of the reservations made by various internet portals.

Although the forecasts for this summer are optimistic, the sector is attentive to the evolution of energy prices, which have brought inflation to levels of 8.7% last May, which could punish family consumption and vacation spending.

Among tourist agents, these inflation rates are concerned because they represent an erosion of margins, already affected by the pandemic, given that businessmen find it difficult to transfer these increases to prices.

However, the hotel price index has been rising since the second half of last year, and last April it climbed 29.8% over the same period of the previous year.

The average rate per available room (RevPAR) -the best indicator of hotel profitability- is already above pre-covid levels, at 59.56 euros at the end of last April (compared to 53.45 euros in that same month of 2019).