In 2025, the high season for Spain’s tourism sector has turned out better than expected. Unlike previous years in which we saw lower growth in the high season, this year the growth rates in summer have approached those of the low season. These good results confirm our view that tourism growth is normalising at solid levels, and that tourism GDP will grow by 2.7% in 2025 and by 2.5% in 2026.
International tourism spending recorded on CaixaBank POS terminals grew by 7.7% year-on-year in July and August 2025. This figure is very close to the 7.9% recorded in the first six months of 2025 and suggests that international tourism continues to show strong demand, even in a context of normalisation following the post-pandemic boom.
By origin, the mature markets are showing solid figures. Spending by tourists from the United Kingdom is up 9.7%, while that of the French is up 9.6%. Despite the sluggishness of the German economy, German tourism spending increased by 7.4% in the high season, far outpacing the 3.5% growth recorded in the first six months.
While mature markets have shown strength almost across the board, the picture among long-haul markets is somewhat more mixed. Tourism from the US has experienced a significant fall (–9.2%), even greater than the –4.4% recorded in the first six months of the year. This decline is offset by excellent records from other long-haul markets such as China, Japan and Latin America, all with growth in excess of 20%. We note that tourism spending from Latin America has accelerated significantly since December 2024.
Domestic tourism has also increased this summer, albeit more modestly. Domestic tourism spending was up 3.1% in July and August, a slight slowdown relative to the 4.1% growth recorded between January and June. Of particular note is the improvement in spending on restaurants, which, according to data from CaixaBank POS terminals, increased by 13.2% year-on-year in the summer of 2025.
Overall, this has been a strong high season for international tourism, with robust and diversified growth. This good performance confirms our outlook for the sector, which we expect to contribute 0.35 pps to this year’s GDP growth and 0.33 pps in 2026.