Tourism ended this year’s summer season in great shape with international tourist arrivals coming very close to the records set in 2019, a year that was extremely positive for the industry. Domestic tourism has also continued to post very good figures. However, the macroeconomic scenario represents a risk for the trend in tourism activity over the coming quarters due to high inflation and the economic slowdown in Europe. Nevertheless, we believe that tourism demand still enjoys significant levers for growth in the coming year and we therefore expect the sector to complete its recovery in 2023.

The spread of the coronavirus throughout the world has come as an unprecedented shock to the global economy. The Spanish economy has been particularly hard hit, partly because of its greater dependence on international tourism. In the second half of the year, we expect the economic recovery to take hold thanks to the easing of social distancing measures and the boost provided by the wide range of fiscal and monetary measures adopted. However, we believe the economy will continue to operate below potential over the next few years.

In recent years, rural tourism has become increasingly important in Spain, opening up new avenues to diversify the sources of income for rural economies. In this article, based on internal CaixaBank data, we look at the upturn in the sector after the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for the economic resilience of rural Spain and for the tourism industry, given its high level of sustainability both from the point of view of its impact on the environment and its greater geographic diversification and more limited seasonality compared to other, more traditional forms of tourism such as sun, sea and sand destinations.

The Spanish economy has a diverse, export-oriented and highly productive manufacturing sector. However, the business fabric is still highly fragmented compared to German industry, a European benchmark. Increasing company size and the productivity of companies, through investment in R&D and adopting new digital technologies, and moving towards Industry 4.0 are key in the increasing competitiveness of a fundamental sector for the economy and for the Spanish foreign sector. The sector must also evolve towards a more sustainable industrial model: only companies that successfully undertake the energy transition will be able to compete in a new environment in which sustainability will be a prerequisite for continuing to operate in the market.

In 2023, Spain’s tourism sector remained on the path of recovery and growth, surpassing initial expectations and breaking records, not only in nominal expenditure but also in real terms. In 2024, we expect the positive trend for Spain’s tourism sector to continue and its GDP to increase by 2.5%, with the sector outpacing the overall economy and remaining one of the drivers of the Spanish economy.

Activity in the real estate market is recovering from the extraordinary slump experienced during the strictest months of lockdown. House sales picked up notably in the first few months of 2021 while new building permits continue to recover gradually. On the other hand, house prices have accentuated their downward trend observed since mid-2018. Nevertheless, their performance was surprisingly resilient during the pandemic, particularly the prices for new builds, and we expect house prices to continue posting moderate but steady gains in the coming quarters.

Disruptions in global supply chains, present in markets since the end of 2020 due to the reactivation of demand after the worst phases of the pandemic, and later due to the effects of the war in Ukraine and the persistence of COVID-19 in Asia, affected activity in some manufacturing branches throughout the second half of 2021 and, above all, in 2022. In some sectors, the most intense episodes of difficulties for international trade forced production to be cut back on an ad hoc basis, or even to come to a halt. Logically, those industries most dependent on imports of raw materials and/or intermediate goods for their production processes, as well as those with greater complexity in their value chains, suffered the most.

The restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the coronavirus and caution due to the prevailing uncertainty led to a large increase in savings by Spanish households in 2020. Specifically, we estimate that cumulative savings from the pandemic reached €46.6 billion, 3.7% of 2019’s GDP. This sharp increase in savings has diminished as we have been able to return to our old habits, leading to a rapid recovery in consumption; a trend that will most likely continue in the coming quarters.

The pharmaceutical industry is a key and strategic sector for Spain’s economy, as was clearly demonstrated by the pandemic. In the past 25 years, the sector has become hugely significant and an important driver of Spanish exports and private R&D investment. Nevertheless, its production capacity still has room for improvement. The future of Spanish industry should be more closely linked to the pharmaceutical sector with a commitment to promote its growth, not only for strategic purposes but also for purely economic reasons, since it is an extremely competitive industry with a great capacity to generate good quality jobs that would help to modernise Spain’s economy.

Agrifood exports have continued to perform very well during the pandemic within a context where international trade has been particularly hard hit by the crisis. Swine meat, fruit and some fresh vegetables have been in greatest demand, while the Basque Country and especially Aragon have been the regions posting the largest growth in exports between January and July 2020. Despite this favourable performance to date, however, the sector is keeping a close eye on developments in global trade tensions, especially between the US and EU and the Brexit negotiations.

Based on CaixaBank’s internal data regarding rent payments, we have constructed indicators for the recent trend in residential rental prices at a provincial level and for the largest municipalities. The results obtained show that there was already a generalised slowdown in rent growth before the pandemic arrived, and that the outbreak of the health crisis extended corrections to most provinces and municipalities, with decreases being especially pronounced among the lowest rents and in the most tourist-oriented municipalities.

One of the consequences of the COVID-19 health crisis has been the increased awareness of the population and, by extension, that of politicians regarding the need to include sustainability criteria in economic policies in order to promote a more sustainable and resilient reactivation of the economy. The tourism industry is no stranger to these trends; firstly, because its business can be adversely affected by the consequences of climate change and, secondly, because there is ample scope for the industry to become more sustainable. This article attempts to determine what we understand by sustainability in the tourism sector, how it can be measured, the current situation of Spain’s tourism industry and where it is heading.

El nostre director d’Estudis va presentar a la Societat Catalana d’Economia els principals resultats de l’estudi de l’impacte de la COVID-19 en la desigualtat, que estem duent a terme en col·laboració amb ICREA-UPF i que pots seguir a realtimeeconomics.caixabankresearch.com