Canarias led in January 2016 the arrival of international tourists with more than a million visitors, the same figure as in January last year, representing 29.8% of the national total, according to the Survey of Tourist Movements in Frontera (Frontur) developed by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

By markets, the British islands lead with 29.9%, followed by the Nordic with 24.9%.


Meanwhile, Spain exceeded the historical peak in January last year with 3.5 million foreign tourists, an increase of 11.2% over the same month of 2015.

Among the source markets, the UK and France improved their figures from a year ago to 16.2% and 8.5% respectively, while Germany recorded a slight decrease (-0.3%).

In absolute terms, Switzerland was the source market which recorded a higher year increase with 36.7% more than in January 2015, adding 80,248 visitors, they followed Ireland and Portugal were registered an increase of 23.3% and 18 , 5%, respectively.

By contrast, tourists from the United States fell by 9% and Russia fell by 2.5%.

All regions showed increases, except the Canary Islands which remained stable, followed by Catalonia and Andalusia. The largest increases were for Valencia (+ 21.2%) and the Andalusian region (+ 20.6%).

UK, the main market for Spain, recorded a rise of 16.2% in January, with 706,275 visitors, representing 20.1% of the total.

THE NORDIC are secured
It was followed by France, which accounted for 13.5% of the total, an increase of 13.5% in the number of arrivals to 473,225 visitors.

Germany, the third largest market, had a decrease of 0.3% in the first month of 2015, up to 460.117 German tourists, capturing 13.1% of the total.

Meanwhile, the Nordic countries are strengthened as a fourth source market with 11.2% of the total and 391,907 visitors, 12.8% more than in the first month of 2015, while Italy, fifth source market by volume of tourists increased by 11.7% arrivals, up to 219,973 visitors, 6.3% of the total recorded during January inputs.