The Nature of Spain’s International Cultural Tourism throughout the Economic Crisis (2008–2016): A Macroeconomic Analysis of Tourist Arrivals and Spending

Carmen Hidalgo,Olivier Maene

doi:10.3390/economies5030032

Carmen Hidalgo, Olivier Maene

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/economies5030032

Copy DOI

Abstract

Since the global economic and financial crisis of 2008, tourism has taken up a central position in the recovery of Spain’s severely damaged economy. If the first years after the recession signaled a considerable decline of the tourism sector, the later years in which those countries with the highest numbers of outgoing tourists to Spain had recovered, consolidated the tourism sector as one of the principal drivers of economic development. Testament to this are its contribution to a growing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and decreasing unemployment, and its ability to stabilize the country’s balance of payments. On the other hand, tourism has also proven to be a complex economic sector, in which various factors have come together in different forms. Faced with the impossibility to consider every single one of these factors, this study has limited itself to researching those indicators that shape the international character of Spain’s cultural tourism sector, and subsequently determining how this sector performed from a macroeconomic perspective. The outcome of this study is to detect patterns that may allow for the development of more effective means for managing cultural tourism. The descriptive analysis of official cultural and tourism statistical data, and the synthetic representation of the results in various tables and graphs indicate that cultural tourism, at least in terms of international tourist arrivals, has indeed remained stable throughout the crisis, even though it has not grown significantly ever since.

Highlights

Seetanah (2011) claim that there remain a number of scholars who question the relationship between tourism and economic growth (Oh 2005; Lee 2006; Brau et al 2007; Figini and Vici 2009), the scientific literature is practically unanimous in considering tourism a driver of economic development, not in the least in terms of creating jobs, contributing to the balance of payments, and providing local income to tourist destinations (Lea 1988; Sinclair 1998; Balaguer and Cantavella-Jordá 2002; Cuadrado-Roura and López 2011; Nieto et al 2016)
Between 1994 and 2007, Spain experienced a period of historic significance in terms of macroeconomic expansion: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rose about 70%, with annual growth rates of approximately
Even though economic indicators already noted some global economic fluctuation throughout the year 2007, it was not until September of 2008 that the crash of the U.S bank Lehman Brothers triggered a financial crisis that extended across both sides of the Atlantic, rapidly affecting the Eurozone

Summary

Introduction

Seetanah (2011) claim that there remain a number of scholars who question the relationship between tourism and economic growth (Oh 2005; Lee 2006; Brau et al 2007; Figini and Vici 2009), the scientific literature is practically unanimous in considering tourism a driver of economic development, not in the least in terms of creating jobs, contributing to the balance of payments, and providing local income to tourist destinations (Lea 1988; Sinclair 1998; Balaguer and Cantavella-Jordá 2002; Cuadrado-Roura and López 2011; Nieto et al 2016). The global relevance international tourism has acquired over the past few decades has awakened an interest on the part of specialists who, in addition to publishing an extensive bibliography of this field in a relatively short period (Dwyer et al 2010; Tribe 2011), have inquired more deeply into the relationship between tourism and the economic reality of today’s world It is understandable, that in recent years numerous studies have focused on the nature of tourism throughout the global economic crisis, which started in 2008 (Eugenio-Martín and Campos-Soria 2014; Stylidis and Terzidou 2014).

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion