International Visitor Economy Report Spain Jian Jiao Table of content 1. Introduction 2. Tourism versus Visitor Economy 2.1 Tourism 2.2 Visitor Economy 2.3 Relationship between Tourism and Visitor Economy 3. Strategic Importance of Visitor Economy 3.1 Direct Importance 3.2 Indirect Importance 3.3 Induced Importance 3.4 Strategic Importance 4. Consumer behavior and Visitor Economy 4.1 Motivation 4.2 Ethical Concern 5. Conclusion and Recommendations 6. References list 7. Appendices 1. Introduction Spain, famous for its "sunshine and golden beaches," is the second most visited country globally. Since the 21st century, Spanish tourism has developed rapidly and has become one of the country's pillar industries. The development of tourism in Spain takes innovation and sustainable development as the theme and attaches importance to improving tourism quality. The tourism industry in Spain is flourishing and has achieved remarkable economic results. Tourism accounted for 11.4 percent of Spain's GROSS domestic product in 2019. Despite the epidemic's impact in the past two years, the proportion of foreign visitors declined to some extent. Still, in 2021, Spain received 33.6 million foreign visitors, and the foreign exchange income of tourism reached 37.257 billion euros, continuing to maintain the status of the world's second-largest visitor destination. In Spain, one out of every five employees works in tourism. Due to the tragedy of Spanish history and the coexistence of diverse cultures, dark tourism has also become a focus of tourism in recent years. This report will focus on analyzing the Spanish visitor economy to understand its importance and impact on the Spanish economy, legislation, and policy. The information will also be analyzed to identify the strategic importance of the visitor economy in many aspects. Then it will examine the visitor behavior and the ethical issues of dark tourism. Finally, the conclusions and suggestions are given. 2. Tourism versus Visitor Economy 2.1 Tourism Economy At present, there are many definitions and explanations of tourism economy in the world. To put it simply, tourism economy is a social complex composed of a series of related industries that provide physical products and services to meet the various needs of tourists in the process of tourism (Gómez & Molina, 2011). Yrigoy (2021) believes that "tourism is a variety of business activities carried out by many different independent departments to meet the needs of tourists". From the actual consumption activities of tourists in tourist destinations, tourism is indeed a huge and complicated comprehensive, multiple, social complex industry or mixed industry (Chang, 2018). It is a collection of social and economic departments and industries of tourist destinations that are naturally organized to participate in and penetrate into tourism consumption activities under the common goal of meeting the needs of tourists and obtaining economic benefits. 2.2 Visitor Economy Compared with tourism, the definition of tourist economy is broader. It includes all economic activities of tourists, not only the economic activities and economic relations involving food, housing, transportation, travel, shopping and entertainment between tourists and operators of tourism industry in the process of tourism activities. Even, anything that indirectly affects the tourism-related business in the whole tourism process can be called tourist economy (Grimmer & Vorobjovas-Pinta, 2019). 2.3 Relationship between Tourism and Visitor Economy Compared with tourist economy, tourism economy involves relatively narrow aspects. The development of tourism economy only needs to consider tourism-related industries, which involves relatively narrow fields. The tourist economy is designed to encompass any other relevant industry, including the direct and indirect factors that attract tourists to travel, with a broader scope, greater impact, and broader economic scale (Kim et al., 2021). Therefore, compared with tourism economy, tourist economy is more worthy of us to discuss. 3. Strategic Importance of Visitor Economy 3.1 Direct Importance The economic impact of tourist economy refers to the economic impact of providing direct services and products to tourists. As the second largest tourist destination in Europe, Spain has many famous attractions. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the proportion of Tourism in Spain's GDP has gradually increased. Tourism will account for 13.8% of GDP in 2020 (López, 2021). In 2020, the number of Tourists in Spain reached 33.6 million foreign visitors, and the foreign exchange income of tourism reached 37.257 billion euros, and the trend is increasing (TRADING ECONOMICS, 2022). At the same time, because of Spain's own historical and religious complexity, the economy of dark tourism is also growing. Tourism has become the real driving force of economic development and the basic element of national wealth accumulation. The development rate is generally faster than the growth rate of the national economy. 3.2 Indirect Importance The indirect impact of tourist economy on economy is caused by multiplier effect, which refers to the economic impact of tourist economy by promoting the development of other sectors in the economic system. The most obvious is the employment impact. Employment is a crucial issue in a country's economic development. The employment problem of a country plays an important role in stabilizing its political situation and improving its economic level. In recent years, tourism has made a great contribution to the employment of Spain's working population. In 2020, approximately 26% of total employment in Spain was directly or indirectly employed in tourism-related industries. Horizontally, compared with other sectors of the economy, tourism's ability to create jobs is increasing (Z, 2022). As a major component of the service industry, tourism is a labor-intensive industry with multiple levels and easy access, which can accommodate more labor than other sectors. Take the employment situation of various economic sectors in Spain from 2010 to 2020 as an example. During this period, the number of agricultural and industrial employment decreased significantly, while the number of service employment increased significantly, and the proportion of tourism employment in the total population kept rising. According to statistics, the number of people employed in tourism stood at 2.32 million in 2020, and reached 5.74 million in 2020 (Gutiérrez-Domènech, 2020). It can be seen that tourism has become an effective way to increase employment opportunities and solve employment problems in Spain, indirectly affecting the Spanish economy. 3.3 Induced Importance Induced impact refers to the increase in sales in a country as a result of the direct or indirect expenditure of tourism income brought about by the tourist economy. They spend their wages on local goods and services, influencing the job market, taxes and other sectors of income such as wages. Due to the tourist economy, the cost of living and real estate prices of Spanish residents have been affected to a certain extent, rising by 13 percent and 26 percent respectively (Cladera, 2021). At the same time, due to the substantial growth of tourist economy before 2020, Spain's national tax revenue will be driven. The government receives some revenue from the tourism sector, such as income tax, sales tax and purchase tax. Tax revenues rose by 28%, which in turn allowed the government to use tax revenues to improve local economies and boost other industries. 3.4 Strategic Importance 4. Consumer behavior and Visitor Economy 4.1 Motivation 4.2 Ethical Concern 5. Conclusion and Recommendations 6. References list Chang, S. (2018). Experience economy in the hospitality and tourism context. Tourism Management Perspectives, 27, 83–90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2018.05.001 Cladera, C. (2021, February 4). Spainâs tourism industry feeling the loss of British visitors. EL PAÃS English Edition. https://english.elpais.com/economy_and_business/2021-02-04/spains-tourism- industry-feeling-the-loss-of-britishvisitors.html?msclkid=3f21b29fcf4c11ec9d62e6ee537abbff Gómez, M., & Molina, A. (2011). Wine Tourism in Spain: Denomination of Origin Effects on Brand Equity. International Journal of Tourism Research, 14(4), 353–368. https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.868 Grimmer, L., & Vorobjovas-Pinta, O. (2019). From the sharing economy to the visitor economy: the impact on small retailers. International Journal of Tourism Cities, 6(1), 90–98. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijtc-01-2019-0015 Gutiérrez-Domènech, M. (2020, January 16). The economic impact of the tourism industry in Spain. CaixaBank Research. https://www.caixabankresearch.com/en/economic-impact-tourism-industryspain?msclkid=b347967dcf4b11ec876e5dcc85748145 Kim, Y. R., Liu, A., & Williams, A. M. (2021). Competitiveness in the visitor economy: A systematic literature review. Tourism Economics, 135481662110344. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548166211034437 López, A. M. (2021, September 10). Tourism sector in Spain - statistics & facts. Statista. https://www.statista.com/topics/3867/travel-and-tourism-inspain/?msclkid=5ae0c94bcf4b11eca02355c2b66c24fb TRADING ECONOMICS. (2022). Spain Tourism Revenues - April 2022 Data 1993–2021 Historical - May Forecast - Chart. https://tradingeconomics.com/spain/tourismrevenues?msclkid=5ae124bccf4b11eca71b12e2d8d87d66 Yrigoy, I. (2021). Strengthening the political economy of tourism: profits, rents and finance. Tourism Geographies, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2021.1894227 Z, E. (2022, February 10). Spain: Tourism and employment boom puts economy back on track. Evans Z. https://think.ing.com/articles/tourism-employment-boomputs-spain-back-on-track/?msclkid=b3476cd4cf4b11ecb0629e5172ff0d77 7. Appendices Two website maybe use https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/8ed5145ben/index.html?itemId=/content/component/8ed5145b-en#section-d1e91181 https://www.statista.com/topics/3867/travel-and-tourism-in-spain/
