NATIONAL, All INDIA, 26 NOVEMBER, 2024 (TGN) : Indians are looking forward to Madrid: The Community received 57,435 visitors from India in 2023, 73% more than in 2022 and almost 20% more than in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. Madrid offers the three characteristics that Indian travellers value the most: culture, sustainability, and safety.
All-time high: 7.8 million visitors from all over the world chose Madrid in the last year, 30% more than in 2022 and with 40% more spending.
MADRID 7-STAR DESTINATION: Madrid is fashionable all over the world, and particularly among Indian tourists, who grew by 73% in 2023. The figure is also 18% higher than that of the last pre-pandemic metric, that of 2019. In total, 67,435 Indian tourists out of the almost 250,000 who chose the Community of Madrid. The reason is that Madrid has an offer that is especially attractive for Indian visitors, who see their main motivations for visiting us satisfied: culture, sustainability and the safety of the destination. Indian tourists have a high cultural level and like to travel with their families to safe destinations.
Popular tourism products for the Indian market include gastronomy, luxury and shopping, art and culture, and MICE travel. Everything that the Indian tourist expects from Europe fits perfectly with what the Community of Madrid offers and ensures that the exponential growth continues, particularly among upper-middle class tourists, who are very interested in shopping tourism, urban destinations and high-end shopping and with a growing curiosity about Spain.
This growing love story between India and Madrid continues in 2024, in view of the provisional figures. This is also the opinion of the latest study by Oxford Economics, which confirms estimates of a steady rise in spending over the next few years, with growth rates of 13.6% and 12.5% for the years 2024 and 2025 respectively. To give us an idea, Indian tourists spend an average of 2,430 euros per person in Spain, which is 408 euros per day, with an average stay of 6 days. The total expenditure of Indians in Spain was 584.8 million euros in 2023, with an increase of 67% compared to 2022 and 48% compared to 2019.
All these reasons have led the Community of Madrid to reach its all-time high in visitors: 7.8 million in 2023, 1.7 million more visitors than in the previous year. Although this increase is extraordinary and reaches almost 30%, it falls far short of the 73% increase in Indian tourists mentioned. The forecasts for 2024 are also for growth. Between January and June, the region received 4.4 million foreign tourists, representing a 17% growth.
The reasons for these increases include the opening of commercial flights from India at the end of March 2022, and the simplification in 2020 of visa application requirements, which reduced the processing period to 4 working days on average.
Finally, Turespaña has pointed out another curious cause of India’s interest in Spain: the great success of the Bollywood film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, released in 2011 and shot in Spain.
