Turespaña, the tourism office in Spain, has published its most recent report, which revealed that there was a 9.8% year-on-year increase in the number of seats offered on flights in October 2023.
Meanwhile, in the same month of the previous year, the number of tickets offered to passengers for international flights was around 9.6 million.
As per statistics, there is a substantial difference of 393,552 more seats between 2019 and 2023.
Back in 2019, a total of 10.1 million planned seats were recorded in the month of October alone, which were largely available to international passengers.
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As per the tourism office in Spain, Poland stood out with its performance in October 2023 by showing a year-on-year spike of 47.4%, as compared to October 2022.
On the other hand, the Czech Republic and Portugal showed a year-on-year surge of 26.6% and 21.2% in October 2023, respectively, in comparison to the corresponding period of the previous year.
Another country that reported a note-worthy year-on-year growth in seats offered to international air travel passengers was Mexico. It showed an increase of 20.5% when compared to October 2022.
Héctor Gómez
Shortly after the report was published, Héctor Gómez, the Minister of Industry, Trade, and Tourism, highlighted that these new numbers indicate that the European markets are growing.
In his words, the year-on-year surge in planned seats shows positive development of distant markets as well, such as the United States and Mexico.
He went on to emphasize the importance of securing and maintaining air connectivity as a way to promote Spain as a diverse, sustainable, and high-quality tourist location for travelers.
The Minister further divulged the forecast for the last quarter of the year, saying that the country will end the current year on a good note.
In terms of tourism, he is hoping that the extraordinary growth continues in the upcoming year as well.
Percentage of seats
As per the report published by the tourism office in Spain, a number of countries booked a significant number of seats.
The United Kingdom was reported to be at the top of the list of the percentage of seats on scheduled flights according to country. It registered 22.7% of the overall reserved seats.
Meanwhile, Germany took up 14.9% of the total chunk of flights, and Italy recorded 8.9%. Together, the three countries combined made up almost half of all reserved seats.
A while ago, Spanish authorities also revealed that various airlines in the country had managed to reserve more than 32.4 million seats where flights to the country are concerned.
All of these were booked for the months of June, July, and August, which indicated a notable recovery of 94% when compared to the corresponding period of 2022.
Consequently, the Minister of Industry, Commerce, and Tourism stated that among the markets that sent travelers to Spain, Austria displayed a year-on-year surge of 7.1%.
In addition, Norway showed a surge of 6.9%, Denmark registered 6.2%, and Poland recorded 2.3%, as compared to the previous year.
