Tourism and civil war: Is this Catalonia, the home of Barcelona and Costa Brava?

Catalonia
Catalonia
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Costa Brava, Girona, Loret de Mar, Barcelona – all are Spanish tourism capitals where millions of visitors arrive on their holidays. As of today, a majority of locals don’t want anything to do with Spain and are calling this region Catalonia and a separate country. 

Germans, British, and Italian tourists are now sharing crowded beaches and hotels, party venues ,and attractions with vacationers from all over the world. The economy in Catalonia is dependent on the travel and tourism industry, on conventions and meetings, and on tourism attractions, nightlife, and more. Costa Brava and Barcelona had been top European getaways for decades.

Many foreigners, noticeably many Germans, British, and Russians, have substantial investments and homes in the region that is known as Catalonia.

Catalonia may be on the verge of a civil war after declaring independence, and Spanish authorities are marching to the region to take over and rescue the region, but it may be too late.

The announcement of independence came timely on a weekend when stock markets are closed and the weekend would give time for a situation to take shape. Is this situation a violent civil war? All options are on the table. The U.K. and other European countries were fast to say they would not recognize Catalonia as an independent country.

According to ForwardKeys, which helps forecast future travel by analyzing around 17 million flight booking transactions a day, international air reservations for Catalonia have fallen 22% since the beginning of October (up to October 25), benchmarked against the equivalent dates last year.

Olivier Jager, CEO, ForwardKeys, said: “Domestic political unrest almost always deters visitors, and that is what we are seeing now – a 22% collapse in international flight bookings for Catalonia. This will also have a knock-on to other parts of Spain, because many visitors arriving in Catalonia will travel around the country. If the political crisis worsens, I fear we will see a further decline in bookings. This trend will be of great concern because Travel & Tourism represents such a large proportion of the Spanish economy, over 14% of GDP [source: WTTC].”

 

About the author

Avatar of Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen Thomas Steinmetz has continuously worked in the travel and tourism industry since he was a teenager in Germany (1977).
He founded eTurboNews in 1999 as the first online newsletter for the global travel tourism industry.

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