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• Restaurants, Food and Beverages, Transport and Accommodation are the main spending categories of travellers at destination
• Consumption by foreigners in Spain is steadily increasing well above the spending of domestic travellers.

Datastur's latest source of information to calculate tourist expenditures are the figures for tourists' payments and transactions at Spanish destinations. A scorecard collects this information and identifies the consumption of foreign and domestic travellers in up to twelve tourism-related expenditure categories.

In Dataestur, point-of-sale (POS) terminal payment data are available at provincial level. Tourist destination managers can access municipal information on their destination through SIT (Tourism Intelligence System).

Expenditures at destination during the first quarter of 2025

According to the latest card payment figures, visitors continue to increase their spending at destination during the first months of the year. Overall, the quarter was up to 10% better than the beginning of 2024. There has also been a large increase (around 60%) in the number of tourism-related transactions by foreigners.

Considering the domestic traveller, spending at destination based on card payments has decreased by around 6% in the first quarter in Spain. However, it should be noted that the quarter this year, unlike in 2024, does not include Easter. The latter was held in April and the expenditure derived from domestic travellers will appear in the second quarter.

The domestic traveller does behave like the foreign traveller in terms of the number of card payments he/she makes: At the beginning of the year, its tourism-related POS transactions have grown by around 13%. The increase in the use of cards as a means of payment leads to a significant reduction in the average amount per transaction. In the case of residents, it is below 20€ (compared to around 24€ last year). In the case of foreign visitors, the average payment is around 34 € (compared to almost 50€ last year).

Distribution of expenditure by destination

Madrid and Barcelona concentrate the biggest proportion of tourist spending at destination, accounting for around 15% of total expenditure associated with credit/debit card payments during the first quarter of 2025.

Broadly speaking, the Canary Islands and Balearic Islands and the Mediterranean coast stand out for the regions with the highest expenditure figures, i.e., the figures in most of their provinces account for 4 to 5% of the total tourist expenditure at destination. Soria, Palencia, Zamora and Ourense have the lowest expenditure.

The distribution of expenditure differs according to whether it comes from international or domestic travellers. Although spending by domestic travellers is more evenly distributed and more similar to total spending, among international travellers, the province of Barcelona stands out in particular, followed by Madrid and the Canary Islands, with figures exceeding 10%. Moreover, expenditure is significantly reduced in many provinces of Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León.

Spending at destination by international travellers

Just four origins account for more than 50% of spending at destination by international travellers in Spain. The chart below shows the ten most important sources of expenditure at destination during the first quarter, accounting for almost 80% of expenditure associated with credit/debit card payments.

The United States is the only non-European country and appears as the second largest consumer. However, their spending is highly concentrated, with Madrid and Barcelona accounting for more than 60% of their consumption. The other major origins require three provincial destinations to reach 50% of expenditure. For example, France divides it between three destinations close to its border: Girona, Barcelona and Gipuzkoa; Germany between the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands; and the United Kingdom between the Canary Islands and the province of Alicante.

The Dataestur dashboard also provides an approximation of the composition of card spending at sales terminals. In total, twelve tourism-related expenditure categories are monitored. The graphs below show how the consumption of the four main origins has been distributed during the first quarter. Restaurants stand out as the first category of expenditure, followed by Food and Beverages and Transport. The fourth seems to be very evenly split between Shopping and Accommodation. In any case, it should be kept in mind that the data refers to payments at PoS terminals in Spain, i.e., it does not include payments made online before arriving, which is often the case for accommodation.

The following classifications show the origins in which each of these categories is most relevant in terms of expenditure in Spain. Only countries whose buyers have spent at least 500.000 € in that category during the first quarter of 2025 are included.

Finally, the aim is to monitor the main expenditure category: Restaurants. The map represents the percentage of foreign travellers' expenditure on restaurants in each province of Spain. Three blocks in particular stand out: One in the north (mainly Bizkaia and Cantabria); one with the whole of central Andalusia; and one comprising Madrid and Toledo.

Spending at destination by domestic travellers

When analysing the expenditure of domestic travellers, it should be borne in mind that only trips outside the province of residence are considered. In these cases, the province of Madrid stands out as the main destination in terms of spending by resident travellers.

The distribution is more evenly spread than in international tourist expenditure, with Castile-La Mancha standing out as one of the new destinations and the Canary Islands losing much of their appeal. Even so, spending is generally higher in the coastal provinces.

Dataestur's dashboard on PoS payment transactions with credit/debit cards can be analysed by province to calculate the distribution of expenditure across the different categories. Furthermore, the figures can be distributed by expenditure of foreign tourists, expenditure of local/national tourists within the same autonomous region and the expenditure of local/national tourists travelling to a different autonomous region.

The following graphs show the distribution of spending by domestic travellers in the four provinces that accounted for most resident spending in the first quarter. In contrast to the expenditure of tourists coming from abroad, the expenditure of local/national tourists in the Food and Beverages category competes for the top position with the Restaurants category; Transport comes up third and Shopping and Accommodation become less prominent.

Evolution of the last 12 months

Card spending at point-of-sale terminals at destination by travellers has generally grown over the last year, mainly thanks to the boost in consumption by foreign shoppers. The only two times in which expenditure fell by more than 5% compared to the previous year can be explained by the fact that Easter Week in 2023 and 2025 was celebrated in April and in 2024 in March. In any case, in recent months there has been a significant slowdown in spending, mainly driven by the fall in residents' consumption.

A comparison of the year-on-year changes in spending by foreigners and residents over the last twelve months shows very different behaviour. Spending by international visitors has grown steadily, improving on previous figures. However, local/national tourist expenditure for the first six months is lower when compared to the previous year and has not grown beyond the rate of variations in prices since June last year.