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• Madrid is the destination par excellence, especially thanks to domestic tourism.
• The Canary Islands are the preferred destination for international tourists during the Christmas season, with municipalities that concentrate a large number of arrivals.
• Together, Andalusia and Catalonia are the autonomous regions with the most tourists due to strong internal tourism in both regions.

What is the favorite destination for Christmas in Spain? INE statistics give us clues to identify the most sought-after destinations, based on December 2022 and January 2023 data from the Statistics of Tourist Movements at the Border (FRONTUR), the Resident Tourist Surveys (ETR) and the experimental statistics for measuring tourism from mobile phones.

The most visited autonomous regions

Andalusia was the destination of the most tourist trips during the last holiday period. In total, it welcomed more than five million tourists. Its leadership is mainly due to domestic tourism and, in particular, to the strong presence of internal travel within the autonomous region.

The Region of Madrid is, however, the main destination in Spain during the Christmas months if we exclude the trips made within the autonomous region itself. The region received 2.7 million tourists. The Canary Islands come second, albeit placing first in international tourists (almost 30% of those who arrived in Spain).

The map above shows the distribution of tourists in the months of December 2022 and January 2023 according to data from Frontur and ETR. It also shows the percentage of domestic tourism out of the total number of tourists per autonomous region.

At Christmas, compared to the other major holiday period in Spain, the inland regions seem to have a more prominent role. Between the months of December 2022 and January 2023, they received a similar number of resident tourists to those who arrived in months with much more tourism such as July and August 2022. Extremadura is the most extreme case, since it received more tourists in the Christmas months than in the summer months.

Where are most tourism from?

The holiday flow of resident tourism at Christmas is very parallel, and the eight regions that exceed one million tourists between December and January are the same eight autonomous regions that register an outflow of more than one million tourists.

In most of these regions, trips within the region are the most common, with the exception of the Region of Madrid and, to a lesser extent, Castile-La Mancha. In the former, internal trips have a practically negligible presence and its two neighbours, Castile-La Mancha and Castile and Leon, receive practically half of their own tourists. Regarding the La Mancha region, the Region of Madrid is the destination of almost one in two of the trips of its residents. In both regions and compared to the summer period, at Christmas there is a greater tendency to select closer destinations and less presence of coastal destinations.

Analysis of Christmas Tourism by Provinces

The provinces of Madrid and Barcelona stand out as tourist destinations in the Christmas months due to the usual strong draw of their capitals. The city of Madrid concentrates around 62% of the tourists who come to the region. Barcelona accounts for just over half of the tourists who come to its province. In both cases, out of the total number of tourists, the percentage is a few points lower than during the rest of 2023.

Tourist concentration in a few municipalities is common in almost all of the most visited provinces. The most notable cases, along with Madrid and Barcelona, ​​are those of Seville and Valencia, which account for more than 50 and 40% of the tourists in their province respectively.

Additionally, it is common among the provinces with more internal tourism (sum of international tourists and Spanish residents) that more tourists choose their capitals in December and January than during the rest of the year. Among the provinces with more than one million tourists between December 2022 and January 2023, only Madrid, Barcelona and Seville are exceptions.

At Christmas, visiting family and/or friends stands out as the main reason for travelling for internal tourism. This is the case in the eight provinces that exceeded 800,000 national tourists in the past months of December and January, with the exception of Valencia. The largest increases occurred in the provinces of Malaga, Seville, Alicante and Barcelona during the month of December and above 15% compared to the first half of 2023.

At the national level, visits to family and/or friends account for over 10% more trips than in the rest of the year. This coincides with a notable difference in spending on accommodation in these months compared to the rest of the year. During December and January, spending on accommodation drops by almost 30% compared to the average for the first half of 2023 (while total spending barely drops by 10% and places the average spending per tourist at around €195 compared to €203 on average during the first half of the year). Out of the provinces with the most internal tourism, only Madrid and Toledo show more spending in the Christmas months than in the rest of the year.

The most visited municipalities

Madrid is the only municipality that exceeded 2.5 million tourists last Christmas, receiving one in ten tourists from Spain. Barcelona barely reached 1.5 million and Seville and Valencia surpassed 500,000 tourists. The four of them concentrated around 20% of all tourists in Spain.

Madrid stands out as the main destination at Christmas, especially for domestic trips. In fact, it approached 2 million resident tourists, almost four times the number of visitors to Barcelona.

The vast majority of the municipalities with the most domestic tourists are provincial capitals. In the top 20, only Vigo, Benidorm and Jerez de la Frontera are not capitals. We should note the presence of up to five Andalusian cities (Seville, Granada, Málaga, Córdoba and Jerez de la Frontera), the inclusion of the three capitals of the Basque Country, and Vigo's position as the most visited city in Galicia at Christmas after several years strongly promoting their Christmas activities.

The main destination for international tourists last Christmas was Barcelona, followed by Madrid. Valencia, Benidorm, Malaga and Seville complete the top of municipalities most visited by both domestic and foreign tourists.

When we analyse the municipalities that received at least around 150,000 tourists, the presence of up to 10 destinations on the Canary Islands is striking. In fact, they accounted for 25% of the foreign tourists who arrived in Spain last Christmas. Adeje and Arona (on the island of Tenerife) and San Bartolomé de Tirajana (on the island of Gran Canaria) stand out with around 400,000 tourists.