Spanish Airports company AENA handled a total of 230.2m passengers in 2016, up 11% on 2015 – while it managed 85,000sq m of tax free and tax paid retail facilities across 48 airports in 2016.
Last year, the airports company also let more than 40,000sq m of tax free shop areas in its airports’ network comprising more than 70 outlets – including 20 walk-through shops.

 

In addition, it leased another 45,000sq m of ‘normal tax system’ shop areas, comprising more than 350 shops – including luxury outlets.

 
This retail business compares with the quite separate 110,000sq m of restaurant space – or 340 outlets of all types – that AENA leases out from small cafes, right through to prestige F&B outlets throughout its airports’ network.

 

TREMENDOUS RESULT FOR AENA

Remarkably, all but one of AENA’s top 21 passenger airports reported good growth last year and only nine out of the total 48 monitored by AENA showed traffic declines in 2016 – while seven reported impressive eight-figure passenger traffic results [see table for all 48 airport passenger results-Ed].

 
In terms of passenger traffic volumes, the seven biggest major airports in descending order last year were: Madrid-Barajas up +7.7% to 50.4m passengers, followed by Barcelona +11.2% (44.1m pax); Palma de Mallorca +10.6% (26.2m); Malaga Costa Del Sol +15.7% (16.6m); Alicante-Elche +16.7% (12.3m); Gran Canaria +13.8% (12m); and Tenerife-Sur +14.9% (10.4m).

 

 

 

Meanwhile, the Spanish Ministry of Tourism has reported that a total of 75.3m visitor arrivals accounted for a +9.9% increase in 2016 compared to 2015, with this new all-time record joining another as total visitor expenditures reached €77bn ($82bn) for the very first time.

 

TOURIST SPENDS ALSO INCREASED

Not surprisingly, Minister of Energy, Tourism and Digital Agenda, Álvaro Nadal acknowledged that this was a good result, alongside the average spend per tourist of €1,023 ($1,087) and average daily expenditure of €138 ($147) – another rise of 6.5% according to the Institute National Statistics Office (INE).

 

According to Tourism Statistics on Frontiers (FRONTUR) statistics produced in association with the Institute National Statistics Office (INE), nearly 17m UK visitors chose to visit Spain last year, representing an increase of 12.3% over the first 11 months of 2015.

 

 

In addition, initial statistics released show there were 10.8m tourists from France (+7.1%) and 10.7m from Germany (+6.1%), while Catalonia was the main autonomous region attracting more than 17m international tourists (+3.8%).

 

 

This was followed by The Balearic Islands with 12.9m (+12%), and the Canary Islands with 12m (+12.7%).