Record spending by British tourists in the Valencia region

The UK is Spain's largest source market and reaches the end of the fair with rising numbers. Between January and August 2026, Spain received 13.9 million British tourists, 5.4% more than in the same period of 2025, and their spending reached €17.251bn, up 4.4%, according to figures presented by Turespaña at the World Travel Market (WTM) in London, which closes on Thursday.

What happened

The WTM, one of the world's largest trade fairs for the sector, runs from 3 to 5 November at ExCeL London, with more than 46,000 professionals and around 4,000 exhibitors. Spain is attending as the event's first official accessibility partner and is presenting the campaign «Spain, a Country for All». An agreement signed in June with the British travel association ABTA will allow both sides to share data on flows, spending, length of stay, residents' perceptions and the impact on natural resources in four pilot destinations: Benidorm, Calvià, Lloret de Mar and Sevilla.

On Tuesday, at the opening, the hoteliers' association Hosbec presented its report on the British market. The Valencia region expects to close 2026 with 3.05 million UK tourists, 21.2 million nights and €3.35bn of spending, its best figures on record. Visitor numbers are 7.5% above 2019 (2.84 million) and spending is 36% higher than before the pandemic (€2.46bn). But nights (21.2 million) are still short of the 21.7 million recorded in 2019. «The British are not just coming back: they are coming more, spending more and arriving via more routes than ever,» said Hosbec president Fede Fuster.

The shift in the pattern shows up in hotels. Between January and August, Valencian establishments hosted 964,380 British tourists, 6% more than in 2025, who generated 4.36 million nights (+0.1%) and €256m of hotel spending (+5.2%). The average daily rate rose 5% to €120.4, while the average stay fell from 4.8 to 4.6 days. In Benidorm, the destination that accounts for 72% of the region's British hotel guests, 793,259 UK tourists arrived between January and September, 41.6% of the total, with 3.9 million nights. Alicante-Elche airport received 2.7 million British passengers up to September, 6.7% more, with connections from 23 UK airports.

The demand data point to a traveller who has not given up on going away. 88% of Britons took a holiday in the last twelve months, the highest figure on record, and 62% went abroad, three points more. Spain is their first choice: 36% of travellers picked it, ahead of France (24%), Italy (15%), the United States (14%) and Greece (12%), according to ABTA. 63% of those travelling abroad choose a package. At the same time, 57% cite overcrowding and 54% water stress among their concerns.

The map: Spain, second in the world

The map colours countries by international tourist arrivals in 2024, the latest complete UN Tourism series. Spain ranks second in the world, with 93,759,297 arrivals, behind France (102,000,000) and ahead of the United States (72,390,321), Turkey (60,600,000) and Italy (57,725,000). The gap to first place is 8.24 million arrivals.

The UK appears on the map as the world's seventh destination, with 38,229,568 arrivals, and is also Spain's largest source market. It is both customer and competitor: it receives tens of millions of travellers while sending Spain more than thirteen million between January and August alone. Germany (37.42 million), Greece (36 million) and Portugal (28.97 million) complete the European group around Spain in the table.

The map helps to size the market; it does not explain the record on its own. It measures arrivals, not spending or length of stay, and its figures are from 2024, before the year now closing. Spain's position as the world's second tourism power explains why the British market matters so much, but the rise in spending and the shorter stays depend on connectivity, prices and preferences captured by industry surveys.

What comes next

The fair closes on Thursday with attention on winter and the 2027 season. The signals are uneven: in the Canary Islands, where the British market accounts for more than 30% of visitors, planned winter air capacity is down 3% and summer 2027 capacity is 4% lower. That moderation sits alongside the Valencia region's spending record and Turespaña's push for a model based on value rather than volume.

«Governing tourism means guaranteeing its sustainability and its future,» Spain's secretary of state for tourism, Rosario Sánchez, said at the fair. The agreement with ABTA and the four pilot destinations will measure flows, spending, stays and residents' perceptions over two years. The question the WTM leaves behind is not how many Britons will come, but how much they will spend and on what terms.