Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma05/05/2016 00:00
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Following last month's report of a sharp increase in foreign tourist spending in February in the Balearics, the latest figures from the Egatur survey of expenditure confirms a 32% rise for the whole of the first quarter. There was, however, a distinction between average daily spend and the average for a whole stay: the former was up by almost 9% to 126 euros, while the latter fell by 5.2% to 914 euros.

In March alone, the total spend by foreign tourists rose by 39% over March last year, giving a figure of 380 million euros.

In the country as a whole, spending was up by 7.4% in the first quarter (compared with 2015), while in March it rose by 10% (4,838 million euros). The average spend per stay in March was 1,003 euros and the average daily spend matched the quarterly figure for the Balearics - 126 euros.

The UK was the highest contributing tourism market, spending 2,298 million euros in the first quarter - a rise of 16% and almost 19% of all foreign tourist expenditure. The German market, in second position, provided 1,692 million euros, an increase of 2%.

Between January and March, the regions of the country with the greatest levels of spend were the Canaries and Catalonia. In the Canaries, this was 3,957 million euros, an increase of 7% and 32% of all foreign tourist spending in Spain. The total spend in the Balearics, by contrast, was 642 million euros for the first quarter.