Spain Vacation Home Sales Enjoy Boost From Resilient Tourism Industry

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(MALLORCA, SPAIN) -- Spanish tourism group FRONTUR is reporting strong summer tourism numbers for Spain's both residential resort and hotel industries.

Last month, FRONTUR reported 7.64 million foreign tourists visited Spain, a 9.4 percent increase over the same month in 2010. The August numbers marked an all-time monthly high for the country.

Since the beginning of 2011, 40 million tourists have visited Spain, representing a 7.8 percent increase over the same period in 2010.

The Ministry of Industry which produces the tourist movement survey suggests that August visitor figures "reinforces the good prospects of Spain in 2011"  highlighted by the fourth best year in the history of Spanish tourism, a great achievement considering the economic recovery only began back in the second half of 2010.

Further data indicates that while Brits are one of the most regular and loyal visitors to Spanish shores at 9.5 million annual visitors, there has been impressive increases in numbers of other foreign visitors to Spain between January and August this year. For example, there was a 16.7 percent rise in American tourists in the month of August as well as a 12.3 percent jump from Germany and 10.5 percent increase from Italy.

By destination, Catalonia was the largest recipient of foreign tourists receiving 1.9 million visitors in August while the Balearic Islands followed closely behind with 1.8 million tourists in the same month. Meanwhile, 1 million visitors flocked to Andalucía, 821,000 tourists visited the Canary Islands while 737,000 foreigners picked Valencia and 550,000 made Madrid their destination of choice.

"Despite difficult economic conditions across mainland Europe, Spain is one of the most resilient holiday destinations, remaining popular with foreigners whatever the market conditions," said Ignacio Osle, sales and marketing manager of Taylor Wimpey España. "Recently, the IMF stated that Spain will be the only country that will experience higher levels of growth next year compared to its European counterparts of France, Italy and Greece. Spain has a global appeal as a tourist destination; we have even seen 53,000 tourists arrive from India in the first half of this year, representing a 35 percent increase.

"Spain is recovering well especially with the help of the country's overall tourism drive and low cost airlines like EasyJet increasing the number of flights it operates from the Netherlands to destinations such as Mallorca next year. Indeed, Mallorca is one such destination that has performed better on the property front than its mainland counterparts offering strong rental market potential."

One residential resort development doing well is Cala Magrana in Mallorca.

Following the success of Cala Magrana's first two phases, Taylor Wimpey España is now launching the third phase comprising 20 stunning apartments in situated 600 meters to Cala Anguila beach, a selection of golf courses and the marina of Porto Cristo.

Costing from $297,352 plus value added tax; this residential development consists of two-bedroom apartments surrounding a communal garden with a swimming pool. Ground floor apartments have a spacious terrace with a garden for private use while top-floor apartments benefit from a roof terrace also for private use.

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