Recent figures released by the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade have shown a total of 9 million international tourists visited Spain over the course of the first three months of 2011. The figures which were published by the Frontur opinion poll represent an increase of almost 3% over the same period in 2010.

Despite an decrease of almost 5%, the UK remained the largest percentage of visitors from overseas, as almost 1.8 million tourists visited in the first quarter of the year. This figure was closely followed by Germany with 1.4 7 million visitors to Spain, and France with 1.2 million.

The most popular destination was the Canary Islands which hosted over 2.7 million visitors during Q1, an increase of over 15% for the same period in 2007. The second most popular destination was Catalonia with over 2 million tourists during the period. The Balearic Islands in contrast saw a decrease in tourist visitor figrues of 11.8% with 511,000 visitors in the period.

The increases in tourist visitors are yet more good news for the Spanish property market, which after three years of economic turmoil is slowly showing signs of a gradual economic recovery. Undoubtedly, any potential recovery is still in the embryonic stages, however with the excess supply levels gradually being reduced, and a number of overall transactions steadily increasing, the signs are at last positive for the Spanish property market.

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