Jordi Hereu announces that tourism employment grew by almost 5% in February to almost 2.6 million workers

Jordi Hereu highlighted "the extraordinary employment figures in the tourism sector", which have seen uninterrupted growth in national insurance contributors since June 2021. "We are in a positive economic situation, and the administrations have to take advantage of this to continue improving the skilled and well-paid labour market", Hereu remarked.

During his participation in the tourism forum organised by eldiario.es in Madrid, Hereu also advocated the promotion of quality tourism with Easter just around the corner, which, according to forecasts, will once again break historical records in terms of visitors and spending in 2023.

Turespaña's forecast for March and April, which includes Holy Week and Easter, indicates that Spain will receive 14.5 million tourists, 2 million more than in the same period last year. In terms of spending, forecasting models also predict significant growth (almost 19 billion euros in spending for the two months combined, around 3.7 billion euros more than in the same period in 2023).

In his speech, Hereu expressed the Government's desire to move towards a model which, "without disdaining quantity, has quality as its main objective" and he specified that "this commitment to quality does not mean a commitment to luxury tourism, nor an abusive increase in prices, but rather the search for tourism that respects heritage, culture and the environment".

"In any case, and beyond Easter and the logical optimism associated with historic figures", Hereu pointed out, "we must continue to promote and care for the tourism sector, one of the pillars of our economy, with policies that make it more sustainable, with increasingly better conditions for workers, that it reaches all areas and, at the same time, is attractive to visitors all year round".

Non official translation