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The forecasted growth of tourism in Spain is lower than expected due to a sluggish summer

The growth of Spain's tourism sector has been slowed sharply due to lower spending by Europeans and Americans, according to industry group Exceltur. Its contribution to the economic growth this year will also be less than expected.

Exceltur expects that all tourism related activity in the second most visited country in the world will grow by 2.8% by 2025. This is a reduction from its previous estimate of 3.3% and from 5.5% last year.

The group's initial estimate of 13,5% for the contribution of tourism to Spain's Gross Domestic Product was revised down to 13.1%.

Oscar Perelli, Exceltur's Vice President of Communications, said at a press conference that tourism is not the primary driver of Spain's economy. He added that it will not exceed the expected 2.6% economic growth in Spain.

The World Travel and Tourism Council projected that the number of international visitors would fall below the 100 million predicted earlier in the year.

Spain recorded a record number of tourists last year. In August of this year, 66.8 millions tourists had visited, an increase of 3.9% compared to the same period last year.

Jordi Hieru, the Spanish Tourism Minister, said that "I do not know if" we will reach 100 million tourists. He added that this was no cause for alarm, as tourist spending is still increasing.

The sales of hotels, airlines and restaurants as well as other tourism related businesses rose by 2.8% in the peak summer season. This is a marked drop from the 6.3% increase recorded at the same period last year. Exceltur anticipates a 2% increase in sales for the fourth quarter.

Exceltur reported that the slowing of growth was due to lower spending by German, French, Turkish and United States tourists. The increase of tourists from Britain (which accounts for 26,5% of the total number of visitors), China, and Poland helped to offset the trend in the peak season. However, the number of local tourists remained the same. Reporting by Corina Poons, Editing by Andrei Khalip & Peter Graff

(source: Reuters)