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A delegation from Andalucía's Ministry of Tourism is currently on the road in Asia, running professional workshops in Shenzhen, Chengdu, Tokyo and Seoul until September 25, connecting around a dozen Andalusian tourism companies with specialist buyers from China, Japan and South Korea. The initiative, run in collaboration with Turespaña, is part of a clear strategic push to grow these markets, and the numbers behind it explain why.

 

Between January and July, visitors from those three countries generated more than 427,000 overnight hotel stays in Andalucía, a 4.7% increase on the same period last year, with China driving the largest share of that growth. Andalucía currently ranks third among Spanish destinations for Asian visitors, behind only Catalonia and Madrid, both of which benefit from direct flight connections that Andalucía doesn't yet have.

 

The push mirrors efforts seen elsewhere in Spain earlier this year, including in Alicante, which set its sights on the Chinese market as part of a broader international tourism strategy. The appeal of Asian visitors is consistent across all these destinations for similar reasons.

 

Those reasons come down to spending power and timing. Japanese visitors spend an average of €584 per person per day when in Spain, Koreans €480 and Chinese visitors €459, with total expenditure per stay exceeding €2,700. They also tend to visit outside the summer months, which makes them particularly valuable to destinations trying to reduce the relentless seasonal peaks that put pressure on infrastructure and communities alike. Add to that an average age of under 38 and a strong preference for cultural visits, heritage sites, gastronomy and shopping, and you have a visitor profile that fits Andalucía rather well.

 

The workshops are a practical attempt to bridge the gap between Andalusian operators and the travel agents and tour operators in Asia who actually shape where these travellers end up going. Getting a region onto an Asian travel agent's recommended list, rather than simply hoping visitors find it themselves, is a more direct route to growing that market.

 

Whether it translates into more direct flight routes in the coming years will be the real test of how serious this push is.

 

 

Image: Junta de Andalucía