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Madrid bombing won’t dent Spanish tourism, says WTO
The World Tourism Organization (WTO) says it is “convinced” that the terrorist attacks in Madrid should not impact the Spanish tourism industry. WTO Secretary-General Francesco Frangialli said: “It’s still early to assess the consequences, but we do not think they will be so damaging.” He was speaking at the International Tourism Fair (ITB) in Berlin. He said that the bomb attacks on three commuter trains last Thursday was not against tourists. This is in contrast to incidents such as the bombing of a nightclub in Bali in October 2002 or the terrorist attacks in Kenya and Tunisia last year. Spain is second to France as the world’s most popular tourism destination. It was visited by 52.5 million tourists last year. For the past two years, UK visitor numbers to Madrid have been around the 390,000 mark. It is unclear yet whether visitor numbers to Madrid have dipped in the past week – the Spanish Tourist Office says it doesn’t have any figures available over the last week. Mr Frangialli said that he was confident that many summer bookings to Spain were yet to come, due to the trend of late booking by European holidaymakers. He said that the attacks could delay or reduce the growth of tourism to the area, but he predicts growth of 4-5% in visitor numbers for this year. The WTO says that ITB organisers quizzing Spanish tour operators at the event recorded no significant trend for holiday cancellations. Report by Ginny McGrath
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