In 2024, more than 94 million tourists visited our country, according to data from the national Statistics Institute, and 90 % of those visitors, that is, approximately 80 million people concentrated in only six autonomous communities: Catalonia, Madrid, Andalusia, Valencian Community, Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands. The rest, just 10 million, were distributed among the other eleven communities.
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“This tourist concentration is a pending subject in Spain,” says Santiago Vallejo, president of the Spanish Association of Tourism professionals and vice president of the Tourism Mesa. “There are many regions with enormous potential that are still great unknown to national and international tourism. They have culture, they have gastronomy, they have nature … but they lack visibility,” he adds.
One of those cities that seeks to make a hole on the tourist map is Zaragoza. And he is getting it through the gastronomy tradition. The Aragonese capital has been recently recognized as the best valued city in gastronomic tourism in Spain.
For José Francisco García, Tourism Manager Zaragoza, this recognition is not a coincidence: “Cultural or natural attractions must always be accompanied by an excellent gastronomic offer.”
And it is that eating good already good price not only loyalty, but makes visitors to ambassadors in the city. So much so, that Garcia says, “99 % of those who visit Zaragoza would recommend destiny to their friends or family.”
Social networks such as Tourism Trampoline
However, for a place to be recommended, it has to be visited first. And to be visited, it has to be discovered. In the digital age, that discovery begins, in most cases, in social networks. Platforms such as Instagram, Tiktok or YouTube have become the first source of inspiration for millions of travelers. Therefore, some cities have begun to study their online presence in depth.
This is the case of Cáceres. The City Council of Extremadura has made a report to analyze its tourist positioning on social networks. “The report offers us a clear radiography of how Cáceres works on the Internet, what kind of content generates greater interest and what aspects of our tourist offer we must enhance,” explains Ángel Orgaz, councilor of tourism of the municipality.
Other locations opt for more original strategies to gain notoriety. One of them is Abengibre, a small town in Albacete that until recently did not receive a single tourist a year. Everything changed with a singular initiative: the tree year. Tonet González, promoter of the project, summarizes it like this: “It was a town completely out of the tourist radar. No one came. Now, thanks to the tree, every time you pass there are people taking photos, asking, discovering the environment.”
According to INE data, tourist concentration in the six main communities has increased by 10 % in the last five years. This phenomenon, far from diluting, seems to be reinforced, partly by infrastructure, international connections and the tourist tradition of these regions.
