Spain has always been a country where tourism simply meant sea and sun, but some years ago other forms of tourism have begun to grow, such as the idiomatic one. To come to Spain to study Spanish while being a tourist is an incentive for many foreigners who want to learn the language. It is the second most spoken in the world for number of people have it as mother tongue and the third most spoken language considering the ones who have it as first or second language. Also, Spanish is the second most studied language after English, and the third most used language on the internet (7,8% of total); it is expected that by 2050, 10% of the world’s population will speak Spanish.
In other countries such as Germany, France or the United Kingdom this conception of language learning as a tourism resort is already widely used.
A group of foreign students of Spanish
In Spain, over the last years the consolidation of idiomatic tourism has been experienced as an important tourism product on a national level, turning into a trend with great prospects of growth. Spain and its language are getting more and more attractive to the world, and this growing interest for everything around this country (culture, gastronomy, festivities, traditions…) can turn idiomatic tourism into a big opportunity to attract tourists. But to learn Spanish is not only something that meets personal curiosity for the culture and language, it’s also starting to be essential in the business world.
There are already many cities where this type of tourism is very important, we can find several examples in autonomous regions such as Andalusia, Castile and León, Catalonia, Valencian Community, La Rioja or Madrid, which have already defined strategies and plans to boost and promote idiomatic tourism, to attract foreigners to study Spanish promoting their learning as a tourist attraction.
To promote the study of Spanish in Spain to appeal to foreigners is a growing fashion on which we need to bet strongly, mostly in emerging countries such as Brazil, China or Russia, as well as Japan, where the interest in this language grows every year.
And what place is better than Spain to learn Spanish, fourth country in number of tourists, second in income from tourism and first in medium term stays.
Image University of Navarra. http://bit.ly/fjiurt
Spanish in Tour http://www.spanishintour.com
Dosal Proyectos. Spain.
good post, mind if I reblog it?