Studying Spanish in Spain is on the rise. This is due to on one hand, good news recently published on the Spanish language, and on the other hand, growth and optimistic trends in relation to the state of tourism in Spain.
This week, the Cervantes Institute presented the 2012 edition of the Yearbook “Spanish in the world”. This states that there are 495 million people who speak Spanish as a mother tongue, and a further 18 million people studying Spanish. They also reported that Spanish, after English and Chinese, has become the third most widely used language on the internet. In the case of Twitter, the use of the Spanish language has grown rapidly and has now bypassed Chinese to become the second most popular language after English.
In relation to tourism, Spain received some 57.8 million international tourists in 2012, a 3% incrementation on 2011. During the same time period however, income from tourism rose more, by 5.9%. This data being published through Europa Press this afternoon, 16th January 2013, from José Manuel Soria, the minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism.
UNWTO 2010 - 2011 data.
Spain is very well placed in the rankings of number of international tourists who visited the country during 2012. It lies after France with almost 80 million tourists and after the United States with a little more than 62 million tourists, and falling just slightly behind China. However, Spain is the most touristic country. If we look at the number of international tourists which the top 10 countries for tourism receive, only two countries, Spain and France, have a higher level of international visitors than their own populations.
Basing relative levels of tourism against the population size of each country, or better still territory size, both France and Spain stand out much more than the rest of the countries, and actually reside at quite similar levels. That said, Spain beats France both in terms of the duraction of visit and in average revenue per tourist. This is largely due to the fact that Spain is a holiday hotspot, with tourists generally staying for longer periods and hence spending more. If we consider in which countries tourists spend the longest amount of time in, Spain wins, beating all other countries.
The contribution of tourism revenue to Gross Domestic Product in Spain also exceeds that of France and other top tourist destinations. In conclusion, if we combine the benefits tourism brings to Spain together with a continuing incrementation therein for 2013, and the good outlook which the Spanish language has worldwide, we can conclude that studying Spanish in Spain presents great prospects and expectations for this coming year. Spanish language schools in Spain must be prepared for a good season.
Tags: Spain, Study Spanish in Spain, The Spanish in the world, tourism