MADRID, December 17. /TASS/. Spain found almost 2 bln euro missing in 2022 due to the absence of Russian tourists amid sanctions against Moscow, Russian Ambassador to Madrid Yury Klimenko told TASS.
"Our tourists have almost wholly abandonded Spain, going to Turkey, Egypt, Thailand," he said and mentioned "closed direct flights, the tightening of visa policy, restrictions in the banking sector" as constraining factors for the flow of tourists from Russia. "Meanwhile our tourists traditionally contributed much to the development of the economies of a number of European countries, Spain among them," the diplomat stressed.
"In particular, more than 1.3 mln Russian tourists visited the country in the pre-pandemic 2019, in the record 2013 their number reached almost 1.6 mln, whereas in 2022 only around 268,000 [tourists from Russia visited Spain - TASS]," he said. "This year the situation has hardly improved as 155,000 Russians visited Spain in the first six months of the year," Klimenko added.
According to figures provided by the Spanish side, Russian tourists used to spend 200 euro per person a day on average during their trips to the country, which means that "in 2022 Spain’s tourism sector found more than 1.8 bln euro worth of potential revenues from Russian tourists missing," he noted.