News: ​Costa Blanca's foreign tourist numbers reach record highs in 2016

More than 8 million foreign tourists have visited the Valencian Community and the Costa Blanca in 2016, according to the Autonomic Secretary of the Valencian Government Tourist Board, Francesc Colomer.

The number of foreign visitors to the Community increased by 16.8% in the first 11 months of the year, with 77,912 non-Spanish tourists arriving in November, 18.4% more than in the same month of 2015. A total of 7,463,665 international visitors came to the Costa Blanca in the first eleven months of 2016.

By nationality, all the markets showed some growth in November, except for the British market that remained stable in comparison to the same period of 2015, with a total of 127,765 UK tourists last November. The biggest growth can be seen in the German market, showing a year-on-year increase of 46.1%. Also the French market had a positive development of tourists with a 31.3% increase, while tourists from the Nordic countries were up 21.8%, followed by the Netherlands (up 19.5%) and Italy (up 6.6%).

The Elche-El Altet international airport accounted for 70% of arrivals by air, with a growth of 14.6% in comparison to the previous year.

In whole, Spain received more than 71 million foreign tourists from January to November, representing an increase of 10% over the same period in 2015, with over 74 million international tourists from January to December 2016.

As usual, the Valencian Community is one of the Spanish regions getting more visitors.