Market Report
Spain
September, 2022
Unlocking American Travel Trends to Spain Tracking Mobile Apps Geolocated Data
Context
The United States has emerged as one of Spain’s most significant long-haul source markets, particularly since the early 2010s, when American arrivals increased notably. Key drivers of this growth include enhanced air connectivity, the expansion of American hotel brands in major destinations, the diversification of Spain’s tourism offerings to attract travellers seeking high-quality experiences, and consistent promotional efforts to boost awareness and interest among US visitors.
Globally, American travellers are highly attractive for Spain due to their longer stays, higher spending, and tendency to visit multiple locations within a destination. After a sharp decline during the pandemic, American demand rebounded strongly by 2022, accelerating further in 2023 thanks to pent-up travel demand and lifted restrictions. The challenge at this stage was to consolidate and grow visitation by increasing stay duration and spending. Mabrian addressed this by profiling American travellers through behavioral insights and geolocated anonymized data from travel and leisure -related mobile apps used by US visitors in Spain.
Key goals
Mabrian’s in-depth, powerful, and comprehensive analysis of American tourists’ footprints during summer 2022 aimed to answer critical questions on traveller profiles and behaviors, such as their origin, demographics, average stay duration, destinations visited, key demand drivers, and hotel accommodation preferences.
Approach
Mabrian leveraged geolocated data from over 200,000 mobile apps combined with behavioral insights, hotel accommodation data, and preferences. The analysis focused on six key destinations frequented by American travellers (Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Sevilla, Mallorca, and Tenerife), either thanks to direct connectivity or because they stand out as highly demanded destinations by this source markets
Using a robust sample of 40,000 users, the resulting travel intelligence supports decisions for product and services segmentation, infrastructure planning, transportation options, and campaign redefinition, to mention a few.
Results
Valuable insights on how American travellers visit Spain surfaced in the study, including highlights such as:
- Combined itineraries: 30% of American tourists travelled to at least two destinations in Spain, being the most relevant combinations Madrid-Catalonia, Madrid-Andalusia, and Catalonia-Balearic Islands.
- Main origins: American summer travellers to Spain come from mainly three cities, New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.
- Key demographics: American travellers visiting Spain during summer are are between 35 and 44 years old, university graduates, and earn an average income of $75,000.
- Average length of stay: Up to 3-days stays in urban areas and between 4 to 7 days in island destinations.
- Key demand drivers to visit Spain are culture, food & cuisine and nature.
- Accommodation preferences: 60% stayed in 4 and 5 -stars hotels.
