Tourism trends in Catalonia have reversed sharply: the number of Spanish visitors is falling while international arrivals keep climbing. Real-time data from the Datur platform show domestic tourism in the region fell by 13% between 2023 and 2025, returning to levels recorded in 2021, just after the pandemic. The decline accelerated in the first half of this year, reaching 14%.
Foreign tourism, by contrast, has grown steadily since 2021, led by Barcelona, where international visitors increased 72.3% over the past five years. Developed by BiM Consultors, Datur draws on more than 11 million mobile phone records from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística’s (INE) experimental data programme to track visitor origins and analyze tourism flows. It excludes residents of the province being measured, with the aim of providing greater accuracy than traditional methods based on hotel occupancy or tourist office visits.
INE hotel statistics offer a complementary view of the visitor mix. In September, Catalonia accounted for 13.8% of hotel nights spent by residents of Spain, making it the country’s second-largest regional destination for domestic hotel stays after Andalusia. It also represented 18.4% of hotel nights spent by non-residents, ranking behind only the Balearic Islands. Across Spain that month, resident hotel nights fell 1.9% year on year, while non-resident nights rose 3.2%.
That September, international visitors accounted for 5,210,714 overnight stays in Catalonia’s hotels, or 76.13% of the total. Residents of Spain generated 1,634,160 nights, or 23.87%. Both groups increased year on year: domestic hotel travelers by 6.3% and foreign visitors by 4%. These figures count travelers and nights in accommodation establishments. Datur, by contrast, uses anonymized mobile-phone records to measure mobility, so the datasets describe related but distinct aspects of tourism.
Domestic tourism in Catalonia initially rose between 2021 and 2023, peaking at a 31.37% increase in Barcelona and 15% in Girona. The trend then reversed, from 2023 to 2025. Barcelona saw a 31% drop, while Girona and Tarragona fell below post-pandemic levels. Only Lleida attracted more Spanish tourists. International arrivals kept rising across the region, with Barcelona leading and Lleida recording the smallest increase, at 42.5%.
The economic impact is clear: international tourists tend to spend more, boosting local economies. Barcelona hosted 11.2 million overnight visitors in 2025, including 8.3 million foreigners and 2.8 million Spaniards. It is the only city in Catalonia where international tourists far outnumber domestic visitors. Madrid is a major source of Spanish visitors, who also come from other Catalan capitals. The Balearic Islands and Valencia are additional sources, but their numbers are falling. Spanish visitors prefer October and November, with January also popular. Americans make up the largest foreign group. French visitors follow, while British and Italian tourists also feature prominently. Most international markets are stable or slightly down, but arrivals from the USA and Italy are growing, as are those from China and Poland. Double-digit increases have been recorded for Italy and China, with Poland also in that bracket. May and July are peak months for foreign visitors, and August is another.
National travel figures show the scale of Spain’s domestic market. INE data show that Spanish residents made 175.7 million trips in 2025 and spent €63.853 billion. Of those trips, 87% were within Spain. The figures measure trips and expenditure nationwide, not arrivals in Catalonia, but put regional changes in the context of a large domestic travel market.
Girona had the lowest total visitor numbers among the four Catalan capitals in 2025, yet recorded the second-highest growth in international tourists since 2021, up 63.9%. The city’s Spanish visitor numbers rose by 15% in 2023, then dropped by 30% last year, falling below 2021 levels. Most tourists in Girona are Spanish. France is the basic foreign market, while the UK and the Netherlands also send visitors. Tarragona followed a similar pattern: domestic tourism rose by 15.8% through 2023, then fell by 20.3% last year, while international arrivals more than doubled. Lleida was the only capital to record a impressive increase in domestic tourism, up 20.8%.
Municipalities are increasingly using data-driven tools such as Datur to guide tourism policy. Since its launch last winter, around 15 towns and three counties have adopted the platform, with others in the process. Begur, on the Costa Brava, was among the first to use it, aiming to target promotional campaigns more effectively and understand where visitors come from. Datur’s creators point to the platform as an example of digital tools changing tourism management in Catalonia.
The shift in visitor profiles is also affecting infrastructure and services. As international tourism grows, pressure on transport capacity and accommodation becomes more acute. Recent reports, for example, have highlighted train delays and overcrowding on the Rodalies network, which particularly affect foreign tourists arriving in Barcelona and traveling to coastal destinations. These issues were detailed in a recent analysis of transport problems facing visitors in Catalonia.
Tourism remains a basic sector for the Catalan economy, but the changing balance between domestic and international visitors is forcing local authorities and businesses to adapt. Reliance on foreign markets brings opportunities alongside new vulnerabilities, especially as global travel patterns shift and competition between destinations intensifies. Accurate, real-time data is becoming impressive for informed decisions and for maintaining Catalonia’s position as a leading tourist region in Spain.
