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ARCHIVED - Foreign tourist numbers continue to rise in Valencia region
The British remain the most numerous visitors to the Comunidad Valenciana
The upward curve in the number of foreign visitors to Spain continued during the month of April, when according to the government’s figures 5,407,155 traveled to this country, 2.8% more than in the same period 
last year.
last year.
This brings the running total for 2015 to just over 16 million, an increase of 4.4% on the total which was reached after four months of 2014. To put things into a broader perspective, at the end of April 2011 the total stood at slightly under 14 million, so in just four years an increase of almost 15% has been observed.
In the Comunidad Valenciana the year-to-date figure now stands at 1,481,000, 9% of the total and 4% higher than in 2014, following a 10.2% increase in the month of April alone. Despite a slight slackening in the rate at which visitors flock to the Costa Blanca in April the UK is still the dominant market in Valencia so far this year, and the total is 14.2% higher than at the end of April four years ago.
During April the leading source of foreign visitors was, once again, the UK, which provided 1.16 million (or 21.5% of the overall total). Similarly, in the first four months of the year the British accounted for 20.5% of all those coming to Spain, with a figure of 3.28 million.
The next most productive markets for the Spanish tourist industry are France, with just under a million visitors in April and 2.6 million so far this year, and Germany, which provided 870,000 visitors last month and 2.5 million in the first four months of 2015.
Next on the list in the year-to-date figures are Scandinavia, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, but of these only the Scandinavia tops the million mark so far this year with 1,510,455 visitors, or 9.4% of the total.
The number of British visitors to Spain so far this year is 5.5% up on the equivalent figure at the end of April 2014, a very healthy increase which is probably fuelled by the strength of the pound against the euro. Meanwhile the number of Russians coming to this country is 28% down on last year’s figures at just 161,000, again in part due to currency fluctuations.
In terms of the favourite tourist destination for foreigners in Spain, as usual Catalunya has now taken over the baton from the Canaries for the summer. During April 1.4 million people visited the region, 26.3% of the overall total, while the Canaries welcomed only 904,000 visitors from abroad. Next on the list were Andalucía (831,000), the Balearics (690,000), Valencia (550,000) and Madrid (519,000), where after last year’s poor statistics the month of April saw an increase of 28%.
