Language tourism on the rise in Spain

There are numerous reasons to visit Spain – the golden sandy beaches, the superb weather, the delicious cuisine, the excellent bars, the stunning scenery – but it appears that a growing number of tourists are heading to the country to enjoy one of its finest creations: its language…

According to Spain’s state-funded language and culture institution the Cervantes Institute, around 858,000 people visited Spain in 2014 as students of Spanish – and that figure is set to grow this year.

While more and more young Spaniards are learning English and German to help them in an increasingly competitive job market, a growing number of foreign nationals are looking at Spanish as the ideal second language. In fact, the Institute estimates that more than 20 million people speak Spanish as a second language globally, placing it second after English as the language people look to when they want to embrace another culture and way of communicating.

“The tourists who travel to Spanish-speaking countries to learn the language are perfect ambassadors of Spanish,” said Mari Carmen Timor, president of Fedele, which represents Spain’s leading language schools.

Fedele enrolled 90,000 new foreign language students in 2014, which represented a year-on-year increase of 8.5 per cent. The majority of those students will head to Spain to learn the language, while most American students tend to choose to study in Mexico and Argentina.

“When people visit Spain and get to know the country’s culture or make friends with the families where they stay, they tend to spend more time and money here, which is great for them and the economy,” said Timor.

According to Marca España – which was created to promote Spain’s language, culture and image globally – the average language tourist spends €2,000 during their stay. Collectively, this adds up to approximately €2 billion each year.

Marca España also revealed that the average person who visits Spain to learn the language is aged between 13 and 25, is 70 per cent likely to be female, will typically spend a week at a time in the country and will hail from Germany, France or Italy.

However, interest in learning Spanish is reportedly growing in China, South Korea and Russia but, sadly, not yet in the UK, where language learning has taken a battering in recent years.

The ability to speak a little bit of Spanish makes visiting the country far more enjoyable, and a few handy phrases can go a long way to lowering cultural barriers and making it easier to get things done, make friends and discover much more of the country than you otherwise would.