Spain Features Alongside France, Joining Europe’s New Spending Map as Travel Spending Reveals New Habits

Europe’s tourism economy is entering a more revealing phase in 2026, as traveller spending behaviour begins to matter as much as arrival numbers. Mastercard’s 2026 Travel Trends research finds striking differences between visitor groups, with Swiss travellers in France leaning towards retail, British and Dutch visitors prioritising dining, and British visitors in Spain spending 32% more at bars than the average international visitor.

The wider numbers show why this matters. EU tourist accommodation recorded nearly 3.1 billion nights in 2025, up 2.2% year on year, while Spain generated €134.7 billion in international tourist expenditure. France recorded €77.5 billion in spending by foreign tourists.

Europe’s Visitor Economy Is Splitting

Tourist arrivals traditionally provide the headline measure of destination success. Yet arrival totals reveal little about what visitors actually contribute to restaurants, retailers, cultural venues, bars, supermarkets or local transport networks.

The emerging picture is more nuanced. Different source markets create different consumption footprints, even when visitors travel to the same European destination. Mastercard’s latest research describes this divergence through transaction data, showing that traveller priorities change according to both destination and country of origin.

That makes spending composition an increasingly useful lens for understanding tourism. A traveller focused on luxury retail generates a different commercial effect from one spending heavily on restaurants, nightlife or cultural activities.

This distinction also helps explain why headline visitor growth can sometimes mask major changes inside a destination’s economy. Amsterdam, for example, reported that overnight tourism moved above its 2019 level in 2025, while day visits declined. Amsterdam’s municipal research says those visitor groups have different activity and spending patterns, potentially changing where tourism revenue flows across the city.

Who Spends What Across Europe

Mastercard’s 2026 findings provide a striking starting point for this new spending map. Swiss visitors in France tend to concentrate spending in retail, while British and Dutch travellers show stronger preferences for dining and culinary experiences.

German visitors, meanwhile, allocate more spending to groceries. Spain presents another distinctive profile, with nightlife particularly prominent among British visitors. Their bar spending was 32% higher than the average international visitor in Mastercard’s analysis.

These findings should not be interpreted as fixed national characteristics. They represent observed patterns in specific datasets and periods, rather than a rule that applies to every traveller from a particular country.

That qualification matters because spending changes with exchange rates, trip purpose, length of stay, age, accommodation choice and destination pricing. Nevertheless, the consistency of destination-specific spending patterns makes the data commercially significant.

Spain Shows Where Tourist Money Lands

Spain offers one of the clearest demonstrations of the changing visitor economy. Official national statistics show that international tourists spent €134.7 billion in Spain during 2025, 6.8% more than in 2024.

The United Kingdom generated the largest source-market expenditure at €23.65 billion. Germany followed with €15.83 billion, while France contributed €11.61 billion.

The momentum has continued into 2026. International tourist expenditure reached €82.05 billion during the first seven months, 7.8% above the corresponding period of 2025. July alone produced €18.22 billion, with average daily spending reaching €218.

The more revealing picture comes from Mastercard’s separate 2026 Tourism Payments Barometer, produced with Inmark. It found that international visitors to Spain spent an average €2,618 per trip, 36% more than Spanish travellers spent abroad.

However, the nationality-level figures reveal a more complex story. Japanese visitors recorded the highest average total trip expenditure at €3,925, followed by Mexican visitors at €3,320, Colombian visitors at €3,178 and US visitors at €3,148.

Total Spending Does Not Tell Everything

The Spanish research exposes an important distinction between total trip expenditure and direct destination consumption.

When accommodation and transport were excluded, US visitors recorded the highest direct spending in shops and restaurants, averaging €1,498. Mexican visitors followed at €1,362. US travellers also devoted 35.2% of their budget to shop purchases, compared with 23% across the overall international visitor sample.

That means the visitor with the highest total trip budget does not necessarily generate the greatest spending across local shops and restaurants.

The distinction is crucial for travellers too. A €3,000 trip may contain substantial expenditure on flights and accommodation, while a shorter trip can channel a much larger share of its budget into restaurants, attractions, retail and local experiences.

Experiences Now Outrank Conventional Shopping

Spain’s 2026 Tourism Payments Barometer also reveals a wider change in travel economics. International visitors devoted 51.2% of destination spending to experiences, excluding transport and accommodation.

Restaurants, bars and cafés alone represented 31.7% of destination spending. Cultural activities, leisure and guided visits accounted for another 13.3%, while shops captured 23%. Functional expenditure, including supermarkets and local transport, represented roughly one-quarter.

The categories overlap conceptually because “experiences” is a broader grouping within the study. Therefore, the figures should not simply be added together.

For travellers, however, the message is clear. Food, culture, leisure and activities now command a substantial share of discretionary travel spending, rather than functioning merely as additions to sightseeing.

Barcelona Turns Visitors Into Economic Value

Barcelona illustrates how expenditure can rise even when visitor volumes remain comparatively stable.

The Barcelona Tourism Observatory estimates that around 16 million tourists visited the city in 2025, broadly similar to 2019 levels. Yet their estimated economic impact reached €10.4 billion, 23% above the 2019 figure.

That divergence deserves attention. Visitor numbers were 0.7% below 2019, while the estimated economic impact was considerably higher.

For the travel industry, the distinction points towards a more sophisticated metric: economic yield per visitor, rather than raw visitor volume. Higher expenditure can emerge through longer stays, premium accommodation, higher prices, stronger demand for experiences or greater spending beyond the traditional tourist core.

Barcelona’s experience therefore reinforces the broader European pattern. A destination can maintain roughly the same visitor volume while its economic footprint changes substantially.

Madrid’s High-Value Visitor Shift

Madrid presents another striking example. The city recorded €17.896 billion in international tourism expenditure in 2025, an 11% increase from 2024 and 71% above 2019.

The Spanish capital welcomed 11.24 million visitors and recorded 23.83 million overnight stays. International visitors represented 59% of total visitors but generated 66% of overnight stays. Average spending reached €1,964 per person, while daily expenditure reached €305.

The city’s principal international markets included the United States, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Mexico. That mix gives Madrid a notably broad source-market base and strengthens the relevance of analysing spending behaviour alongside arrivals.

Madrid’s tourism councillor Almudena Maíllo said on 3 February 2026 that the city had demonstrated that tourism could “grow in quality” while generating greater value for the city.

The figures provide measurable context for that claim. Spending rose considerably faster than overnight stays, suggesting that visitor value has become a more important tourism metric.

Amsterdam Reveals a Different Urban Pattern

Amsterdam adds an important counterpoint because its visitor economy is changing spatially as well as financially.

Municipal research published in June 2026 found that overnight tourism exceeded the pre-pandemic 2019 level in 2025. At the same time, day visits declined, particularly among regional and domestic visitors.

The research also found that tourism-related turnover grew more strongly outside Amsterdam’s centre than inside it. That suggests the visitor economy is becoming less concentrated geographically, although individual businesses across hospitality, retail and culture experienced very different outcomes.

For visitors, the practical implication is significant. Spending is no longer confined to the postcard centre of major European cities. Accommodation growth outside central districts, changing visitor profiles and new experience clusters can redistribute tourism demand across neighbourhoods.

Paris Remains Europe’s Retail Powerhouse

Paris occupies a particularly important position in this spending landscape. Mastercard identifies Paris as the fastest-growing destination in its summer 2026 analysis, while Amsterdam, Barcelona and Madrid also feature among cities recording strong inbound travel growth.

The retail dimension is equally important. Mastercard’s analysis identifies Swiss travellers in France as particularly retail-oriented, reinforcing the role of shopping within France’s international visitor economy.

France recorded €77.5 billion in expenditure by foreign tourists in 2025, up 7.8% year on year. That exceeded the €57.5 billion spent abroad by French residents, creating a €20 billion tourism expenditure balance in France’s national accounts.

Paris therefore sits within a much larger national visitor economy. Its significance extends beyond landmark tourism into fashion, luxury, food, culture and retail.

Rail Adds Another Spending Dimension

The spending story does not end after visitors reach a city. Mastercard also identifies a growing appetite for rail travel across Europe.

Tourist spending on trains increased between 2022 and 2025. Spanish travellers allocated 2.7% of travel spending to rail, up from 1.8% in 2022, while Dutch travellers reached 2.2%, compared with 1.3% previously. British and Belgian travellers both reached 2.1%.

This matters because rail can turn a city break into a multi-destination economic journey. Visitors can distribute spending across restaurants, attractions, accommodation and retail in several cities instead of concentrating the entire trip around one gateway.

The trend also changes how travellers can plan European journeys. A visitor arriving in Paris could increasingly combine the capital with other destinations by rail, potentially spreading the economic footprint beyond the first arrival point.

What These Patterns Mean For Travellers

For travellers, spending data offers more than an industry statistic. It provides a useful way to understand what each destination is structurally built to deliver.

Paris offers a powerful combination of culture, fashion, luxury and gastronomy. Barcelona blends urban attractions with leisure, food and coastal experiences. Madrid has developed a high-value urban model combining culture, dining, business travel and international long-haul demand.

Amsterdam demonstrates a different lesson. Its changing overnight and day-visitor mix shows why travellers should look beyond the central tourist corridor and explore neighbourhoods where accommodation, restaurants and cultural businesses are expanding.

Meanwhile, Spain’s spending data suggests that travellers increasingly place substantial value on food, experiences and activities. This shift can help visitors build more meaningful itineraries rather than treating attractions as the sole purpose of a trip.

A New Way To Read European Tourism

The most important change is methodological. Tourist arrivals measure the size of a destination’s audience; spending behaviour reveals the shape of its visitor economy.

Europe recorded another tourism record in 2025, but the numbers increasingly point beyond volume. Spain generated €134.7 billion in international visitor expenditure, France recorded €77.5 billion in foreign tourist spending, Barcelona reached an estimated €10.4 billion in tourism impact, and Madrid recorded €17.9 billion in international expenditure.

For travellers, that means European destinations are becoming more differentiated by the experiences they sell and the ways visitors consume them. For the industry, the more useful question is no longer simply how many people arrive. It is which travellers arrive, what they choose to buy, where that spending goes and how much value each journey leaves behind.