Tourism in Gibraltar - Visitor Numbers and Demographics

Visitor Numbers and Demographics

In 2011, 11,940,543 visitor arrivals were recorded in Gibraltar, of whom 11,424,581 arrived by land, 351,534 by sea and 164,428 by air; the number of land arrivals excluding cross-border workers was 9,616,781. Visitor demographics are dominated by day-trippers from neighbouring Spain – 90 per cent of visits are made on excursions from Spain, either local Spanish people or Britons visiting or residing in Spain, many coming from the nearby Costa del Sol. A smaller number of visitors, mostly from the United Kingdom, stay for at least one night in the territory. The average stay is 4.1 nights as of 2011. Tourism is generally year-round thanks to Gibraltar's hospitable climate, with the August peak only about 50% higher than the January low.

The numbers and relative proportions of visitors have changed considerably over the last 40 years. During the years of the closure of the land border, the majority of visitors arrived by sea. The number arriving by sea remained fairly stable until the mid-1990s but has grown considerably since then due to an increasing number in visits from cruise ships, over 100 of which now visit annually. The number of arrivals by air rose through the 1980s to a peak of 62,438 in 1989 but stagnated for some years afterwards, rising only to 66,219 in 1996. Numbers increased substantially during the 2000s as low-cost airlines Monarch and EasyJet launched flights to the territory. As of 2011, air arrivals constitute only about 1.4% of all visitors, down from 38% in 1974 during the frontier closure. Both air and sea traffic is dominated by British visitors; over 80% of departing air passengers leave for the UK, while 93% of cruise passengers are also British. By contrast, nearly 80% of day visitors by land (and thus effectively 80% of all visitors) are Spanish nationals.

Gibraltar's tourist trade is hindered by a number of factors. The small size of the territory means that there is an acute shortage of land for expanding tourist facilities and major pieces of infrastructure such as the Gibraltar airport. Accommodation (constituting hotels, guesthouses and self-catering facilities) is consequently limited. Smuggling between Gibraltar and Spain remains a source of tension between the two governments and occasionally leads to long delays for vehicle traffic crossing the border during Spanish Civil Guard crackdowns.

The ongoing political dispute with Spain has also hampered the development of transport links. It was not until as recently as December 2006, following the signing of the Cordoba Agreement, that direct flights between Madrid and Gibraltar were re-established, Air traffic had previously been obstructed (at previous times, flights to and from Gibraltar were not even permitted to fly over Spain) as the Spanish did not recognise the British sovereignty over the land where the airport is located and demanded a joint operation of it and the right to treat the airport as a domestic (Spanish) facility. The Gibraltarians resisted this as a de facto breach of their territorial integrity and sovereignty. Since the 2006 Agreement between Britain and Spain, air travel to and from Gibraltar has been conducted without hindrance.