Some 12.2 million tourists visited the city last year according to data from the Tourism Observatory of Barcelona, down from 13.9 million in 2019, although tourism spend in the city grew to €9.6 billion, up by nearly 15% compared with pre-Covid levels.
Vueling, Barcelona’s El Prat airport’s biggest carrier, observes that besides being an attractive destination in its own right, the city – which counts the UK as its third largest international source market – is a gateway to the wider Catalonia region, not to mention the rest of Spain. It already operates eight flights a day to the city from Gatwick, and will launch a twice-daily Heathrow service in April.
