Prospects are brightening marginally for Spain’s tourism sector, now expected to suffer a downturn of 0.6 percent this year compared with the earlier forecast of 0.9 percent.

The executive vice president of Exceltur, Jose Luis Zoreda, said that the slight rebound in tourism in the first quarter had consolidated itself in the second, although the greater flow of tourists to Spain, encouraged by discounts, had not translated into higher revenues.

Jose Luis Zoreda lamented the fact that 10.5 billion euros in real income from foreign tourism had been lost in the past decade, with revenues dropping from 47.78 billion euros ($61.63 billion) in 2002 to 37.22 billion euros ($48 billion) last year.

He said that visits by Britons and Germans – Spain’s top two sources of foreign tourists – continue to languish, while tourism from the US, the Nordic countries, France and Italy are experiencing positive changes.

Travel agencies, along with automobile rental firms, are the few companies in the sector that have seen better revenues, which was contributed to in part by the redistribution of market share resulting from the bankruptcy of Viajes Marsans and the closure of its 2,000 sales points.

Regarding the airlines, the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud ‘cut short’ the favourable scenario during the first quarter of 2010, except for the most specialised long distance flights, particularly those to and from South America.