Prime Minister's Office of Spain : Speech by President of the Government at inauguration of 7th EXCELTUR Tourism Leadership Forum

Esteemed Minister for Energy, Industry and Tourism; esteemed Mayor of Madrid; esteemed State Secretary for Tourism; Secretary General of the World Tourism Organization; Ministers for Tourism, Mr Presdent of EXCELTUR; Mr President of the Organising Committee of FITUR; representatives of the tourism sector, ladies and gentlemen,

Two years ago I had the opportunity to address you all at one of my first public acts as President of the Government, As I said then it was not by chance that the stage chosen was the EXCELTUR international Tourism Leadership Forum, given the strategic importance of the sector for our economy and the important role it was called on to play in helping exit the crisis, in reactivating our economic growth and in job creation. The contribution from the tourism sector to this joint effort was vital for overcoming the critical economic situation we had been suffering from for years.

Well, two years on and the difficulties have not gone away; but we can affirm that the scenario is significantly different now and infinitely more encouraging than it was back then. An historic raft of structural reforms and the determination and courage of Spanish society came together to prove that recovery and the return to economic growth were possible.

Back then, two years ago, our recent past was cause for a lack of confidence, but here today, the present and the future are cause for optimism and hope; a realistic prognosis which, far from being based on mere political rhetoric, is broadly shared by all the international economic players, analysts and markets.

The damage caused by this crisis is unquestionable: more than five million people remain out of work, but today we can say that Spain has come out of the trenches of the crisis and is now fighting on the frontline of recovery.

For this reason, I want to begin this speech by thanking all of you, because your contribution to this new situation as tourism business leaders has been exemplary. The performance of the sector has once again been a source of satisfaction and welcome news this year. It has been so during the whole crisis and, if you will allow me to look back in time, it has indeed been so for decades. And this has not come about by chance.

There are many factors which undoubtedly influence international leadership. We shouldn't forget our privileged starting position: our tourism offer is highly extensive and top quality; we are a country that attracts, a country that seduces, a country that turns every traveller into an ambassador of our culture and our way of life.

But our valuable proposal would be insufficient without the strategic strength represented by the excellence of our tourism industry - which I would dare to boast is the best in the world - that must be nurtured and to which we must all commit. For that reasons, we must acknowledge the professionalism of the performance of all the players involved in this collective effort: on the one hand, the competent public authorities, particularly the tourism municipalities, which each year work miracles to reinvent themselves to make our offer more attractive in the eyes of our visitors; and on the other hand, and most particularly, the business owners and workers in the sectors, the true drivers of this success which, once again this year, can be seen in the results announced here today and which I will refer to more specifically later. To every one of you - congratulations.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Recently it has become increasingly common to hear encouraging figures surrounding the performance of the Spanish economy. The drastic reduction in the risk premium has enabled us to reduce our financial costs in 2013 by some 8.7 billion euros which, together with a 20% increase in direct investment in our country, are figures that are symptomatic of the volte-face of international confidence in Spain. The whole world is betting on Spain, because nowadays Spain is a winning bet.

Let's look at the figures. After more than two years immersed in a recession, the Spanish economy has returned to growth: a modest 0.1% in the third quarter of 2013 and 0.3% in the fourth quarter. The growth figures, while modest, finally translate to a very slight improvement in our unemployment rate, since 2013 has been the best year in terms of unemployment figures since the start of the crisis: there were 147,000 fewer people on the unemployment books at the end of the year than at the beginning. Next, inflation levels are currently the lowest in the Eurozone, after having recorded a price increase of barely 0.2%, and the burden of our foreign trade debt, which reached levels of 10% of our GDP, has been turned round to a surplus of almost 2%.

What does this all mean? It means that Spain has gained in competitiveness in a growing and sustained manner. We enjoy the best figures for competitiveness since we joined the Euro. Spain is the only major country in the Eurozone to have increased its exports; the only one. This improvement has taken place across the board, particularly in terms of capital goods, the automotive industry and intermediate products. I would also like to highlight the improvement in our competitiveness in the services sector; not only in tourism, but also in financial and business services.

What are our forecasts for this year? The government prudently estimates growth of 0.7%. As you are aware, this forecast is relatively conservative compared with other forecasts being made regarding the performance of our economy.

Consequently, if in 2013, against a backdrop of recession, the number of unemployed in Spain fell by almost 150,000 people, we will surely see figures of growth in terms of net employment.

Having said that, ladies and gentlemen, I also want to say to you that the confidence in our future is not synonymous with satisfaction, and much less so with stepping down our efforts. As long as millions of Spaniards are unable to find work, the government has a lot more to do. We have all seen what can be done in half a term in office. Well, I would simply point out to you that there is another half still to go. In the first few months of the year, we will present a comprehensive fiscal reform designed to improve the fight against fraud, stimulate business activity and alleviate the financial burden on families.

Ladies and gentlemen,

In terms of this change in fortunes, the tourism sector, as I said, has played an important role and it wouldn't be fair to assess this new situation without highlighting the true driver of our economy. Tourism has an undoubted "spillover effect" to other economic sectors and has been one of the best performing sectors in these truly difficult years, showing positive results even at times in which that was not thought possible.

It is now that we can really see how well it paid off to treat tourism policy as a State policy because, even against a backdrop of harsh budgetary restrictions, if the policies are the right ones, they will end up producing positive results. And that is what has happened.

The first major reform approved by the Council of Ministers on 22 June 2012 was the Comprehensive Tourism Plan, under which the tourism sector was classified as a priority sector and tourism policy as a State policy; a plan that covered everything relating to the tourism industry, but also to all those key actions to improve competitiveness and business profitability; a cross-cutting plan involving all ministerial departments; and at this time we are very close to 50% implimentation.

And we haven't stopped there. We approved another essential reform for the industry in the amendment to the Coastal Act, legislation that has an unquestionable merit: harmonising economic and tourism development on our coasts with the necessary environmental protection.

Furthermore, we have significantly improved our ability to coordinate all those cross-cutting policies among the various ministerial departments and public administration services to better serve the sector. We have achieved this through the impetus of coordination bodies such as the Tourism Sector Conference, the Inter-ministerial Commission and the Spanish Tourism Council, all of them headed up by the Minister for Tourism, José Manuel Soria. We did this because, as we were reminded here, coordination between the autonomous regions and the public and private sectors is essential for tourism, for its promotion and for our image abroad.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Two years ago, we found ourselves faced with a great heterogeneity and regulatory complexity resulting in a loss of competitiveness that we could no longer allow to persist. Our objective, here as well, was to reduce the administrative tangle in the operation of tourism companies in order to boost the competitiveness of the Spanish economy.

And aside from sector policies, a reform particularly called for by this sector was the labour reform, as referred to in the speech by the President of EXCELTUR.

Since its implementation, and in the same way as occurred in other economic sectors, the tourism industry is contributing to the flexibility that companies needed. The labour market reform is not only resulting in a more efficient use of resources, but is also helping companies in the sector to combat the seasonal nature of the tourism demand with greater guarantees. The result is better quality and more stable employment. It is true that the results of major reforms are never immediate, but the first signs that this radical change was the right one are clear and encouraging, particularly in the tourism sector.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am also going to speak about another important matter, which we have already heard mentioned today. Two years ago, I promised all of you that I would try to push credit towards entrepreneurs and small- and medium-sized enterprises; a key step towards recovering economic activity which, however, was not possible until we reorganised our financial system. And believe me when I say that this was not an easy task by any means.

As you are all aware, we have just successfully concluded the European Union assistance programme which has played a key role in our financial system now having a healthy balance of over seven percentage points of our GDP. We will remain firm in our approach to not pumping credit into the public sector and the results, particularly in sectors such as tourism, are just starting - as we have been reminded - to be encouraging.

We also committed in a decisive manner to young people and entrepreneurs, to attracting talent to the sector and to innovation in the Comprehensive National Tourism Plan. We feel that it is only in this way that tourism will continue to be a true driver of wealth and creator of jobs.

Finally, I wanted to refer to the significant effort made to convert visa policy into a tourism policy. This initiative, in which we will persevere, has given rise to substantial increases in tourists from those strategic countries where this has been implemented. Let me give you the telling example of Russia. There was a 31% increase in tourist visas issued in 2012 and 20% to October 2013.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The efforts made by everyone, particularly your good selves, during this time has enabled us to announce today that the tourism figures for 2013 are the best in Spain's history. The figures speak for themselves: we have passed the barrier of 60 million tourists for the first time in history. We are talking, specifically, about 60.6 million people who have chosen Spain, which is 5.6% up on the number of visitors in 2012, which puts us way above the previous record of 58.7 million set in 2007. The new figure for 2013 has enabled us to recover third place in the world according to this indicator, after moving above China to a position behind France, with 83 million inbound tourists, and the United States, with 67 million.

And in the year that has just ended we have beaten another highly significant record - tourist spending by inbound tourists. In the period January-November 2013 alone, this figure amounted to 55.9 billion euros, almost nine percentage points above the global figure for 2012.

With these indicators, with the official figures for 2013 as a whole pending, we can affirm that we will see the best figures ever and that the year just ended will also reveal record figures for tourist spending.

The implications of these figures for our economy will not escape anyone. The contribution from tourism in 2012 amounted to 10.9% of GDP and the sector provided 11.9% of all jobs in Spain. But 2013 will give us another record that affects the balance of payments, without even including the last two months, because we are on the way to exceeding, for the first time, 45 billion euros and this figure will also be the best ever seen.

A close look at the figures will also show us two particularly positive realities: firstly, the individual figures for our autonomous regions; practically all of which have set new records; and secondly, our country has been able, at the same time, to strengthen the tourism figures for inbound tourists from traditional markets while opening our borders to welcome visitors from newer markets. I will give you just two examples. The United Kingdom, a mature and indeed our leading emitting market, has seen growth of 5.2% to 14.3 million visitors. The Russian market is hugely on the rise, with growth of 31.6% to 1.5 million visitors.

And to this excellent balance, there is further very good news, which is the reactivation of national tourism. We have seen four consecutive months of growth in the Familitur survey, which measures trips by residents; growth which has broken the negative trend we had been seeing and which was a direct consequence of the weakness of general consumption and tourism consumption of Spanish families in particular.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Far from making us complacent, these magnificent figures should encourage us to continue working for the sector. We are channelling all our efforts into consolidating the Spain destination as the tourism leader on the international stage and I am convinced that between all of us we can achieve that.

It is necessary to create an optimum atmosphere to develop tourism activity, a stable framework for investment that guarantees a level playing field and boosts the understanding and attraction of young people to this sector. This is a sector which, as your president said, aspires to modernise and gain in its competitive ability by investing in innovation and new Information and Communication Technologies. Converting our destinations into smart destinations in all areas involved (sustainability, accessibility and new technologies) is nowadays more fundamental than ever when it comes to competing on the international stage.

Friends,

Allow me do draw to a close. The path we have chosen is not easy. We are aware that there is still a lot to do. The results are starting to be seen, but they are not immediate. We must continue working to meet all those ambitious targets we set, that we spoke about last time we were here, because this is the only way to recover the path of growth.

There are currently a series of opportunities in the tourism sector that we cannot afford to miss; but at the same time there are challenges which must be faced up to. And at this time it is essential to combine synergies among all the players involved to consolidate our leading position.

Our Spain tourism brand is undoubtedly a powerful pillar of our country brand, since it is the image we portray to the world. All the efforts we make together, as business leaders, workers, trade unions, institutions and tourism administration services will undoubtedly be rewarded.

I urge you to continue working along the same lines and to continue making the same efforts as to date, because this is the way to consolidate the positive economic trend that has just begun, as well as to achieve new successes; successes that Spanish society, and you in particular, deserve and from which, we will all benefit from, beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Thank you very much.