Spanish tourism will benefit from instability in Egypt

The "unexpected" situation, which will translate into as many as 730,000 additional tourists visiting Spain, has forced Exceltur to revise upwards its forecast for tourist activity this year.

Having forecast a 1 percent decline in January, Exceltur now expects a fall of only 0.4 percent.

"We're coming out of the recession, exclusively due to the pull of foreign demand," Exceltur vice president Jose Luis Zoreda said at a press conference, going on to say, "That pull is very close to being able to compensate, although still not 100 percent, for the fall in domestic demand."

"The key element has been the turbulence in Egypt and, to a much greater degree, the instability of Turkey, where the dissuasive effect is great, on the order of 3 percent," Zoreda said.