Spanish Tourism sector estimated to have lost 252 million euros due to disruption caused by Icelandic volcano

According to Exceltur the Spanish tourism sector has lost around 252 million euros due to the crisis generated by the eruption of a volcano in Iceland. Furthermore this figure does not include the losses incurred by airlines.

The deputy chairman of Exceltur, José Luis Zoreda, said today that the tourism sector in Spain was losing 42 million euros a day due to the closure of European airspace as a result of the huge cloud of ash from the Icelandic volcano. He said that this episode would send figures for the tourism sector in Spain crashing for the second quarter of 2010.

Exceltur forecasts that after a slight improvement in figures for the tourism sector in the first quarter of 2010 the overall figures would fall by 0.9% by the end of the year.