Arrivals plunge

Tourist arrivals in Spain plunged 15.9 per cent last month, with Britons in particular shunning the world's second largest holiday destination, according to the tourism ministry. It said a total of 2.8 million foreign tourists visited Spain last month, down 15.9 per cent over the same month last year.

Britain again provided the largest number of visitors, 676,000. But the figure was 23.4 per cent less than in February, last year.

The weakening of the pound to near-parity with the euro has led many Britons to shun Spain's beaches and bars in favour of sunshine destinations outside of the eurozone such as Turkey and Egypt, which have become much cheaper.

Britain was followed by Germany, which provided 478,000 visitors, down 14.5 per cent, and France, with 414,000 tourists, off 6.1 per cent.

Spain reported a record 59.2 million visitors in 2007, before the global economic crisis. But this dropped to 2.6 per cent to 57.41 million last year.

Spain is the world's second biggest tourist destination after France.

The tourism sector accounts for about 11 per cent of the country's jobs and gross domestic product.