EFE news agency cited data publicized by the National Statistics Institute (INE) of Spain on Friday.

Accordingly, 44.5 million tourists visited Spain during the period in question; this 4.7 percent more than the previous record.

And these tourists spent 59,622 billion euros in Spain, which is also a record.

The figures published by INE show an increase also in the number of tourists visiting Portugal—by almost 15 percent, to 1.37 million—as well as Ireland and Italy—in each case, an increase of 7.7 percent.