Tourist arrivals plunge in Spain

MADRID: Tourist arrivals in Spain plunged 15.9 per cent in February, with Britons in particular shunning the world’s second largest holiday destination, the tourism ministry said Monday.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, 2008.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.