Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. It's Tuesday the 7th of

October. I have the great pleasure of still being out on the beautiful island of my Yorker. I've moved around

to Magaloof, which is the host resort for the 2025 Abta Convention. This is where the great and good of the UK travel industry gets together,

but it's also where you get to hear about stuff that is happening locally. And I was delighted

to catch up with Jessica Harvey Taylor. She's head of press for the Spanish tourist office in the UK about some really significant

data on what British travellers are doing in terms of their trips to Spain and it turns out

that we are moving north 65% surge in UK visitors to the Basque country in the first seven months of this year,

and a 44% increase going to Galicia, the north-western region centred on Santiago de Compostela.

Jessica has been telling me more.

We're well aware that the vast majority of our UK holiday makers are still visiting our five

most popular regions.

So Valencia, Andalusia, Catalonia and then our islands, the Balearix and the Canaries.

But it's very encouraging to see that there's increased appetite in our northern regions. So namely Galicia, Asturias and the Basque Country.

Now, to what extent is that because people are just thinking it's too jolly hot on the Mediterranean coast,

so we are going to go for the Atlantic. I think there are multiple reasons.

Obviously, climate plays a part,

and not everybody wants the extreme heat that we've seen in recent years in the Southern Med.

But there's much more to it than that.

I mean, the gastronomy of the northern regions,

the incredible hiking and walking opportunities

in our picos, in our natural parks.

I think there are so many different types of holidays that you can enjoy in Spain.

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