Spain's wine tourism sector took a sharp hit in 2020, then recovered faster than much of the broader travel industry, partly because tastings and vineyard visits happen outdoors. By 2021, visits to wineries and wine museums had nearly doubled compared with the previous year, though full recovery to pre-pandemic numbers took longer and varied by region.
This page looks at how Spanish wine tourism changed through the pandemic years, what has stuck around in how visits are run today, and where to check current figures rather than relying on outdated ones. For structured learning on this topic, see our module on wine tourism innovation, and browse other sessions on our webinars page.
The scale of the initial drop
According to figures published by ACEVIN, the association behind Spain's certified Rutas del Vino (Wine Routes) network, winery and wine-museum visits fell steeply in 2020, with the economic impact on the sector reported to have dropped by roughly 72.5% that year compared with 2019. Visitor numbers that year were cited at around 814,000, a fraction of a normal year for the network.
How the recovery played out
The rebound began in 2021, when ACEVIN reported visits rising to more than 1.6 million, roughly double the 2020 figure, and the association considered the acute phase of the pandemic's impact on the sector over. The sector's reported economic impact also jumped, up around 130% from the 2020 low, to a reported 54.2 million euros. By 2022, annual reporting put visits at around 2.5 million, an increase of over 58% on 2021, but still only around 80% of 2019 levels, showing that the recovery, while fast, was not instant or complete.
Industry voices have since pointed to the outdoor, spread-out nature of vineyard visits as one reason wine tourism bounced back ahead of indoor-heavy segments of Spanish tourism.
What changed in how visits are run
Several shifts that started as pandemic-era adaptations became lasting features of how Spanish wineries host visitors:
- Smaller, private or semi-private tastings replaced some large group tours, partly by visitor preference and partly as a holdover from distancing-era planning.
- Outdoor tastings in the vineyard itself became more common as a format, rather than only in a cellar or tasting room.
- Digital and virtual formats, such as online tastings with bottles shipped in advance, appeared during lockdowns and have persisted in some form as a complement to in-person visits, particularly for reaching international audiences who cannot travel.
- Booking moved online more fully, with wineries that previously relied on walk-ins or phone bookings shifting toward web-based reservation systems.
Regional variation matters
National totals hide real differences between regions. Routes closer to major domestic tourism markets and with strong local-visitor demand (such as several routes in Castilla y León or Catalonia) tended to recover faster than routes that depended heavily on international arrivals. At least one academic study of a specific route, Ronda-Málaga, found no significant recovery in the local wine tourism sector by its measurement point, a reminder that the association-level national figures do not necessarily describe every destination evenly.
| Year | Reported visits (ACEVIN network) | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Pre-pandemic baseline | Normal operating year |
| 2020 | ~814,000 | Sharp drop, economic impact down ~72.5% |
| 2021 | ~1.6 million+ | Nearly doubled versus 2020 |
| 2022 | ~2.5 million | Up ~58% on 2021, about 80% of 2019 levels |
Checklist for using these figures
- Note that most published recovery figures come from ACEVIN, the same body that also promotes the Rutas del Vino network; treat it as an interested source and check the methodology notes in its own reports.
- Check the publication date of any wine-tourism statistic before citing it; 2020-2022 figures are now several years old and will not reflect the current market.
- Distinguish between national-level averages and single-route studies, which can show very different pictures.
- If you are researching a specific Spanish wine region, check that route's own visitor numbers rather than assuming the national trend applies evenly.
Sources used for this page include reporting from Vinetur and Nueve Cuatro Uno on ACEVIN's annual enotourism reports.