Tourists spent 10.9% more this July (and less of it reached your bar)

Source: INE Tourist Expenditure Survey, July 2026, and restaurant price index reported by Hostelería de España.

Tourist money hasn't fallen. It's up almost 11%. Any story that starts with "tourists arrive broke" runs straight into the official stats.

Food and drink out was 14.95% of total tourist spend in July 2026. In July 2025 it was 15.43%. Own calculation from EGATUR data.

Half a point sounds like nothing. On €18.218 billion, half a point is almost €90 million that went elsewhere.

Where? Package holidays grew 19%, activities 9.2% and accommodation 6.7%. All above food's 7.4%.

Tourists come and spend more, but each year they put a smaller share of that money into sitting at a table.

Tourism plugs the hole for two months. The other ten are paid by the neighbour, and the neighbour has cut back.

In Q1 2026, out-of-home consumption occasions fell 3.1%, drinks occasions 4.4% and average spend per person 2.5%, to €235.95, according to panel data reported by Hostelería Madrid.

Inside that drop, beer accounts for 94.1% of the loss in drinks and appetisers fall 7.4%. Midday food, meanwhile, grows 1.6%.

Food didn't break. The drink did: the after-work beer, the aperitif, the celebration. Exactly where your margin used to sit.

And there's a competitor that didn't exist before: 1.3 million people already eat at the supermarket, twice as many as last year, and almost four in ten new prepared-meal occasions come from bars and restaurants.

Where they sleep. Anyone in a holiday rental has a kitchen, and a kitchen changes the whole behaviour.

In the Balearics they talk about a 10% to 15% drop in local retail spend while big-box stores post a strong July and August, as Menorca Info reported on 20 August 2026. The family in an apartment, they say, "consumes like a local": does a big shop, cooks and goes out less often.

And when they go out, they go differently. Reme Cerdá, manager of the Marina Alta hospitality and tourism association, puts it like this: "People don't eat or drink as much anymore". In that same article from 6 September 2026 is the figure that sums up the decade: "a few years ago we talked about 17–15% margins; today if we hit 3% or 4% it's a success".

Split the €2.723 billion of food and drink spend across the more than 300,000 hospitality venues in Spain, according to the Hostelería de España yearbook.

You get €9,077 per venue for the whole of July, about €293 a day. Own calculation.

Now split only the growth, those extra €188 million vs last year: €625 per venue in the month, about €20 a day. With menus up 4.5%, those €20 are basically the price rise and little more.

The record in the headlines, spread across everyone, is the CPI.

Honest caveat: foreign tourism isn't shared evenly. It concentrates on the coast and islands, so Dénia gets well above €293 and Palencia gets zero. The sum is for scale, not for budgeting.

Own estimate from a typical coastal bar cost structure; not a market statistic.

A venue with 90 tickets a day in July.

The same 90 tickets came in and you raised the menu 4.5%, so the ticket "should" be €25.08. But the guest who ordered starter, main, dessert and wine now orders something to share and a water.

Sales fall 6% and gross margin falls 20%. Three times as much.

And food cost rises in euros even though you sell less, because the dishes that survive the guest's cutback — sharing plates — are almost never the ones you costed to protect margin.

It's the same trap we cover in how to cost a daily set menu: the average can look perfect while you lose money every day.

1. Compare July's sales mix with last July's. Not total sales — the mix: which dishes and drinks changed weight.
2. Look at ticket count separately from average ticket. If tickets hold and the average falls, you don't have a footfall problem and no campaign will fix it.
3. Recost the five dishes that gained the most mix weight. Guests chose them, not you, and they drive your food cost.
4. Review drinks on their own. If your drop looks like the panels, that's where the local margin hole is.
5. Before October, lock the winter menu with these numbers. In January there's no cash left to experiment.

What people say and what they do don't match. AECOC's February 2026 barometer says 78% of Spaniards keep or raise hospitality spend and 66% go as often or more. Real consumption panels say visits fall 3.1%. Stated intent vs measured purchase — and they don't line up.

EGATUR food and drink isn't only your bar. It includes all food and drink outside the lodging, hotel restaurants included, so the share that reaches independent hospitality is smaller than that 14.95%.

Marina Alta and Balearics figures come from local associations, not official statistics: they mark direction, not size. And August is still missing — EGATUR publishes it at the end of September. We'll update here if the picture changes.