Study Spanish in Bilbao: Spain’s new tourist hot-spot

Bilbao, in which Instituto Hemingway is based, is attracting increasing amounts of attention at the global level. According to an article in Deia, the city set yet another record in 2011 for numbers of visitors, an achievement which is being described as ‘historic’. In total, Bilbao saw 726,000 tourists pass through it, spending 200 million euros; it is hardly surprising, then, that the director of Bilbao Tourism should comment: “if there’s any sector that isn’t suffering a crisis, it’s tourism”.

The Basque Country’s celebrated gastronomy continues to be the city’s ‘tourist engine’. 70% of tourists, and even 68% of locals recognise it as the region’s ‘biggest attraction’, according to a survey by the Business and Tourism Council of the Basque government. For this reason, tourist experiences related with this aspect, such as pintxos workshops, are on the rise and are already achieveing a great deal of success. Instituto Hemingway’s weekly Pintxos Tour seems to be bang on trend.

However, the council hopes to achieve even greater things for the city by promoting the alternative attractions of the city. For example, the city has a greal deal to offer in terms of Nature tourism, as a complement to its gastronomic and cultural delights.

Here at Instituto Hemingway, we always try to make sure that our students enjoy Bilbao’s cultural life as much as possible, and so we welcome these measures to create an even better, richer city.