Malaga, the province that receives the most Spanish students nationwide

Andalusia welcomed 52,661 Spanish students last year, 66.12% of them in Málaga, a province that has become the national leader in this field, surpassing Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia, as highlighted at the XIII International Spanish Congress FONCEI.

At this meeting, held in Málaga and organized by Cervantes Escuela Internacional, it was revealed that the majority of students are aged between 12 and 18 years and primarily come from Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Poland, the United States, Denmark, and the Netherlands.

The most common issues in increasing this number of visitors are caused by visas in some markets, the gradual recovery after China restarted connectivity, leading to the return of Chinese students from the second semester, and the uncertainty of drought in some Spanish regions, the congress promoters indicate.

The congress brought together a hundred experts in Spanish teaching, analyzing the good moment that language tourism is experiencing in Málaga, which has become the main recipient of Spanish students, according to preliminary data from a FEDELE study.

They discussed the challenges and trends of Spanish in today's world during this international meeting of Spanish teachers, which was established in Málaga in 2011 to promote Spanish and its teaching.

It has become a key event for professionals teaching Spanish as a foreign language (ELE), attended by teachers from all over the world. They recall that, according to the annual report of the Instituto Cervantes, nearly 600 million people speak Spanish as their mother tongue and it is the second most spoken native language in the world after Mandarin Chinese, and currently, there are more than 22 million students of Spanish worldwide.

The general director of Cervantes Escuela Internacional, Paola Peña, pointed out that Málaga is the leading province nationally in attracting Spanish students, that language tourism contributes to the deseasonalization of the sector, and that Spanish students learning the language in Málaga and Andalusia are «the best ambassadors» for tourism. The manager of FEDELE, David Trigo, shared preliminary data from the 2024 balance, stating that the province of Málaga hosted 34,824 Spanish students, 28.55% more than the previous year; these students typically spend 700 euros weekly and their average stay increased from 2.9 weeks to 3.5, and they spent 85 million euros in the province of Málaga last year.