SERVICES

TOURISM

Tourism is the country’s main source of economic income. Andorra has a wide and varied tourist industry, which specialises in winter activities, thanks to the mountainous terrain of the country, but it also receives large numbers of visitors during other parts of the year.

A total of 10.7 million people visited Andorra during 2006. Most of these visitors (79%) were excursionists –persons who do not spend a night in the country–, while the remaining 21% were tourists –persons who spend a night in the country–. In terms of nationalities, the vast majority of visitors are Spanish or French.

Snow, nature and shopping are the major tourist attractions for those visiting Andorra. Snow and ski tourism has seen growth and ongoing improvement, with the incorporation of state of the art technology and the best features, while the ski stations have gradually combined their offer in order to improve the quality and the variety of their services. The five downhill ski resorts that existed in 2000 gave way to two large ski areas in the 2004-2005 season. On the one hand, the 2003-2004 season saw the birth of Grandvalira, which offers a single ski area whose dimensions are on a par with the largest European resorts, thanks to the unification of the resorts of Pas de la Casa-Grau Roig and Soldeu-El Tarter while,on the other hand, the 2004-2005 season saw the inauguration of Vallnord, fruit of the unification of the ski resorts of Pal-Arinsal and Ordino-Arcalís, which joined forces for commercial and marketing purposes. Taken as a whole, the commercial offer of these results amounts to a skiing domain of 3,075 hectares, 282 Km of ski runs, 1,382 canons for producing artificial snow, 47 chair lifts, 32 ski lifts, 11 ski tows, 13 transporter belts, 5 cable cars, 1 funitel or aerial lift and 1 cable railway. All these facilities helped the country sell 1.89 million ski days during the 2006-2007 season. Other tourist attractions in the Principality include the Rabassa cross-country ski and multiactivities centre, the Caldea thermo-recreational centre and the Andorra Ice Palace.

As far as accommodation is concerned, Andorra boasts a wide offer of quality accommodation, with a total de 258 official establishments offering a total of 31,515 beds, the majority of which are in the three to four star category. The hotel sector stands out especially, with 195 hotels and more than 26,000 beds. The second most important type of accommodation in the Principality are the so-called aparthotels, which account for 11% of all beds, ahead of hostels or residences, tourist apartments and pensions, each of which represents about 2% of the number of beds on offer.