Visits to the Alhambra up 10% on last year

Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife (PAG) has published its visitor figures for the period up to 31 July 2011. Numbers amount to 1,342,248, an increase of 10.03% over the same time last year.
The figures were drawn up by the Site’s sustainability laboratory and refer only to tourist numbers, showing an upward trend in visitor numbers from Easter onwards. In June and July visits to the Alhambra increased by 12.45% and 10.09% respectively.
With regard to visitor profiles, statistics show that 42.07% of individual tourists visiting the Alhambra came from the European Union, mainly France, Italy and the Netherlands; were young, with 44% aged under 44 years; and with third-level studies. In the case of group visitors, the majority also come from Europe, particularly Germany (13.95%), France (9.33%) and England (8.34%), have an average age over 60 years and have higher-level studies.
The exhibitions organised by PAG also proved to be a major tourist attraction, particularly Lions, restoring a symbol, visited by 1,640,805 persons between 29 July 2010 to 31 July 2011, and M.C Escher, Infinite Universes, which has already welcomed 125,639 visitors since it was inaugurated on 28 March 2011, particularly bearing in mind that it was closed from 13 June to 16 July on account of the Granada Festival of Music and Dance. This exhibition, organised in collaboration with Granada Science Park, will remain open until 8 January 2012.