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Some recent statistics on arrivals in Santiago

Marc S.

Active Member
Time of past OR future Camino
Some in Spain, Portugal, Germany and Netherlands
For those interested. The Officina Peregrino has published its statistics about arrivals in March. It turns out that 194 pilgrims arrived in Santiago, (not surpisingsly) the majority of those being Spanish, and (not surprisingly) the majority of those being Galician.

As some of the 'Officina watchers' on this forum have already mentioned, numbers have gone up since then. Since 1 April, 575 pilgrims arrived in Santiago, 459 of those from Galicia. (according to the article in La Voz de Galicia)

It is worth mentioning that many more have actually walked other parts of the Camino. I have read several newspaper articles mentioning that many people walking parts of the camino during Easter time were Spanish walking in their own region, re-discovering the beauty of the region they live in. A similar sentiment is mentioned by a Galician pilgrim quoted by La Voz Galicia encouraging other Galicians 'to go out and discover the beauty of Galicia.'

Let's see what happens next.


 
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It will happen, and when it does, I will be there, How can something that you have only done once make you yearn to do it again?
That's a very good question Sue......I've walked the CF end to end five times in the past 3 years and can't wait to go again. I see that your CF was in October last year. Kudos for confounding the nay-sayers. I walked a few weeks before you and it was a truly wonderful experience; the locals, despite having by then gone through their own Covid-19 horror, were exceptionally kind, welcoming and gracious. On day four, just leaving Pamplona, I met a young man from Barcelona whose maternal Grandparents had both died in the pandemic, he said that he was walking all the way to SdC to honour them. That encounter was all the reassurance I needed to affirm my belief that in spite of everything both life, and the Camino, will endure.
 
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@Marc S., I though I just continue with this thread although the last posts date from April. There's an article about recent numbers and projections that is a bit different from the usual. In particular, it shows the number of Compostelas received per day from 1 July until 24 August 2021 in graphic form which we don't see often. Sundays are marked in red, and one can see the peaks towards the weekend.

Secondly, the Galician authorities expect to reach the milestone of 100,000 Compostela holding pilgrims by the end of August/beginning of September and to end in December with a total of 140,000 Camino pilgrims having reached Santiago this year.

With an overall percentage of 73% Spanish pilgrims it has been quite different in composition than in other years. Just like everywhere else in Europe, people in Spain overwhelmingly preferred to spend their yearly vacation time/leisure time in their own country. BTW, weren't you the guy who was holding a medal???

Weekly numbers.jpg
 
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With an overall percentage of 73% Spanish pilgrims it has been quite different in composition than in other years. Just like everywhere else in Europe, people in Spain overwhelmingly preferred to spend their yearly vacation time/leisure time in their own country. BTW, weren't you the guy who was holding a medal???

Thank you for this update.

BTW. I was the guy holding a medal, in fact a coin commemorating das Wunder von Bern, because I was asked to do so by a German pilgrim (why, that is another story). My current photo is taken somewhere along the Frances - I wonder if you can detect where... :):cool:
 
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The Oficina del Peregrino has published their statistics about Compostelas in September 2021.

What I found interesting, were the figures for starting points Sarria, O Cebreiro, Tui and SJPP in 2021 and 2019. Short-distance Camino walks were back in September 2021 at pre-pandemic levels.

2021
2019
Sarria
11.878​
13.430​
Cebreiro
1.057​
1.222​
Tui
2.990​
2.813​
SJPP
1.664​
3.631​
 
The statistics for October are available. It seems the trend that was observed in September (short-distance walks being back to pre-pandemic levels) seems to continue and in some instances there is even an increase from pre-pandemic levels.

20212019
Sarria8.0479.018
Cebreiro690628
Tui2.1552.034
SJPP2.7055.989

In addition, let's have a look at the figures for Ferrol & the Camino Ingles.
Last month, 1568 pilgrims had Ferrol as a starting point (as compared to 1.218 in October 2019) and 1.620 people walked the Camino Ingles (as compared to 1.242 in October 2019)

It is also interesting (well at least I think so :rolleyes: )to compare the nationality of the people who arrived in SdC. While the total numbers of pilgrim arriving in SdC was lower last month (app. 31.000 as compared to app. 37.000 in October 2019) there is a very big increase of the number of Spanish and Portuguese pilgrims (not only as a percentage, but also in actual numbers).

2021 2019
Europe 26.840 24.871
of which:
Spain 16.585 9.718
Portugal 2.406 1.565

North America 2.747 5.372
Latin America 1.268 1.972
Asia 238 2.505
Oceania 39 1.103
Africa 38 295
 
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I made some graphs for my local Camino group, and since I spent so much #^%$&* time figuring out how to make them, I thought that they should get more use.

This is the breakdown of pilgrims by continent this year.
It doesn't show in the graph, but the percentage of Spaniards averaged about 70% of all pilgrims, with 76% in July and 79% in August. Thus far this year, according to the Pilgrims Office 166,581 Compostelas have been awarded.
2021 Camino stats chart by continent.png


I thought that it would be interesting to compare the pilgrim numbers in the busiest months of year in 2019 and 2021. As you can see, the number of European pilgrims in September was almost at the same level this year as in 2019.

Comparison 2019 and 2021.png
 
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I made some graphs for my local Camino group, and since I spent so much #^%$&* time figuring out how to make them, I thought that they should get more use. This is the breakdown of pilgrims by continent this year. It doesn't show in the graph, but the percentage of Spaniards averaged about 70% of all pilgrims, with 76% in July and 79% in August. Thus far this year, according to the Pilgrims Office 166,581 Compostelas have been awarded.
Thank you for sharing, @trecile, and well done ... I like it: what you compare with what and how you do it.

I thought that it would be interesting to compare the pilgrim numbers in the busiest months of year in 2019 and 2021. As you can see, the number of European pilgrims in September was almost at the same level this year as in 2019.
I hope you feel like updating your tables and graphs with the October and November 2021 data when they become available although these are not the busiest months of the year ☺️. November is still going relatively strong, according to daily figures up to now, and I wonder whether the total number of Compostelas for Nov 2021 will be higher than the one for Nov 2019, and whether that's still due to the strong Spanish and European share or whether international travel starts to show an effect.
 
I wonder whether the total number of Compostelas for Nov 2021 will be higher than the one for Nov 2019, and whether that's still due to the strong Spanish and European share or whether international travel starts to show an effect.

We can answer this question by now. The total number of Compostelas in November 2021 is higher than in November 2019, and that is still due to the strong European (in particular Spanish and Portuguese) share.

9094 arrivals in November 2021, compared to 8274 in November 2019.
As for the nationality of those arriving:
7756 from Europe, compared to 5617 in November 2019
Of those: 5020 from Spain and 620 from Portugal, compared to 2804 and 473 in November 2019.
 
5020 from Spain ..., compared to 2804 in November 2019
Wow, I think that's what they call "statistically significant". Thank you, @Marc S.

I wonder why. Holy Year because the increase in numbers in Holy Years is largely due to domestic pilgrims? Covid-19 because people tend to go on holiday/spend their yearly days off work in their own country? Great walking weather in Galicia in November this year? Pent-up demand? Numbers too small to mean something after all? All of the above or none? ;)
 
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I wonder why

As you say, the most likely explanation seems to me that - due to covid - people prefer to spend their holidays in their own country, without the hassle of international travel. At least, this certainly influences my own decision making on where to walk during covid times. But well, in this case n = 1, so definitely not a decisive argument...

Recent statistics provide an interesting perspective though. Over the last years I have regularly read arguments like "we (international pilgrims) are needed to keep the camino alive" and "we (international pilgrims) are needed to support the Spanish economy". I have always been a bit skeptical about such arguments. And recent statistics seem to suggest the camino (at least in some parts of Spain) is doing all right without the mass influx of international pilgrims. We will see....
 

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