The Dutch are Europe's most fanatical winter visitors: especially Ibiza, Malaga and Valencia are turning orange

The Dutch love to seek out the Spanish sun in winter. Thanks to a trick from the Spanish Statistical Office, it is also now known exactly where they spend their holidays. Phone data shows that Ibiza is relatively more “orange”. The Dutch also define the street scene in Valencia and Malaga this winter.

The National Institute of Statistics, the Spanish version of the Central Statistical Office, has had access to data from the three largest mobile phone service providers for a year now. Part of this data is also the number of foreign mobile phones that connect to Spanish networks. This data is collected by the National Institute of Statistics an offer On a large map it shows for each municipality how many foreign mobile phones were broadcast that month.

This data shows that Ibiza is a true Dutch colony in winter. In Ivisa, in the center of the island, more than 1,200 Dutch mobile phones were counted in January. This is nearly three times more than the number two on the list, Italy. The Dutch flux seems to be a typical winter phenomenon. In the summer, our country is “only” fifth in the list.

The National Statistical Institute maintains that it does not collect individual data. It only receives totals by country of origin and for each municipality of service providers. The Census Bureau also states that there are flaws in the data. For example, people with three mobile phones count as three, and people without a mobile phone do not count.

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However, the data provides interesting insights. This makes it quite clear that the Germans completely overran Majorca in the winter. The number of German telephone signals is ten times higher in most municipalities than in other European countries. Then the British captured Benidorm, and the Dutch came second here. The area around Gibraltar is also teeming with Englishmen.

Remarkably, there are two major tourist cities where the Dutch make up the largest group of winter tourists based on phone data: Valencia and Malaga. In Valencia the Dutch winter workers relegate the Italians to second place, and in Malaga we outnumber the British and French.

For the whole of Spain, the Netherlands ranked fourth with more than 425,000 registrations in January, behind Great Britain (745,000), France and Germany. However, measured by population, the Netherlands is by far the leader. It can be concluded from this that the Dutch spend more time in the winter sun than other Western Europeans.

In January, the Dutch ranked third in the two largest Spanish cities. In Madrid, the French make up the largest group of tourists, followed by the Americans. In Barcelona, the Netherlands, in addition to the French, must let the Italians lead.

Although it’s still winter, millions of people in Spain groan under record temperatures, sometimes over 30 degrees. Tens of thousands of people flocked to the shores of the Mediterranean this weekend to relax. In some places it was difficult to even spread a towel due to the crowd.

Mobile data for the month of January for four different Spanish municipalities. Paises Bajos means Holland in Spanish.

In Ibiza Town, the Dutch were in the majority in January. © INE