Perhaps there is a middle ground, but it seems those reports are leaving out a number of sectors that, realistically, should be included. It's mostly accommodations and transportation, with some food supply aspects included. How many restaurants, souvenir shops, sidewalk vendors leech off a single tourist destination (not to mention the t-shirt screen printers and other businesses that produce the junk tourists buy)? Most of these aren't included in how Spain categorizes everything.

Spain is a country that doesn't want to admit it heavily relies on tourism (which is odd to me, but it is what it is). So downplaying its tourism industry numbers makes sense. Perhaps my source counted jobs that it shouldn't (just playing devil's advocate), but those 12.3% numbers are way low and not counting tourism support industries.