As a tourist in Spain I have to say it is a horrific association to have with the country. If Spain wants to make a better impression on others, they should let their wonderful and life-affirming traditions remain (like the food, music, real art in the museums and galleries, cathedrals, aquaducts, natural beauty, festivals, friendliness etc.) and get rid of the ones that traumatize visitors. You don't have to keep on living out the Roman circus stuff. I really wish I hadn't let that person talk me into going to see that horror, I just didn't want to insult them by refusing. I wish I had insulted them rather than have that awful memory put in my mind. I nearly fainted and had to be taken out in the middle of it. Why would any Spaniard want the rest of the world to see them as being so cruel and cowardly? Yes, cowardly. They nearly kill the poor animal BEFORE the bullfighter comes out. If they actually fought a healthy bull to death it wouldn't be nearly as disgusting. Why would butchering an animal that doesn't have a chance to fight or survive be entertaining to anyone unless they were just sadistic? It's a cultural insanity. Most cultures have ingrained cultural insanities and I think bullfighting happens to be Spain's. 

If a tradition causes suffering to any living creature, it should be abandoned immediately.
Causing suffering for fun is utterly wrong and cruel tradition. I'm reluctant calling it tradition, actually.

Cock fighting is something that has come to the US from Hispanic culture and it really is something awful so I understand those kinds of activities. Dog fighting is another illegal and awful activity that is similar. Money is made by betting with these kinds of things so there is money still involved, just not on the same scale. 

Jerome, killing for food and survival is part of nature, not torture for no good reason... that's purely a human disease. 

"Cruelty is a part of nature, at least of human nature, but it is the one thing that seems unnatural to us."

Robinson Jeffers

I do not like bullfighting and any kind of sports with fighting. Then I hate fighting without rules.It is more cruel than bullfighting.