Canary Islands expect to receive close to 15 million tourists in 2022
The Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce of the Government of the Canary Islands, Yaiza Castilla, announced today in Parliament that the air capacity in 2022 already exceeds the pre-Covid numbers, with the estimate that by the end of the year the archipelago will welcome close to 15 million tourists.
Castilla explained that “the air capacity to the Canary Islands will be accompanied by a strong increase in demand from Europeans, after two years of fluctuations and setbacks that have abruptly stopped travel."
Although the minister recalled that summer is not the peak season for the Canary Islands, she also drew attention to the great progress in positioning the islands as a safe and interesting holiday destination for many visitors who had never been to the archipelago before. In fact, the percentage of tourists who visited the archipelago in 2021 for the first time ever climbed from 25% to 34%.
"With these data, we can conclude that the balance of risks for this year shows a very positive balance and we foresee that, definitively, the long-awaited recovery of the travel market will take place and the number of visitors will return to the pre-pandemic figures", explained the counselor, where she highlighted that the air seats scheduled for 2022 to date are currently 2.2% higher compared to 2019, with 18.1 million seats already scheduled for the islands.
Castilla also warned that due to the pandemic people tend to book holidays at the last minute, which means that airlines sometimes need to make adjustments in their schedules, so the data will have to be monitored to see what changes appear.
For the summer season, which in the Canaries lasts between April and October, there are 10,583,000 scheduled air seats to the islands, that is, 615,000 more than in the summer of 2019 (+6.2%).
The diversification of markets has contributed decisively to this growth, with a strong push from countries other than the traditional ones. The Netherlands, France, Italy, Portugal and Austria are some of the markets that have had shown the biggest increase in the number of new connections with the Canary Islands, with around a 24,5% increase in connectivity.
The minister also recalled that the number of flights from the United Kingdom, the main source market for tourists to the Canary Islands, will continue to grow as well, as it was confirmed by the main airlines that connect the archipelago with the UK.
