Over 16 million tourists visited the Canary Islands in 2023

Turismo de Canarias will attend Fitur 2024 after closing 2023 with a new record for tourist turnover, of 20,000 million euros.

This was explained by the Minister of Tourism and Employment of the Government of the Canary Islands, Jéssica de León, in the press conference in which she detailed the presence of the archipelago in this event and in which she was accompanied by the managing director of Tourism of the Canary Islands, José Juan Lorenzo.

“We close 2023 with a balance that could not be more positive, achieving an influx of tourists of more than 16 million and a tourist turnover of 20,000 million euros, which amounts to 22,000 million if we take into account the internal tourism of the Canary Islands, which “continues to mobilize resources between the islands and represents 10% of the tourism turnover of the Canary Islands,” explained De León.

"To these good data is added the positive evolution of employment indicators, since affiliation in characteristic branches of tourism grew by more than 6% and registered unemployment was reduced by more than 9% compared to December 2022."

In addition, the business indicators in the accommodation sector, the ADR (average daily rate) and hotel Revpar (revenue per available room) showed extraordinary growth compared to 2022, which until November was 10.6% and 14.3%, respectively. “Despite the inflationary environment in which the economy has operated in recent years, which we can assume will have had an impact on costs, the result still reflects a significant increase in profit margins for the accommodation sector,” said De Lion.

Although Fitur is one of the most important international tourism fairs, the peninsular market takes on a special role. In this regard, the counselor explained that in 2023 this market maintained its strength, with a growth of 1% compared to 2023 and 1.95 million peninsular tourists, almost the maximum level reached in 2019, when this figure reached 1. 97 million.

"The loyalty of the peninsular market and the strong commitment of the airlines to our destination are evident this summer, when the islands will have the greatest connection in their history with the rest of the national territory, not only with the two 'hubs' of Madrid and Barcelona, ​​but also with 23 other airports through 111 regular routes and 3.9 million seats,” the counselor announced.

For the summer season that will start in April, the regular programming that airlines have put on sale registers an increase of 14% compared to the same month in 2023, which represents more than 400,000 additional seats.

By airlines, the one that will grow the most next summer will be Binter, with 226,000 seats that will be added to the other 188,000 that it already operated in the same period of 2023, and that will connect various points in Spain with Gran Canaria and Tenerife.

For its part, Iberia Express will reinforce its programming with more than 120,000 new seats, to which will be added the 70,000 new seats from Vueling, which has become the first operator in the national market to the islands, with more than 1.3 million of places for next summer, 33% of the total.

As news, Binter will begin operating from February 2024 with Madrid from Tenerife North and Gran Canaria with four daily flights on each route. In addition, the Volotea connection between Bilbao and Tenerife South, which began this winter, will also be extended to the summer season.

A positive trend that has already been seen also in the current winter season. “Although the peninsular market is quite seasonal, with a peak in the summer months, in recent years connectivity has also been gradually improving during the winter months,” explained the counselor, who gave as an example the extension of summer routes to the colder months, such as the route between Valladolid and Gran Canaria or between Vigo and Tenerife North.

In quantitative terms, this improvement in air connectivity from the peninsula translates into a 7% growth in seats this current winter compared to the previous one. As for the islands, La Palma (12.7%), Gran Canaria (10.7%) and Tenerife (11.2% in Tenerife North and 6.8% in Tenerife South) are the ones that increased the most.