Over 400,000 seats between Gran Canaria and the UK this winter season
Gran Canaria will have 417,129 regular seats connecting it to the United Kingdom this winter season. This represents a milestone in the island's connectivity, with an increase of 31.8% compared to the same months of the 2019-2020 season, which is a good sign for the island's tourism recovery.
New routes have been announced by the delegation present at the World Travel Market in London, so from now on Gran Canaria will have new direct flights with Newcastle, London Gatwick and Glasgow, which could make it possible to exceed the volume of business prior to the pandemic, with a volume of visitors estimated at 771,000 British customers. The accumulated figure for the year, during the first eight months, shows that 580,856 British tourists have visited the island up until September.
“Despite the uncertainty that exists on the European continent, the tourist data for Gran Canaria is positive. Everything points to the fact that, with 20% more reservations for the winter months, we can reach the figures of 2019. That is, before the pandemic”, explained the president of Gran Canaria. “At the moment, given the fact that there has been a setback in arrivals from Germany and the Nordic countries, British tourism ranks first in the arrival of tourists to the islands. And the number of connections with the United Kingdom has increased. This also implies that there has been an increase in Europe as a whole and that Danish, Dutch, French, Austrian and Belgian tourism is also interested in the island as a destination for the winter months”, added Antonio Morales at the London tourism fair.
Gran Canaria's Minister of Tourism, Carlos Álamo, was also optimistic about the rates of recovery in the sector, despite a difficult start to the year due to the proximity of the Nordic and German countries to the conflict in Ukraine. “This has started to correct itself since April and the numbers for August and September have been above those registered in 2019.
The British market has positioned itself as the most important according to the accumulated data up to the end of September with 580,586 customers. This is a historical fact, although the German market is expected to rebound in winter and as usual to finish above the British market. In September the number of British visitors exceeded by more than 2% the number of visitors that arrived in 2019.
Another significant fact is that in 2022, British tourists represent 26.70% of all foreign visitors to Gran Canaria. This percentage represents the highest cumulative number of English passengers in history since records began.
The airline that has increased the number of seats offered the most is EasyJet UK, which has increased its offer of seats to Gran Canaria by 85.56% compared to 2019. It is followed by British Airways with a 26% increase and Jet2 with a 17 .16% increase. Jet2.s bet is very remarkable as it's first company in terms of number of seats connecting Gran Canaria to the UK with a total of 222,871 air seats. The main English airports with direct connection to Gran Canaria so far are Manchester, with 113,272 passengers, and London Gatwick, with 83,278 passengers.
