The President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, and the Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Yaiza Castilla, held a meeting this Thursday with the CEO of the TUI Group, the German Sebastian Ebel, in order to work on the recovery of tourist flows with the Canary Islands.
In this regard, the CEO of Hotels & Resorts, Cruises, Destination Experiences and Contracting expressed his confidence in the recovery of the Canary Islands, arguing that "it will go well, as it is one of the few destinations with sun and little competition", referring especially to the winter season.
This meeting is the third held by the Government in the last three months with the tour operating giant since the global crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic began and the subsequent start of the islands' de-escalation process, with a view to preparing the destination for the reception of tourists, according to a note from the Executive.
More young people and families
Ángel Víctor Torres told Ebel that the low incidence of the pandemic in the Canary Islands is an advantage, because tourists "want to go to safe places and in the Canary Islands there is quality healthcare".
Ebel, who attended the meeting with the director of operations of RIU in the Canary Islands and Cape Verde, Sergio Lobenstein, and the representative of TUI in the Canary Islands, Jill Massow, assured that, according to the forecasts they are handling, "more young people and families will come to the islands".
For her part, Yaiza Castilla recalled that the Canary Islands has the 'Canarias Fortaleza' plan with which the protocols validated by Public Health are being finalized "to ensure the compatibility of vacation enjoyment with health security in the destination".
The CEO of TUI also acknowledged that "the desire to travel remains and long distances by plane will suffer a lot", so they foresee that in the coming years the European population will "take vacations in European countries or at home".
34.4% share in the Canary Islands
TUI is the largest tourism group in the world, with an annual turnover, which until 2019, exceeded 18 billion euros, thanks to more than 20 million customers.
Its most direct competitor (Thomas Cook) went bankrupt last September, which benefited the company from greater demand.
According to data provided by TDA (Travel Data Analytics), TUI's market share in Germany has grown from 24.1% to 27.7% this January and in the case of the Canary Islands it has gone from a share of 29.9% to 34.4% (in 2019 it brought 2.6 million passengers to the Canary Islands from different parts of Europe).
Like the rest of the sector, the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic completely paralyzed the group's activity for 3 months and the return to normality is not without uncertainties in the face of still weakened demand, so the company has received aid from the German government worth 1.8 million euros.
