The regional deputy of the Popular Party, Astrid Pérez, stated this Wednesday that "the clumsiness of the president of the Government of the Canary Islands, Paulino Rivero, makes him solely responsible for the Islands losing 1.1 million tourists as a result of the elimination of air routes by the company Ryanair".
In a parliamentary appearance, Pérez pointed out that Ryanair informed the regional Executive of the suppression of 26 percent of its operations with the Islands, corresponding to 32 routes and 140 weekly frequencies, "due to the breach of an agreement signed by which the company participated in a Promotion and Marketing Fund of the Islands, endowed with ten million euros and canceled by Rivero, despite having availability".
According to the Lanzarote deputy, "the airline directly blamed the president for a drastic reduction in its operations with Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, which entail going from 4,350,000 annual passengers to 3,200,000". Therefore, Pérez believes that "with this new show of ineptitude, Rivero is actively contributing to the destruction of employment in the private sector".
The "main enemy of the sector"
"Our president is becoming the biggest enemy of the main economic sector of our autonomous community", Pérez remarked, who regretted that "once again, the Canarian Government has not been able to give explanations and has hidden in its eternal battles with the central Executive to cover up another disastrous news for employment in the Islands".
The PP deputy recalled that "although Ryanair brings almost 4.5 million travelers to the Canary Islands per year, Rivero did not have time, nor intention to meet with his representative, despite the fact that the loss of the planned routes will mean more than one million fewer tourists, 1,100 direct jobs and an economic loss quantified at 600 million euros".
Promotion Fund
In her appearance, Astrid Pérez recalled that the Government of the Canary Islands signed an agreement with Ryanair at the end of 2010, in which its participation in a Promotion and Marketing Fund was agreed during the period 2013-2015, endowed with ten million euros per year.
At the end of 2011, the Deputy Minister of Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands informed Ryanair that, although they had budgetary availability, the Government had adopted the decision not to create that fund, in which the company participated in 38 percent.
"The company's vice president spent more than seven months, between November 2011 and July 2012, trying to contact the President of the Government of the Canary Islands, to arrange a meeting, which he did not achieve and led to the cancellation of routes", revealed the PP deputy.
"The height of cynicism and nonsense of this government occurs when, despite the fact that Ryanair "expressly" states that the elimination of routes is the exclusive responsibility of the regional Executive, its spokesperson, Martín Marrero, dared to deny the existence of the agreement and diverted the blame towards the Government of Spain", she denounced.
Pérez showed her "outright rejection of the obscurantism and falsehoods that the tourism policy of the Canarian Government is being, which has not adopted any measure for the maintenance of these fundamental routes for the connectivity of the Canary Islands, nor has it foreseen supplementing the loss that the cancellation of operations will entail".
