Lanzarote leads the tourist growth in the archipelago in the first semester of 2015, thanks to the increase in the arrival of international tourists. With a total of 1,174,611 tourists accumulated during the first six months of the year, the island has experienced a significant increase of 4.1% compared to 2014, which already left historical figures. The next island with the highest growth is Fuerteventura, which has registered a rebound of 3.5% over the past year.
As for nationalities, British, Germans and Irish, in that order, are the ones that remain most loyal to the Lanzarote destination. Thus, in these first six months of the year, Lanzarote has received a total of 535,884 British tourists (1.9%), 162,597 Germans (25.1%) and 110,244 Irish (11.2%). The French market, for its part, has become the fourth consumer of Lanzarote, since during the first semester of 2015, 63,205 French tourists (44.4%) have arrived on the island, far exceeding the 43,797 Dutch who have visited Lanzarote in the current year (-16.5%).
In total, Lanzarote has received 1,061,188 international tourists so far this year, 4.7% more than in the same period last year. On the other hand, the national market has registered a decrease of 1% compared to the first semester of 2014. Until June 30, the island has received 113,423 national tourists.
However, the Tourism Councilor of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Echedey Eugenio, and the CEO of the Lanzarote Foreign Promotion Society, Héctor Fernández, agree in valuing "very positively figures that allow us to anticipate that we are in a position to repeat the extraordinary year 2014, as long as there is no exogenous element that becomes a threat to an economic sector as sensitive as tourism".
In June, important drop in national tourism
As for the figures for June, the Lanzarote airport of Guacimeta closed last month registering the arrival of 199,782 tourists, which means an increase of 3.8% compared to the same month last year, according to figures released by the ISTAC and Frontur. 175,592 international tourists arrived on the island, which represents a growth of 7.5% compared to June 2014. However, the national market broke the positive trajectory it had maintained during 2015 and fell by 17.1%.
Specifically, last month, 24,190 national tourists landed in Guacimeta, leaving a drastic setback that "is being studied at this time in Turismo Lanzarote", which states that it "trusts that the national market will return to positive figures during the next months of July and August".
Regarding these months, Eugenio and Fernández point out that "the prospects are good, although it will be difficult to register positive data, given the excellent records of last summer." In that sense, they remember that, "according to the National Institute of Statistics, Lanzarote led the level of occupation in August 2014 in all of Spain with more than 95%".
