The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, has revealed that during the meeting he held with the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, and with leaders of the business associations of the islands this Tuesday in Madrid, taking advantage of his trip to the Fitur fair that begins this Wednesday, he asked them to raise salaries if they have so many difficulties finding workers in certain sectors such as tourism.
In statements to the media, Clavijo has detailed that in the conversation with the employers they addressed issues such as productivity, training or "the paradox" of the lack of labor having 3.5 million unemployed in the country, regarding which he said: "man, well pay them more. Raise the salary so they can see how they appear".
Stop counting tourists
Already within the framework of Fitur, the president of the Canary Islands has defended during his inaugural speech that tourism should be the driving force of the economy of the archipelago as a whole and also of the commitment to sustainability, innovation and knowledge.
The Canary president made these considerations in the Canary Islands pavilion at the FITUR tourism fair, inaugurated this Wednesday by the Kings, Felipe and Letizia, who visited the Canary Islands pavilion during their tour of the fair.
Clavijo has highlighted the clear and strategic commitment of the autonomous government to "stop counting tourists" and focus on taking advantage of the advantages that tourism brings. He assures that this roadmap will ensure that the economic engine of the Canary Islands increases its turnover and acts as a "driving force for the rest of the sectors of the archipelago", especially for agriculture and industry thanks to the 'Growing Together' project.
12 million air seats for the summer
The Canary Islands faces the summer season with "excellent forecasts", which the president put at 12 million air seats, 9% above last year and 21% more than the pre-pandemic era, which adds up to 2 million seats.
To this is added the air capacity of the current winter season that "continues to grow and is approaching 10 million seats", 9.6% higher than the previous winter and 36% higher than the pre-pandemic figures.
Clavijo predicted that 2024 will be "another great year for the islands in tourism revenue", and that the objective is to exceed the 20,000 million euros of spending contributed by the 16 million visitors that the Canary Islands received last year.
Main markets
Thus, the British market grew by 14% compared to 2022, the Irish by 28%, the French by 10% and the Italian by 8%.
Regarding Germany, he stated that "air connectivity is beginning to take off" and, for the first time since the pandemic, "shows positive growth", although it has not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
The peninsular market also "experiences an increase of 13.6% and this summer the archipelago will have the greatest air connectivity with the rest of the national territory in history: flights to 25 airports through 111 regular routes and 3.9 million seats".
With these data, he considered that "the real challenge for the Canary Islands now is that the good statistics of the tourism sector are transferred to the economy of the archipelago as a whole".
At Fitur, the Canary pavilion presents 352 companies and 1,172 accredited tourism agents and a stand that grows 120 meters, but manages to reduce the carbon footprint by 7% per square meter, thanks to recyclable materials.
Clavijo acknowledged the need to "face structural challenges" and "new challenges" and the "undesirable effects of tourism", such as the lack of housing that strains many tourist areas and even makes it difficult to find workers due to high prices.
He cited the new Vacation Tourism Law that the Canary executive is preparing, which "will regulate the market", but "taking into account the different realities and needs of the archipelago" and that will be achieved "with dialogue and all possible consensus", but also "with determination and without hiding our heads".
