The Minister of Tourism and Employment of the Government of the Canary Islands, Jéssica de León, attends Fitur to offer the largest connection in its history with the national market for this summer, with 3.9 million seats and 111 regular routes.
Jéssica de León, accompanied by the managing director of Promotur, José Juan Lorenzo, explained this Friday at a press conference the details of the islands' presence at the International Tourism Fair of Madrid (Fitur), which will be held from January 24 to 28.
"The loyalty of the peninsular market and the strong commitment of the airlines are evident this summer, when the islands will have the largest connection in their history with the rest of the national territory," said Jéssica de León.
She also highlighted that 2023 has been closed "with a balance that could not be more positive", achieving a tourist influx of more than 16 million and a tourist turnover of 20,000 million euros, which amounts to 22,000 million if domestic tourism is taken into account, which represents 10% of the tourist turnover of the Canary Islands.
To these good data, she stressed, is added the satisfactory evolution of employment indicators, as affiliation in characteristic branches of tourism grew by more than 6% and registered unemployment fell by more than 9% compared to December 2022.
Connection with 25 airports
Regarding the peninsular market, she commented that in 2023 it maintained its strength, with a growth of 1% and 1.95 million tourists, almost the maximum level reached in 2019, when that figure reached 1.97 million.
In her opinion, the loyalty of the peninsular market and "the strong commitment" of the airlines to the Canary Islands are evident this summer, when the islands will have a connection not only with the two 'hubs' of Madrid and Barcelona, but also with another 23 airports.
For the summer season that will start in April, the regular programming that the airlines have put on sale registers an increase of 14% compared to the same month of 2023, which means more than 400,000 additional seats.
By airlines, the one that will grow the most next summer will be Binter, with 226,000 seats that will be added to the other 188,000 that it already operated in the same period of 2023, and that will connect various points of the Spanish geography with Gran Canaria and Tenerife.
Iberia Express will reinforce its programming with more than 120,000 new seats, to which will be added the 70,000 new seats of Vueling, which has become the first operator in the national market to the islands, with more than 1.3 million seats for next summer, 33% of the total.
This "positive" trend, she stressed, has already been perceived also in the current winter season, despite the fact that the peninsular is a fairly seasonal market, with a peak in the summer months.
However, in recent years the connectivity has been gradually improving also during the winter months, added the Minister, who said that in quantitative terms this improvement in air connectivity from the peninsula translates into a growth of 7% of seats this winter compared to the previous one.
By islands, La Palma (12.7%), Gran Canaria (10.7%) and Tenerife (11.2% in Tenerife North and 6.8% in Tenerife South) are the ones that increase the most.
In short, Turismo de Canarias attends Fitur 2024, in which it will spend 1.3 million on the stand, travel and animation, accompanied by 352 companies, 27 more than in the previous edition, of which 50 will have an individualized meeting space, compared to 35 last year.
In addition, there are 1,172 agents from the Canary Islands tourism sector accredited, 400 more than last year, which represents an increase of 51%.
The stand, co-financed with Feder funds, has 1,545 square meters, and, as a novelty, has an area for conferences and presentations for 30 people that will host the presentations of the seven councils and public companies of the Ministry.
According to the managing director of Turismo de Canarias, sustainability is once again key and the carbon footprint per square meter of the stand is reduced by 6.97%, from 28.17 kilos of CO2 to 26.21 kilos.
