Canary Islands will attend Fitur 2025 next week with a new "eco-sustainable and chameleon-like" pavilion to "consolidate its leadership" in attracting visitors -after the record of almost 18 million in 2024- and with the challenge that they continue to spend more at the destination, which it intends to achieve with "tourists who respect" its natural heritage.
This was stated this Thursday by the Minister of Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands, Jéssica de León (PP), when presenting at a press conference the details of the islands' presence at the next International Tourism Fair of Madrid (Fitur), which will be held from January 22 to 26, and in which it will be represented by its governments, its councils and by 375 companies, 23 more than those that attended in 2024.
De León has celebrated that the archipelago has achieved in 2024 that the average spending at destination of its national and international visitors has increased by 26%, from 1,123 to 1,416 euros per day, reaching 24,000 million, 2,000 more than that generated in 2023.
These economic results have reverted to the entire value chain surrounding tourism activity: accommodation, public transport, car rental, restaurants, supermarkets, leisure parks and activities related to health, she said.
In her opinion, "Canary Islands still has a long way to go to increase that spending per tourist in cultural, sports or health activities", hence in this new edition of Fitur it will promote "the musical festivals and the descents" that will take place this year in the islands.
The good tourism moment that Canary Islands is experiencing, which has already exceeded by 0.5% the figures prior to the covid-19 pandemic, has also been reflected in the creation of employment and affiliation to Social Security of the activities linked to it, which increased by 5.3% until November, to which are added the 144,000 self-employed related to this economic engine of the islands.
De León has confirmed that the United Kingdom continues to be the main issuing market of visitors to Canary Islands, although she has highlighted that Italian tourism has grown by 68% and French tourism by 56%, while visitors from other countries have increased by 32.5% due to the opening of new air routes with the United States, the Baltic countries, Croatia, Hungary or Romania.
Looking ahead to this winter, the Minister has announced that the air connectivity of Canary Islands with the peninsula will grow by 12.7% compared to the same season of 2024, while in summer it will do so by 6.1%.
Regarding the national market, De León has specified that in 2024 Canary Islands received about two million Spanish visitors, a figure that is expected to remain this year, given the macroeconomic conditions.
With an avant-garde, sustainable and "chameleon-like" design, as it will be transformed when the fair opens to the public to facilitate the visitor a tour that "recreates the unique essence of the eight islands", explained the manager of Tourism of the Canary Islands, José Juan Lorenzo, who detailed that the new promotional space of the archipelago has 1,768 square meters and will be used in all the tourist fairs to which it attends in the next five years.
With a carbon footprint of 70.52 tons of CO2, 660 kilos less than that generated in Fitur 2024, the Canarian presence in this fair, which will bring together 1,315 professionals from the sector in its pavilion, will focus on reinforcing its leadership in climate action, its resilience strategy that puts the resident in the islands at the center, the fact of being a safe destination and its natural potential.
