Turismo de Canarias will promote the archipelago as a destination for professional sports training with a cycling challenge that will cross the eight islands in eight days and will show the variety of roads, slopes, landscapes and climates that the Canary Islands offer.
Lanzarote is the island of the Canary archipelago that receives the most tourists annually to play sports by bicycle. Last year there were more than 176,000 cyclists, more than double those who went to Tenerife (84,000) or Gran Canaria (83,000).
The 8 Islands Cycling Challenge project of Turismo de Canarias stars Lina Bo and Pol Tarrés, who will pedal more than 900 kilometers and 22,100 meters of positive difference in altitude while documenting their trip through the most iconic and demanding roads. With this initiative, 875,000 impressions and 400,000 users are expected to be reached on social networks.
Lanzarote will be toured this Saturday. The cyclists will depart from Playa Blanca and head towards Yaiza. From there, after visiting the Natural Park of the Volcanoes, they will arrive in Tinajo and return to sea level in La Santa.
The route will then continue to Caleta de Famara, and from there to Teguise where they will face the hardest part of the route to their final destination in Órzola to tour La Graciosa on Sunday.
The objective of the campaign is to reinforce the positioning of the Canary Islands as a benchmark destination for professional sports tourism. "In 2022, 46% of the athletes who visited the islands did so for the first time, so this is a segment with high growth potential, hence the strong commitment that Turismo de Canarias is making to attract these visitors," explains the counselor Jéssica de León.
"Some tourists who are very interesting for our strategy," continues de León, "as they are characterized by enjoying long stays, which reduces our dependence on air connectivity, and also spend more at the destination, thus promoting the development of infrastructure and technical services that also benefit sports on the islands."
42.6% of these visitors only contract accommodation, compared to 28.5% of the Canary Islands average, so they consume more in supermarkets, sports activities and passages between islands.
In addition, the sports tourist is characterized by their high economic capacity, since 29.3% have incomes greater than 75,000 euros, and a great travel activity, since they make an average of five trips a year with an average stay of 15 days.
8 islands in 8 days
The 8 Islands Cycling Challenge project, which began this weekend in La Palma and La Gomera and which will end on Sunday, October 8 in La Graciosa, pursues the objective of consolidating the islands as the ideal destination for the training of the best cyclists and teams in the world.
"This is a comprehensive project that will allow us to generate quality content from the eight islands for the sports segment and promote them in a non-intrusive and largely organic way, as it is disseminated through the social networks of its two protagonists," explains the managing director of Turismo de Islas Canarias, José Juan Lorenzo.
The challenge can be followed live through their social networks while they cross the archipelago from La Palma to La Graciosa, the final stop where they will carry out the day of return to calm, highlighting another of the attributes of the fundamental islands for the attraction of this type of tourists: the environmental factors and natural elements that accelerate recovery and increase sports performance.
When they finish, the protagonists will prepare a documentary piece that, accompanied by a blog of the experience, will be distributed in different specialized media.
