The reference portal in teleworking Nomad List estimates at 3,852 per month the remote workers arriving in the Canary Islands in 2021, with an accumulated of 46,224. This platform also predicts that 87,480 annual remote workers will choose Canary Islands in 2023, which would mean a growth of 90% of this tourist segment compared to 2021.
Turismo de Islas Canarias, has increased the budget to attract 'remote workers' or teleworkers to Canary Islands to reach 600,000 euros in 2022.
The public company invests 2 million euros in consolidating the arrival of three long-stay tourist segments: 'remote workers', 'silver plus' and professional sports tourism, exceeding the 500,000 euros allocated for each one during the previous year.
"We have far exceeded our expectations, as we intended to attract 30,000 teleworkers in five years, a figure that we have managed to exceed in just one year," says the Minister of Tourism, Yaiza Castilla. "Without a doubt, this is a milestone that favors our destination because we are talking about a niche segment that benefits us due to its long stay and for generating a higher and better distributed tourist turnover," adds the Minister.
"We are making an unprecedented commitment to the diversification of our tourism model in order to reduce dependence on other more fragile segments" (Yaiza Castilla).
Regarding 'remote workers', "we managed to position the Canary Islands as 'the office with the best climate in the world', a communicative concept that has allowed us to climb positions in the ranking of the best locations in the world for teleworkers, among which Nomad List includes four islands, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura," adds the Minister.
The main markets
Nomad List is the portal that has the largest community of teleworkers in the world, it works under subscription and offers them information on the main aspects of interest of the best countries and cities to telework such as the cost of living, visa types, security, climate, etcetera.
Based on these visits, the platform collects data on the popularity of each destination in the different issuing countries, taking into account the number of teleworkers who visit the destination in relation to the total population of each country. Czech Republic, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Netherlands and France are the European issuing countries with the greatest impact on the Canary Islands in proportion to the size of their population of origin.
In absolute terms, responding to the estimates of the same reference portal, the European markets that most choose the islands to telework are the United Kingdom (33%), France (15%), Germany (14%), Spain (9%) and Italy (7%).
Private projects
When it comes to achieving these data, Castilla highlights "the high involvement of the private sector in supporting the Tourism of the Canary Islands strategy, with the reformulation of part of the accommodation sector to adapt it to these tourists and the development of 'coworking', 'coliving' spaces and other specialized products, which allow us to continue advancing and to confirm that in recent months the destination has consolidated as a reference for this new travel formula."
One of these projects is the Tigotán Hub Cowork & Sand, the new commitment of the Hotel Cristina by Tigotán, a hotel between the urban and the vacation located in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and that integrates into its business model a new line especially dedicated to teleworkers with a space of 1,800 square meters dedicated exclusively to this new style of work and life.
To this is added the celebration of specialized meetings, such as the third edition of Remote Villages, an initiative that links teleworking with the rural world and that, as a novelty, moves on this occasion to La Palma, a clear reflection of the importance that this island is adopting in the 'remote working' market and the adaptation of its offer. The deadline to sign up for this three-week experience (from June 4 to 25) is Saturday, April 30 and registration can be done on the website www.pueblosremotos.com/fuencaliente.
Another recurring meeting focused on teleworking that is held in the islands is Thriving Nomads, whose third edition took place in Gran Canaria last March. It is a forum that brings together experts from the remote working sector with the aim of promoting practices and strategies with a positive impact for companies and freelancers who choose to adopt a delocalized work philosophy.
One of the speakers at this event was Nacho Rodríguez, founder of Repeople and creator of the Repeople Conference event, who highlights the potential of this segment to attract markets that differ from traditional tourism. "Teleworkers don't have so much trouble traveling further because they are going to spend more time at the destination," he recalls. In addition, Rodríguez highlights the importance of having a direct flight with the United States for this summer, "which gives access to the Canary Islands not only to the largest market in the world of 'remote workers' but also to the one with the highest purchasing power and allows the islands to compete with their most natural destinations such as Mexico, Costa Rica or Colombia."
In addition, the Canary Islands were the origin of DigiNomads (www.diginomads.app), an application to find professional collaborators and generate community based on geolocation and developed by Giacomo Bastianelli, a teleworker who moved to the archipelago during confinement. Since then, the promoter of the project shares his time working remotely from Italy, France and the Canary Islands.
Finally, there is The RemoteBook. Canary Islands (www.theremotebooks.com), a guide to the archipelago prepared specifically for teleworkers and created by Canarian teleworkers, one of whom founded the Remote Work School, the first agency in Spanish for advice on 'remote working'.
