The Lanzarote municipalities of Tías and Yaiza are ex equo the ones that receive the most tourists per inhabitant in the Canary Islands. Specifically, both tied last year with the figure of 48.4 tourists per inhabitant, according to a study by the European University in which they map the data of national and foreign tourists who visited all Spanish municipalities last year.
Tías, with a permanent population of 21,083 people, exceeded one million tourists last year, while Yaiza, where there are 16,924 residents, received more than 800,000 visitors.
The study uses INE figures as a basis, based on telephones through active and passive events captured by telephone antennas.
In absolute numbers, the first in the Canary Islands is San Bartolomé de Tirajana, which occupies the eleventh position in Spain, with 1.69 million tourists; followed closely by Adeje, the twelfth most visited municipality in Spain with 1.68 million tourists; Arona, with 1.54 million tourists, occupies the fourteenth position; and Tías the twenty-second. In total, the Canary Islands exceeded 15 million tourists.
International tourism opts much more often for the coast
The province of Las Palmas received 8.84 million tourists last year, 81% of them from abroad. In Santa Cruz de Tenerife there were 6.39 million tourists, also mostly international (78.24%).
Thus, Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife are the third and sixth Spanish provinces that receive the most tourists from abroad.
National and foreign tourists show geographical differences when it comes to tourism: "the study shows that foreign tourists tend in 72% of cases to go to the coastal area; while nationals went in 38% to the coastal area and in 33% to the urban interior", says the doctor from the European University who directed the research, Francisco García Pascual.
The research also reveals that the number of tourists in Spain increased by 27% in 2022 and reached 247.3 million travelers. Of the total, 171.7 million were national and 75.6 million were foreign. The volume of foreign tourists experienced a notable growth of 89%, while that of national tourists grew by 12%, approaching pre-pandemic values.