The Canary Islands Government latest report remarks on the cost of airline tickets to the Canaries, which have soared in the last year.

The price increase is particularly noticeable with flights from the UK to the Canary Islands which have increased by 51% within the last 12 months. Experts fear that reducing seats with Ryanair and Air Berlin have altered the market. Flights have been hit, not only with connecting Europe to the islands but also the peninsula.

An average air ticket during Q1 of 2013 from the UK to the Canaries was 359 euros compared with 238 as an average cost for the same period in 2012 – an increase of 51%. Connections to the mainland of Spain have also increased with a return ticket averaging 570 euros compared to 493 last year, these prices don’t include residents discount and reflect an increase of 16%.

It’s not just the UK market that’s been affected, the price of flights from Germany to the Canaries has also increased slightly by 5.35%, the average flight costs 354 euros. Some better news for Lanzarote is that flight prices to Germany have actually fallen by 18%, we were only commenting in the office earlier this week that we’ve noticed more Germans around the island recently.

These prices don’t just affect Lanzarote, the island of Gran Canaria has been hit with a price increase of 63% on UK flights and 22% on connections to Spain. Tenerife is 38% regarding the UK and Fuerteventura 48%.

The low cost airlines might not be popular with everyone due to their strict pricing and baggage policies but they do drive down the flight prices  and have been proven to bring tourists to the islands.

2013 Marketing Plan

The other news from the regional Government is that they have allocated 16 million euros to market the Canary Islands as a tourist destination. Special emphasis has been given to our all year round climate which is one of our main attractions. The Marketing Plan 2012 was presented by Ricardo Fernández de la Puente Armas, the Deputy Minister for Tourism in the Canaries to the Turismo de Canarias, island councils and major employers in the sector.

The marketing concept is to promote not only the sun and beach products for which the islands are known but to evolve into a more open approach to include nature, leisure products as well as the revitalization of the island’s resorts. Fernández de la Puente still believes that the Canaries offering, remains hard to beat.

One of the main objectives is to establish a common language between all agent involved in the promotion of tourism for the islands. The strategy is to focus online media, social networking and encourage active participation of visitors to the island which allows efficient marketing practices at a lower cost.

Belgium, Switzerland and Norway are considered countries of great interest due to their average high spending tourists, who offer growth opportunities. The marketing strategy will be more aggressive for the market available in France, Poland and Russia. Existing markets such as United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Czech Republic do not have much room for growth this year as is the case with the Spanish market due to the difficult economic situation, also Sweden as the market share here is already high. In any case the Marketing Plan establishes that it’s necessary to continue to make an effort.

Ricardo Fernández de la Puente Armas concluded that the Canarian Tourist Board have commenced working on the Canary Islands Strategic Promotional Plan, they hope that the word “campaign” will be banished from their vocabulary in the near future to establish a much broader marketing concept, one described as a revolution in the way of promoting the islands.

Q1 Arrivals

January 2013

Lanzarote received 125,444 foreign passengers during January 2013, this is a drop of 2.89% with 3,733 tourists less than the same period in 2012. The Canary Islands as a whole recorded 879,985 tourists, reflecting a drop of 4.02% compared to January 2012.

February 2013

The decrease continued in February 2013 with a total of 133,194 foreign passengers flying to Lanzarote, 1,488 less tourists than in 2012, which was a reduction of 1.10%. The Canary Islands received 886,520 tourists during February, a decrease of 4.54% or 42,153 people.

Lanzarote’s loss of 5,221 tourists during the first two months of 2013 was nothing compared to our neighbouring island of Fuerteventura who suffered a drop of 33,311 passengers during January & February. The Canary Islands as a whole were down 4.28% with 1,766,505 tourists recorded in the first two months of the year.

March 2013

It was a different story in March, when arrivals figures for Lanzarote were up by 8.65% with 13,355 more tourists than compared to the previous March. The increase impacted the quarters results making the total of tourists arriving by air 426,316, which was 8,134 more or 1.95% than January to March 2012.

The overall figure for the Canary Islands was also up by 2.40% when 1,039,336 passengers were recorded at the islands airports. The positive figures for March reduced the previous losses for the Canary Islands to 1.91% down on the first quarter for 2013, with 2,805,841 foreign passengers.

According to data provided by Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea (AENA).

The Deputy Minister of Tourism for the Canary Islands, Ricardo Fernández de la Puente Armas, said that "despite the upturn in March, which was mainly due to the holiday period for Easter, we must bear in mind that in the year to date there is a decrease of nearly 2%, so we have to keep working on fundamentals for the Islands, such as air connectivity. "

He continued, "in fact, the two most important market sources for the Canaries Germany and the UK, fell by 10.35% and 3.25%, respectively in the first three months of the year, but other markets were characterized by significant increases as in the case of the Russian Federation, with a 62.74% increase, Norway, with a 15.34%, Sweden at 10.32 % and France with an increase of 5.50%. "