Looking back at the tourism statistics for 2012, it was tourists visiting from Ireland who spent the most money during their holidays in the Canary Islands.
Irish visitors spent just over €54 per day which is significantly more that the average of €37 spent by other nationalities. German tourists on the other hand spent the least during their holidays, around €28 per day. This information is according to the Instituto Canario de Estadística (Istac) who record the statistics for the islands.
It’s not that the Germans don’t spend money on their holidays here, they do, it’s just that they are more likely to spend it reserving a higher level of accommodation on an all inclusive basis. Whereas typically Irish spend less on their actual reservation, allowing themselves more to spend at the local supermarkets, bars and restaurants during their holiday.
The German market is a much bigger one for the Canary Islands than the Irish, 2,642,638 tourists came from Germany in 2012 as opposed to 378,260 Irish across the 7 islands (data from Observatorio Turístico Canario).
June Tourist Figures
Lanzarote’s passenger arrival figures from Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea (AENA) show an increase of 4.7% for June compared to 2012. This equates to 430,361 people flying into Arrecife airport during June and a total of 2,452,822 from January to June 2013. Year on year we have lost 1.5% of passengers to date compared to 2012, which isn’t too bad considering the other main islands have dropped 9.8% Tenerife North, 9.7% Fuerteventura & 5.7% Gran Canaria. Only Tenerife South is better at a small drop of 0.5% 2013 v 2012.
Summer 2013
The foreign market is continuing to perform well, however visitors from the peninsula are significantly lacking, making connections from the islands to the mainland of Spain harder to find. Hoteliers are also reporting an increase in availability requests from tour operators, just in case the need should arise to divert holidaymakers bound for Egypt elsewhere.
Related Information:
Irish vote Lanzarote as the best winter sun destination
An Irish point of view