Gran Canaria expects that the year 2023 will prove to be one of the three best tourism years in its history, thanks to the recovery in the arrival of travellers from countries such as Germany, Sweden and Norway, its main foreign markets, which have already shown growth of 26 %, 40 % and 62.6 % as of April.
Thus, the Island Council of Gran Canaria recalls in a statement that the arrival of German and Nordic tourists last year was limited due to fears that their countries would suffer an energy crisis due to the war in Ukraine and the reduction of gas supplies from Russia.
However, the Council adds, “gas and oil reserves did not fall below 90 % last winter”, which has encouraged tourists from these countries, which are among the main outbound markets for the island, to travel to Gran Canaria once again. In addition to these positive figures, Finnish passengers have increased by 38%.
“These are markets which are fundamental for Gran Canaria and which are immersed in a process of recovery which still has a lot of room for improvement,” explains the Councillor for Tourism of Gran Canaria, Carlos Álamo.
Álamo maintains that, like Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura has experienced a good share of the tourist market in March and, “seeing the advance of the results of Easter and that April 2022 was already better than 2019, they will be even better”.
Meanwhile, the markets that have grown as part of Gran Canaria Tourism’s diversification project remain stable, except for France, which continues to rise, with 42.4% more passengers, and Italy, which continues to grow, with 42% more passengers.
On the other hand, the number of Dutch arrivals fell by 1.2 % and the number of Belgian arrivals fell by 0.2 %.
GRAN CANARIA: PASSENGER FIGURES
The statistical advance of Aena and the latest report of Promotur, of the Canary Islands Government, with data from the ISTAC, show the arrival at Gran Canaria airport of 295,431 foreign customers in the month of April, bringing the cumulative figure since 1 January to 1,367,364 passengers on international routes.
To this figure must be added the presence of 970,696 domestic passengers, making a total of 2,338,060 people in the first four months of this year, almost 25% more than last year.
“Everything points to, and we are seeing month by month”, said Carlos Álamo, that “2023 is going to be one of the three best years for the tourism sector in Gran Canaria in terms of numbers and especially in terms of the turnover indicator”.