The Canarian strategy for the recovery of tourism "involves the launch of a new scheme of incentives for airlines," according to Yaiza Castilla
The Minister of Tourism, Industry and Trade of the Canary Islands Government, Yaiza Castilla, informed the Tourism Commission of the Chamber of Commerce of Gran Canaria on Tuesday that 54% of air connectivity will be recovered this August.
This was reported by Castilla in the Commission that he chaired together with Santiago de Armas, a meeting in which they also analysed the current situation of the sector and the measures that the regional government is taking to activate the demand for travel.
The Canarian Minister of Tourism explained that although the effects of the pandemic on the demand for travel by tourists and on the health management of the various European governments "has significantly reduced the air capacity to the islands, the Canaries will have 746,952 seats during August, just over half" that the same month of 2019 when 1,442,404 million seats were reached.
Thus, he explained that the capacity in the last week of the month "will be higher than average" because it is expected that both Jet2 and TUI will be incorporated to the connectivity of the United Kingdom and the Canary Islands, so that the capacity can be up to 54% in the last week of August compared to the same period in 2019.
Castilla explained that this is 1,026 flights per week, of which 381 are domestic and 645 international, which he admitted is "still far" from what was available although "not a bad figure for the current context.
However, the data leads to the forecast of 2020 for the Canary Islands estimate an average fall of 66% in tourists and turnover at the end of the year, which would mean a loss in tourism turnover of the destination of almost 10 billion euros. In terms of Gross Domestic Product the fall would be 23%.
The Canarian Minister of Tourism explained that the recovery of tourism in the Canaries depends on the recovery of "global air connectivity, on which it depends entirely to ensure the influx of tourists to the islands.
In this sense, she indicated that the Canarian strategy for the tourist recovery "passes for the launching of a new scheme of incentives to the airlines to correct the disadvantages of distance and fragmentation of the territory, and to improve" the competitiveness in the capture of traffic, "the only way of growth of the tourism in the islands", according to the Canarian Government in a press release.
The objective, he said, is for the airlines to recover the programme of flights they had with the Canary Islands, which included connections to 153 destinations in 27 countries, hence he said that they have drawn up the bases and, at the moment, they are pending "authorisation from the European Union, within a limited time frame that has opened up for this type of aid, and pending budgetary modifications that will allow this new instrument to be provided with sufficient economic support".
Tourism promotion
Castilla reported the largest investment in tourism promotion in six months, amounting to 6.5 million euros allocated by Promotur Turismo de Canarias in various campaigns such as domestic tourism: Embrace your islands again; the national tourism campaign: Tranquility Phase; the international tourism campaign, scheduled for September.
In addition to tactical and contextual campaigns such as the one activated last Friday in the United Kingdom with the message 'No quarantine can defeat the love that millions of British people feel for the Islands. We are only postponing our next appointment'.
Castilla also referred to the strategy of the Ministry to position the Canary Islands as a safe destination including actions in networks in 18 languages and media permanently since the beginning of the pandemic, as well as the trip of the World Tourism Organization to the Canary Islands, whose "impact still lasts", in addition to placing the islands "in the world as a tourist destination with health security".
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