Southern Gran Canaria faces a critical situation due to the decline in tourism from Central European markets. At the heart of this downturn, the strategic enclave of Maspalomas is heading into a winter season marked by uncertainty, as This warning comes from the international tour operator Anex Tour, Neckermann's parent company, in a report published by the specialized media outlet Hosteltur..
The warning issued by the top brass of European tour operators places the islands at a critical turning point. According to Hosteltur, Melen Ulutürk, Managing Director for Spain at Anex Tour, points directly to a summer decline of between 5% and 9% in arrivals from the German market in the Canary Islands, severely impacting Tenerife, Gran Canaria, and Fuerteventura. This drop, described by the executive as unprecedented since 2011, demonstrates a loss of competitiveness that is hitting key infrastructures like those in Maspalomas particularly hard, where the accumulated price increases are encountering increasing resistance from German tourists.
The company points to the general increase in the price of Spanish tourism as the main trigger for this exodus of customers to competing destinations. In this regard, Ulutürk clarifies that the loss of competitiveness compared to other Mediterranean and North African powerhouses is not solely due to aggressive marketing from other countries, but also to the erosion of the islands' own competitiveness: “People always say, 'Egypt is very cheap.' No. We have become very expensive. That's the perspective we need to look at,” the executive concludes.
Pressure on profit margins and a contraction in German demand in southern Gran Canaria contrast sharply with the unstoppable rise of international alternatives for the winter season. The tour operator group is detecting an unprecedented rate of bookings to Egypt for the coming months, solidifying the North African country as the main threat to the Canary Islands' sun and beach tourism. According to Neckermann's parent company, the Egyptian surge is not a coincidence, but rather the result of a significant leap forward in its tourism infrastructure: "Egypt has improved a great deal. It has improved its services, its hotels, and its airports," explains the head of Anex Tour.
Faced with this scenario of trade tensions and increasingly late bookings, the accommodation sector in Maspalomas and the Canary Islands as a whole is forced to redesign its pricing and connectivity strategies if it intends to protect its market share against competitors from the Red Sea in the coming winter.
