The president of the Cabildo, Antonio Morales, and the Minister of Tourism, Carlos Álamo, will be present at the meeting with the German market, together with the Gran Canaria Tourism technical team, with an agenda that includes thirty meetings with professionals from all over the world. tourism sectors and segments
Gran Canaria Tourism is present, with Antonio Morales, president of the Cabildo, and the Minister of Tourism, Carlos Álamo, at the ITB fair in Berlin, a reference event for the German market, the main client of the Gran Canaria sector and which starts this Tuesday, 7 December after three years of physical absence due to the pandemic. The island delegation attends it with thirty meetings on its agenda, with an increase in the number of places and connectivity for the summer, the renewal of the destination and the objective of consolidating the recovery of the sector with an annual figure between 800.000 and the 900.000 German customers. In addition, Gran Canaria will promote its sustainable offer, as it is one of the main priorities of the post-covid customer.
The tourist destination of Gran Canaria, which is finalizing the recovery of its sector after the stoppage due to the international pandemic, received 720.959 German clients between January and December of last year. The previous reference to Covid was 874.742 tourists and occurred as a consequence of the various crises and uncertainty derived from Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the call for spending containment made in March by the German Government, fearing that gas reserves and oil will drop dangerously during the winter. This, finally, has not happened as it has not dropped below 90% at any time and has not affected a drop in GDP, which remains around 5% in Germany. These indicators are having a positive effect on tourist travel reservations to Gran Canaria, so the objective established by the representatives of the Cabildo is to equal or exceed the records of the pre-Covid series and which are between 800.000 and 900.000 customers.
The key is, as they pointed out, for the German economy to overcome the fears of the energy and financial crisis that emerged during the winter season. Therefore, “the last few months have been quite good, with 90% of the accommodation places occupied in December and January, so we are going to Berlin with the intention of encouraging the pace of reservations, which began to pick up in the last stretch of 2022 and has been consolidated in the first months of 2023,” Álamo explained, before pointing out that: “if the current dynamics and trend continue, the most normal thing is that we will reach 900.000 at the end of the year.” He pointed out that the loss of customers occurred in the first months of 2022 and that since April “the difference is only 3%, so the trend is good.”
Carlos Álamo assured that the island attends the fair, with “optimism” due to the pace of reservations, due to the new major routes proposed with a 1,86% increase in connectivity compared to the summer of 2019, thanks, among other things, to the opening of lines in three cities - Bremen, Dresden and Kassel (SundAir) - which are new from the last year. In total, there are direct flights from 19 cities in Germany, with Dusseldorf and Frankfurt International airports carrying the most German passengers per year to Gran Canaria, with 152.000 and 130.000 passengers per year. The companies that send the most customers to the island destination are TUI (187,897), Condor (186.959) and Lufthansa (128.764 passengers). The first two have 25% of the market.
“We have a destination that presents many incentives to attract new clients, with a process of rehabilitation and improvement of the tourist infrastructure that has been very powerful, both from the private and public plots. Although there are still key points to recover, I believe that today we have a higher quality destination, with a more varied offer and improved from the improvement and enhancement of the local product and with a greater presence of clients in our summit, mid-range areas and municipalities ", explained the counselor before prioritizing the need to have a year, "unlike the last ones", without major surprises or setbacks.
Gran Canaria Tourism is committed to highlighting the attributes and advantages of the destination from the point of view of sustainability, through an offer based on landscape, nature or active tourism and the development of projects in common with the business community. , like that of Sustainable Biospehere. Among the priorities in Gran Canaria's strategy, there is also a greater presence of young clients, called 'millennials' and 'centennials', along with the profile of couples without children, compared to 2019. These clients give enormous relevance to the criteria of sustainability and the impact of your stay on the environmental footprint when deciding destination. Therefore, the important thing is to reach them with the correct information about our destination, because we see how what is most difficult is to reach the client with this message and for them to know how much and good is done in these terms," said the counselor. . Among tourism products, any proposal linked to Active Tourism is growing significantly, with great interest in the network of trails in Gran Canaria and which is especially valued by Germans.
