The director of Lopesan's hotel division, José Alba, said this Thursday in a specialized forum organized by Europa Press in Madrid that one is to offer the environment as a destination and another is to condemn products such as sun and beach for families because it can ruin the sector. "I have traveled the entire tourist world and I can say that the Canary Islands is a global example. To those who say that Spain is a low-quality destination, I challenge you to tell me which one is high-quality," he said, since he believes that the places They are powerful in tourism and of this size have a clientele similar to that of the Spanish islands.
According to the Tourist Expenditure Survey, prepared quarterly by the Canary Islands Institute of Statistics (ISTAC), 34,2% of tourists who traveled to the Canary Islands during the third quarter of 2023 did not consider another destination when choosing the journey. The main destinations considered by the rest of the tourists were: another Canarian destination, another destination in the rest of the national territory, Greece and Portugal. 91,3% of the visits were made for vacations, leisure and entertainment, 2,1% for business and professional reasons, and 6,6% for other personal reasons such as visiting family or friends, education or health reasons. .
The director of Lopesan's hotel division, José Alba, has rejected that Spain could decrease in terms of tourism and warns that a bad strategy can mean economic "ruin" for a country that has regions as dependent on tourism as the Canary Islands. Thus, he maintained that the sector "of course" must work to compensate for the externalities it generates and "optimize the resources" it consumes, but he rejected the view of "tourism as a predator."
"I do not agree at all with that negative vision," he stated during his participation in a Europa Press tourism conference. Alba explained that if the Canary Islands and Spain want to maintain "a density" of tourism to maintain the current economy it generates, they cannot look at recipes from small destinations as many do when they look, for example, at Costa Rica, Europa Press reports.
"We cannot be Costa Rica [with nature and the environment as the only pole of tourist attraction]. In the Canary Islands we have a product to be Costa Rica and we have to do it, but be careful, as hoteliers we are beginning to worry that the things," he said.
In this sense, he said that only 16 percent of European tourism is "premium" in the sense of having annual income of around 80.000 euros per year, while only between 3 and 4 percent is really very high. income.
Alba specified that work can be done along the lines of trying to eliminate low-value customers, but always with the objective of "maximizing tourism power and not minimizing it."
"Tourism in the Canary Islands consumes 3 percent of the territory and in Spain it is barely 1 percent. So that message of tourism as a predator is not a real message and I have to say it," he concluded.
The tourist stayed mainly in collective establishments (hotels 61,9%, apartments 16,32% and other collective accommodations 7,43%). They also stayed in private accommodation, such as a home or room rented from a private individual (5,97%) or other private accommodation (8,33%). 33,8% of tourists who visited the Canary Islands in the third quarter of 2023 did so with all-inclusive. Residents in Germany were the ones who led this type of trip, with 48,1%, compared to 15% of residents in Italy, who were the ones who used the all-inclusive option the least.
