Gran Canaria sees a 20% increase in bookings by German tour operators for the summer

 

Gran Canaria Tourism confirmed during the second day of the ITB fair in Berlin an increase in reservations, through tour operating companies, of 20% for next summer, and, in addition, the team led by counselor Carlos Álamo also made progress an improvement for the next winter season of 2024 and 2025. 

 

 

 

 

The professional Gran Canaria Tourism team has designed an intense agenda of meetings at the meeting with the German market that is taking place these days in Berlin, with up to 42 initial meetings in two days. “The sensations are very good and everything indicates that the upward trend of 2023 will continue in the current year, in which we have recovered almost 100.000 clients, with an increase in German visitors compared to the previous year with Gran Canaria that ensures both summer, a more complex time for island destinations due to competition from closer destinations, as well as for next winter in which we will once again be the preferred destination of Germans,” indicated the Tourism Councilor of the Cabildo.

 

The counselor responsible for the Gran Canaria Tourism area explained that the increase in reservations for the summer occurs in the number of slots, which confirms the growing interest of the German customer in the Gran Canaria summer period. He stated that a slot is the time slot reserved at an airport to make a trip and, therefore, translates into an equivalent increase in the number of operations. Reservations are made through travel agencies and tour operators in response to their clients' prior purchase of places. 

 

 

 

 

"At this meeting we have once again confirmed the loyalty of this client with Gran Canaria, which, despite the fact that the German economy has not fully recovered and they signed their first negative GDP indicator since reunification, this client will once again be the most important for our tourist destination, which recovers its position as a preferred destination for German customers, only surpassed by Turkey due to family and immigration ties,” explained Carlos Álamo at the Berlin event. “It is still early to offer accurate data for winter, but we are in a position to confirm 20% more reservations for this coming summer and that next winter we will also have a greater presence of German visitors, as well as Austrians and Swiss. , which is also managed at the ITB,” added Carlos Álamo.  

 

The Island of Gran Canaria will be connected this summer with 13 German cities, among which four stand out as the main issuers of customers and whose objective is to reinforce upward connectivity during the current year, recovering the pre-pandemic passenger volume and consolidating unprecedented turnover. In this way, Berlin, Hannover, Munich and Hamburg become the main hubs that grow the most with the commitment of Gran Canaria Tourism for the 2024 summer season and which is presented with an initial increase of 4% for the months of May, June and July and which place the Round Island as the Canary Islands leader in connectivity with Germany. However, the cities with the highest number of operations and booked flights are Frankfurt, with 73.115 planned slots; Dusseldorf with 62.477; Munich with 38.024 operations and Berlin, with 31.348 flights. In addition, Gran Canaria will have direct routes with Austria, through Vienna, Salzburg and Graz; and with Switzerland through Zurich. 

 

The airlines on the rise are Eurowings Discover, which inaugurates a new route with the city of Munich, and Sundair, which also adds new seats and places to its summer offer. Meanwhile, TUI, Ryanair, EasyJet and Condor maintain the summer 2023 offer and Carendon is the only company that minimally reduces scheduled plane seats. 

 

 

 

 

“Our objective is to consolidate the recovery of our main market and its level of spending on the Island, which is one of the highest, with more than 1.650 euros on average per stay when the average of the rest of the markets is 1.400 euros. He is also the client who stays on the island the most days, with a total of 11,6 days.

 

It is worth remembering that the island destination was visited by 819.660 German clients during the fiscal year 2023. This figure represents a significant increase compared to the 720.959 tourists in 2022 and implies that, with a total expenditure of 806,6 million euros in 2023, This market has recovered its usual vital signs as the first historical client of Gran Canaria in Winter and allows us to leave behind the call to contain spending made by the German Government in recent years as a consequence of the pandemic and the economic and energy difficulties derived from it. of the conflict in Ukraine. Despite the economic difficulties, with the first negative GDP indicator since the reunification of the country, Gran Canaria signed the best final balance of this market in terms of the volume of visitors since 2019, when 874.742 Germans arrived on the Island. The island of Gran Canaria leads this market at a regional level, since it is the one with the largest presence of Bavarian visitors in the Archipelago, out of a total of 2.5 million German tourists in the Canary Islands.

 

“The truth is that this improvement has occurred when Germany's traveling population has fallen by 15% compared to the total number of Germans who traveled before the pandemic and which once again places us as their preferred destination. For us it is fundamental and the feelings are positive for a year of 2024 in which we will once again break records in billing, which is our priority," explained the counselor before finishing by highlighting the attributes of Gran Canaria in his offer. linked to sport, active tourism and sustainability. “There has not been a single meeting in which they have not been interested in our sustainability actions and it has become an important element in the reservation phase, which is why we encourage our companies to continue betting on it, achieve certificates that "accredit to the client and rely on the Biospehere platform, Sustainable Destination, in which we participate and which already places us among the ten European destinations with the most accommodations with the sustainable label or certification."