T E N E R I F E ’ S O N LY Issue 700
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W E E K LY N E W S PA P E R
22 April 2011 - 28 April 2011
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Easter in Tenerife
THOUSANDS of people will be travelling this Easter to the tourist areas of the south, plus the other nearby islands of La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, to spend a few days in the sun. The ports have experienced queues of traffic and the airports an influx of arrivals. This Easter is a little different, with the political and social instability in tourist destinations such as Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. It has triggered a number of addition-
al tourist arrivals from Europe, with an occupancy that exceeds 85%. Tenerife is expecting bumper tourist figures for the Easter holidays, and the trend is likely to continue right through the summer. For the first time since 2007, the holiday sector in the Canary Islands is showing definite signs of recuperation, albeit slight. And a leading on-line travel agent is sure the Canary Islands will rank among the most popular destinations for British travellers this year. The prediction comes as a welcome relief to hoteliers, plus restaurants and bars
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following the dreadful airline and airport pitfalls and strikes over the last couple of years. These include the horrific Iceland Ash Cloud disaster of last year and the appalling UK winter weather, which
had a terrible effect on the tourist industry. Thousands of visitors were stranded in Tenerife for weeks as numerous flights to the UK were cancelled, and several vowed never to return to the Island.
Tourists pouring in THE number of passengers arriving at Tenerife South and North airports on Wednesday was 42,204. There were 22,802 passengers in the South, and a further 19,402 recorded at the North’s Los Rodeos airport. But those high figures will be
overtaken tomorrow (Easter Saturday). Throughout the Canary Islands during Holy Week, some 1.5 million visitors will pass through the airports, which is an overall increase of 9% over the Easter period last year.
Suddenly, though, the sun shines on us again. One pointer, says the Canarian Government, is the overall drop in unemployment last year, again slight, at 0.1%. It sounds minimal, yet this welcome decrease is largely down to more tourism jobs becoming available through increased demand. Latest figures, released at the end of March, show the inter-annual increase as a respectable 5.17% in the number of tourists visiting the islands. These positive signs are backed up by a report from online travel agents On the Beach, who reveal that holidays to the Canaries are
becoming increasingly popular with their UK customers. They have already seen a significant rise in visits to Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote and Gran Canaria so far this year, and Alistair Daly, the company’s Marketing Director, said: “In the past few months, we have seen a surge of holidaymakers to the Canaries. “We believe this has been prompted by the poor winter weather, as many of our customers were compelled to escape on last-minute holidays to get some warmth. Of course, there is no denying the popularity of this great group of island destinations.”