SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Jan 11 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The sixth wave of coronavirus has fully affected the high tourist season in the Canary Islands and after an “acceptable” Christmas, according to Ashotel, the year begins in Tenerife with a hotel occupancy of 61% in January and 54% in February.
By zones, January foresees an occupancy in the south zone of 64%, the north of 52% and the central zone also 64%, figures that fall for February, with 58% in the south, 40% in the north and 47% in the downtown area (metropolitan area).
In the green islands, the average occupancy forecasts from the Ashotel survey are no better, except in La Gomera, which exceeds the data for Tenerife and forecasts a month of January at 84% and February at 80%.
La Palma continues with the trend of last Christmas and estimates 29% for January and 16% for February.
In the case of El Hierro, with a particularly low figure for a holiday period, large differences are observed in terms of the occupancy forecast between the different establishments, which influences the average.
The Christmas period closed with an average hotel occupancy of 73.4%, slightly above the initial forecast of 67%.
By zones, the south closed at 75.7% this holiday period par excellence in the Canary Islands, framed in the middle of the high season, while the north zone stayed at 66.5% and the center zone at 63.1%.
La Gomera, for its part, recorded the best occupancy data, with almost 88% on average, while El Hierro showed the lowest data (45.6%) and La Palma, as expected, fell to 36 , 7%, an island that has several overlapping crises, the last one, that of the volcanic eruption and the consequent paralysis of the tour operation.
Ashotel considers that in the current pandemic situation, with Tenerife at level 4, but with a very high vaccination percentage, the current restrictions should be adapted to this scenario of inoculation of the vaccine.
“Although Ashotel cannot and should not enter the scientific-health debate, we consider that the restrictions must be adapted, even more so when the president of the national government, Pedro Sánchez, has reported that from now on the treatment of this The situation must be like that of a common flu, “says the Ashotel manager, Juan Pablo González, who adds that this approach” must be transferred to the autonomous communities so that the different economic sectors, including tourism, can trace their activity ” .
Throughout this pandemic, the Canarian hotel sector has acted responsibly and has even been a pioneer in the implementation of negative test controls at the entrance of guests to its establishments, even before the start of the vaccination campaign. in December 2020.
This exercise of responsibility, they point out, has made it possible to keep the disease at bay in hotels and apartments, which have never been the scene of sources of contagion.
IN FAVOR OF THE ‘COVID CERTIFICATE’
In addition, he was in favor of the request for the ‘COVID certificate’ for all those spaces of public attendance, including the hotel establishments themselves, to keep the spread of the virus at bay and also asked in mid-December 2021 the need to establish a tourist health corridor with the archipelago.
Ashotel shares the idea that the islands are a community in which the significant weight of tourism (35% of GDP and 40% of employment) must be taken into account when establishing measures that allow to partially safeguard the engine of the economy canary
Among the restrictions on mobility, it has been positive, for example, that the United Kingdom, one of the main source markets for tourists to the Canary Islands, eliminated from January 7 the obligation to present a negative test to its nationals upon return to their country However, the employers’ association points out, Spain still maintains the obligation for the British to present a COVID certificate when entering national territory for all those over 12 years of age, when the second dose of the vaccine is in the 12-17 year-old band in the United Kingdom. It has not been scheduled until relatively recently, which has caused thousands of reservation cancellations in the last month.
