For the first time, the annual cumulative number of passengers breaks the ceiling and exceeds pre-pandemic figures. The historic increase in takeoffs and landings predicts and encourages the good forecasts of the tourism sector for the winter season – which runs from November 2023 to March 2024 –, with almost 10 million scheduled airline seats secured and an increase in reservations.
The airports of the Archipelago received 31.6 million visitors between January and August, 7% more than in 2019, when it stood at 29.9 million. Only in the eighth month of the year they registered a total of 4,103,245 passengers, 2.6% more than in 2022 and 3.9% more than before the confinement, as reported yesterday by Aena in a press release.
The Minister of Tourism and Employment, Jessica de Leonadvanced yesterday in the Parliament of the Canary Islands that winter tourism data will be “very positive”, so that the upward trend that has been registered during the first half of 2023 will continue until the end.
The head of the area assured that More than 9.6 million air seats have been scheduled towards Canary Islands, 7.6% more than a year ago and 33.5% more than in the winter of 2019. The average price of hotel accommodation has increased by 25% compared to 2019, which translates into greater tourist spending at the destination.
More visitors than in 2017
«If these trends are consolidated, the Canary Islands could close 2023 breaking the tourist record it achieved in 2017, reaching 16.2 million visitors, and achieving, at the same time, a historic turnover figure, with 19 billion euros,” said the counselor.
Despite the optimistic data, De León stressed that the area he directs does not forget «the risks that threaten the main economic activity» of the Islands. Among them, the difficult economic situation of Germany and the United Kingdom, the entry of the Canary Islands into the European Union emissions market and the increase in airport taxes proposed by Aena.
The plans of the airport operator, as stated by De León in his speech in the Chamber, They will raise the price of tickets for a consumer “who is increasingly sensitive” to the final price of their trips, in addition to making the Islands less competitive compared to other destinations that are not subject to these taxes, such as Egypt or Tunisia.
At the national level, the aerodromes of the Aena network closed their best August with 29.9 million passengers, which exceeds the data from a year ago by 9.5% and the previous record registered in 2019 by 1.4%. , before the pandemic. Thus, in the first eight months of the year, 189.1 million passengers passed through Spanish airports, 18.7% more than in 2022 and 1.2% more than four years ago.
Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport experienced the highest number of passengers with almost 5.6 million. And the Gran Canaria aerodrome, with 1,129,345 passengers, was the seventh busiest in the country and the first in the entire Canary Islands.
