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ARCHIVED - Bumper summer for Canary and Balearic Islands as tourist numbers beat 2019 pre-pandemic levels
Lanzarote, Ibiza and Tenerife lead the tourism recovery in Spain
All of Spain is experiencing a surge in tourism this summer, despite the well publicised delays and cancellations as well as a fear of rising prices, and international traffic is coming very close to 2019 levels. The biggest boost has been experienced in the Balearic and Canary Islands, where Lanzarote, Ibiza, Tenerife Sur and Palma de Mallorca airports have all exceed pre-pandemic passenger numbers.
First place has been awarded to Lanzarote, which beat 2019 figures this July, closely followed by Tenerife, boosting its passenger numbers by almost 30,000.
Over on the Balearic Islands, the party hotspot of Ibiza is the clear winner and comes in second place overall. Not to be left out, Palma de Mallorca has operated 30% more flights in the last week compared to the same period in 2019.
According to the Hotel Situation Survey of the National Institute of Statistics (INE), the Balearic Islands were in July the Spanish autonomous community with the highest hotel occupancy, filling almost 90% of beds, followed by the Canary Islands, with 74.9%.
Moving to the mainland, the picture is a little different, and both Barcelona and the Spanish capital, Madrid, have had a disappointing season. Last week, Barcelona’s El Prat Airport received 14.7% less air traffic than before the pandemic struck, while Madrid-Barajas airport was down 14.6%.
Despite this, Spain tripled the number of international tourists it welcomed in June, reaching 7.5 million (compared to 8 million in 2019) with visitor spending approaching 2019 levels also.
These figures are particularly impressive considering that Spanish air traffic has been plagued by industrial action resulting in numerous cancelled flights all through the summer.
The recovery from Covid and the resurgence in demand seems to have caught the airline industry completely off guard, with Spanish carrier Iberia Express the latest to announce cabin crew strikes.
Image: Archive
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