Tenerife celebrates 2012 tourism figures

Tenerife closed 2012 with nearly five million tourists visiting the island (4,903,497 to be precise) which, although lower than the previous year of 2011, reflecting a positive trend for the island, given the unfavorable economic situation and the extraordinary growth that the island registered during 2011. For the Minister of Tourism, Carlos Alonso, 2012 has been ‘good overall’ with regards to tourism on the island ‘We managed to keep the numbers up and in addition, we have strengthened our leadership in the Canaries because, for the first time, we are leading the three main markets (British, Spanish and German) in passenger traffic’.
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Problems in other tourist destination areas worldwide generated a growth of between 2 and 3% for Tenerife but other issues caused a drop in numbers such as the economic crisis in Spain, the entry into recession of some of the major European economies, the rise in air taxes from July last year and the elimination of the air tax subsidies in January this year.

Mr. Alonso went on to say that hotels have faired well, which have maintained their customer figures with a slight increase of 0.4%, ‘a situation that has been especially favorable for the islands five-star establishments, whose customers increased by almost 20%’. Add to all this that the Canaries, and especially Tenerife, ‘has been the destination with the highest volume of overnight stays in the year’.

He added ‘tourism has managed to overcome the crisis and create jobs, which is our main priority right now’. In this sense, and considering the number of work contracts taken out, the tourism sector in 2012 remained more buoyant than the rest of the island’s economy. Last year there were a total of 70,515 new contracts of employment, which has resulted in a growth of 3.4%.

Foreign tourism, despite improvement in recent months, ended 2012 with a balance of 3,720,409 international tourists visiting the island of Tenerife, -3.6% less than the previous year. Still, in 2012 Tenerife maintained its position to be among the first tourist destinations in Spain.

In regards to the Spanish market, with 1,183,088 visiting Tenerife last year, the island suffers a sharp drop of 9.2%, which is lower than that recorded in 2011 (-11.1%).

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