Quality V Quantity of tourists: Airports have had 20% more passengers so far this year

Canary Island airports have registered 19,838,342 passengers so far this year, which is 20.4% more than in the first half of 2022, according to the Spanish Air Navigation Agency (AENA). 11,967,352 of these passengers were on commercial flights and 7,642,792 were on domestic flights, an increase of 20.7% and 19.9% ​​respectively compared to the accumulated figure of last year.

This increase coincides with the debate on the tourist capacity of the Islands, one of the main subjects addressed at the recent local elections. This discussion, about the tourism model in the Canary Islands, is an ongoing controversy that confronts several different sectors, with various political parties saying we need to control the growth of the tourism sector.

The first steps have been taken on the island of Lanzarote, where procedures have already begun for it to be declared a saturated tourist area. Through this measure, they intend to control the excessive growth of holiday homes and the number of rent a cars on the roads.

However, this is not an isolated situation. In August 2022, Majorca also declared saturation after having close to 1.5 million visitors, it's biggest number since records began.

In the Canary Islands, there are more and more places where the debate about tourism is happening. For example, on May 19th, hundreds of people demonstrated on the streets of Las Americas (South Tenerife) to demand measures against mass tourism, such as the residence law, a cap on the number of tourists, or the ecotax for everyone that visits the islands.

Likewise, this matter was also addressed on Spanish television this weekend where the question of Quality V Quantity of tourists was asked.

PASSENGER NUMBERS BY AIRPORT:
Gran Canaria Airport registered the highest number of passengers in May with 998,304, which is 10.7% more than in May 2022. With the exception of La Palma, the rest of the airports also experienced an increase in passengers:
Tenerife South Airport received 868,770 passengers (+12.1%);
César Manrique-Lanzarote, 644,858 (+11.2%);
Tenerife North Airport, 519,878 (+10%);
Fuerteventura, 450,757 (+8.8%); La Palma, 116 (-2.9%);
El Hierro, 24,186 (+10.9%);
and La Gomera, 9,349 passengers, where the highest percentage growth was recorded with an increase of 32.4% compared to May 2022.