Foreign tourism continues to grow in the Canary Islands, as proven by the latest official arrival records of visitors and the cumulative numbers up to the end of March (the first quarter of 2024). This growth occurs simultaneously with total tourist spending (not to be confused with the income from tourism activity in the Canary Islands, which stays in the islands) by these same clients, primarily because there were 611,000 more of them in January-March this year compared to the same period in 2023.
This increase in overall spending is also influenced by the fact that foreign visitors consume or spend more per day on average (+6.3% in March) and are staying longer on holiday in the Canary Islands, with a slight increase in the average length of stay in the first three months of the year. However, this was not the case in March when the duration dropped by 4.4% to 8.7 days.
By the end of March 2024, the Canary Islands had record numbers of foreign arrivals, with 4.3 million visitors in three months (+14%, 611,000 more people than in the same period of 2023); with 1.5 million visitors from other countries in March alone (+19% compared to the same month last year).
Total spending by these visitors amounted to 6.5 billion euros, with 2.3 billion of that in March, which was up by 21% because it includes Easter, which was early this year.
This data, released yesterday (Friday) by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) through the Tourist Expenditure Survey (Egatur) of March 2024 and the Tourist Movement Statistics at Borders (Frontur), are a new record for the Canary Islands in the first quarter of any year, and place them in top spot for international tourism in Spain.
Over a quarter (24.3%, with 4.3 million people out of the country's 16.1 million) of the foreign visitors arriving at tourist destinations in Spain visited the Canary Islands, and 29.7% of the tourist spending by those visitors arriving in Spain was in the archipelago, 6.5 billion euros out of the national total of 21.9 billion.
The archipelago is growing in foreign arrivals at an average rate of 14% so far this year, with double-digit growth and an absolute increase of 611,000 people in just three months.
At that average pace, which will surely level out throughout the year, the Canary Islands, even without taking domestic tourism into account, expects tourism to grow by 8% in 2024 with more foreign tourists than ever in a year. The two highest years are still 2017 with 14.3 million compared to 14.2 in 2023.
The explosive pace of tourism this year is unlikely to slow down, along with all its impacts or negative effects, and is the reason why people took to the streets on April 20th under the slogan "The Canary Islands have a limit" or "The Canary Islands are exhausted."
