The Canary Islands' largest travel agency celebrates its 60th anniversary

Viajes Insular, the largest network of travel agencies in the Canary Islands, celebrates its 60th anniversary. To mark this milestone, the company held on Friday night at the Santa Catalina Hotel in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria for its employees and the hoteliers and tour operators it works with.

General manager, Ignacio Poladura, said: "This company is an unequivocal and inseparable part of the history of tourism in the Canary Islands. Thanks to Mr. Virgilio Suárez Almeida, a visionary and creator of the idea (which was not obvious at that time), the history of this company began, which works every day to be more efficient, agile, sustainable, competitive, and always keeps the customer at the centre of its strategy.”

Poladura also emphasised the importance of the tourism industry in the Canary Islands. "Thanks to it, we have thrived and become a top-level society," he said, “although not without significant challenges such as the unexpectedly massive blow caused by the pandemic.”

Jessica de León, the Minister of Tourism for the Canary Islands, congratulated the company for its "six decades connecting the Canary Islands as a destination,” and Carlos Garrido, president of the Spanish Confederation of Travel Agencies, described one of the company’s founders, Juan Andrés Melián, as "a charismatic person of recognised prestige in the sector, who always fought in favour of associationism and contributed to the formation of the sectoral unity that CEAV represents today."

The company was founded in the early 1960s by Virgilio Suárez Almeida, alongside lawyer Juan Andrés Melián García, who would later become vice president of the Gran Canaria Cabildo; Horst Scherschinski as head of Operations; and José Padrón Torres as head of Finance. The first office was located at 374 León y Castillo Street in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and they later opened branches in Puerto de la Cruz and Playa de Las Américas (Tenerife); San Agustín and Playa del Inglés (Gran Canaria); and La Solana de Jandía (Lanzarote).

Viajes Insular's head office in the 1970's

From 1966 to 1975, it had an office in El Aaiún (Western Sahara). Over the six decades, it diversified its activities with the launch of the receptive Turisbeds, the wholesaler Beway, the line specialised in tours and activities Vimotions, and the online contracting of transportation through trasladoscanarias.es and the consolidator Travelagent.PRO.

During its journey, the company has been recognised with awards such as the Gold Medal of Tourism Excellence, granted by the Government of the Canary Islands in 1987, or the certificate from the Financial Times and Statista as one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe in 2018.