TUI, Jet2 and Ryanair issue Canary Islands warning amidst soaring hotel prices

30 January 2024 , 13:02

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The airlines have warned of the impact of price rises on tourism (Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Airlines have urged hoteliers and Airbnb owners on the Canary Islands to slash their prices or risk putting holidaymakers off.

Representatives from TUI, Jet2, and Ryanair issued a joint warning to those working in the hospitality trade on islands including Tenerife, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura after a year of sharp price rises.

In 2023 hotel and apartment prices shot up by 10%. The average daily room rate in the Canary Islands stood at 138 euros in December - a 9.6% increase in a year - while apartment rates averaged 86 euros, an 11.6% rise.

The increase in prices is partly due to the global inflationary pressures which have seen rises across most parts of the world, and an increase in demand. Visitor numbers to the islands rose last year and are likely to do so in 2024 as well. There are expected to be 14% more passengers touching down in the Canary Islands in April than a year ago, Guide to Canary Islands reports.

Visitor numbers to the Canary Islands are expected to increase this year (AFP via Getty Images)

Off the back of the price rises, TUI, Jet2, and Ryanair issued a joint warning at the tourism convention Fitur. They collectively claimed that possible recessions in the UK and Germany could have a major impact on the economy of the Canary Islands, Canarian Weekly reports.

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Delegates from the companies argued that hospitality bosses should keep price rises as low as possible due to the diminishing purchasing power of families in the UK and Germany, the two main source markets for tourists visiting the Canary Islands.

The topic of mass tourism has become a hot one on the archipelago in recent months, as a burgeoning protest movement argues that too many people are visiting and that they are causing house prices to rise too high for locals to afford.

In one 12 month period to August 2023 house prices on the Spanish island chain jumped up 12%, according to data from the General Council of Notaries. Many landlords insist tenants on the island earn three times as much as the average rent. For a property rent at 650 euros a month, two out of three workers on the Canaries don't earn enough.

In six areas on the Canaries there are more tourist beds than ones for locals. According to Raúl Hernández, there are an average of eight holiday rental spaces per 100 inhabitants across all the islands.

Experts working for campaign group Ben Magec-Ecologists in Action have spoken out after tourist figures for 2023 revealed a record number of visitors - 48 million. By one estimate, as many as half of these are Brits.

The organisation's report reads: "The Canary Islands territory was more than overexploited. We had exceeded the carrying capacity of the territory by seven times, resulting in a scenario of systemic collapse due to the urban development structure."

Milo Boyd