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For the second year running, the Canary Islands destination has been awarded the world’s top destination in capturing airline routes. This is yet another recognition for the intense efforts Promotur Turismo de Canarias have put in over the last few years to highlight the potentiality of the islands, through tools such as the Flight Development Fund (FDV in Spanish) and a promotional strategy aimed at leading airlines, with the objective of standing out over competing destinations at such times when they come to planning their routes.

The categories at the awards included the best airport, itself divided up into three sub-categories depending on numbers of passengers; the best individual plan for improving airline connections; and the best destination manager. This last category is the one in which Turismo de Canarias has won its award, against tough competition from tourist promotion departments from Aruba, Cape Town, the Phillipines and Finland.

The event was held at the Chinese city of Guangzhou, where, alongside the world’s top airlines, new routes were looked into, for both inside and outside Europe. World Routes is the most important annual meeting of its kind that deals with airline connectivity, and attracts all the main operators.

This latest award is added to one earned last April, again for the second successive year, which recognised the Canary Islands as the best European destination, awarded by Routes Europe 2018 in Bilbao, plus the other two they received in 2017 as best European destination at the Routes Europe event held in Belfast, and as the world’s best destination at World Routes in Barcelona.

Canarias, better connected than ever

Over the last few years there have been 153 new routes to have been established on the islands. It is a non-stop job that focuses on the mid to long term, as not all airlines plan their operations for the upcoming season, and some need even up to two years in order to include them in their expansion plans. The Archipelago is currently better connected than ever, boasting a total of 156 destinations, 876 routes and 90 airlines operating regularly with the Canaries.

The islands have their eye on many different target countries, especially France, Italy, Russia and Central Europe where there is still room for growth in terms of air routes. Besides this, the Canaries have set a target of connecting up with new countries, especially North America, thanks to our strategic positioning as a hub with Africa.

During the meeting, negotiations were held with airlines operating in Germany and the United Kingdom to make possible improvements in connectivity, to deal with the subject of Brexit, and the restructuring of the air map following the drop in connectivity, in an attempt to compensate this fall. There still exist many strategic routes in Europe for the Canaries.

During World Routes 2018, contacts were made with Aeroflot, Turkish Airlines, Air Europa, easyJet, Vueling, Thomas Cook, Latam, American Airlines, Air Canada, Eurowings and Wizz Air, among others.