Tourist figures up
Source of Info - http://www.ic-web.com/
According to figures just released by the government director general of commerce's office, the year-end figures show an increase from 44 million euros to 337 million over the previous year's total.
Javier Mariscal, external commerce director for the Las Palmas Chamber of commerce has stated that in his opinion, the massive increase in foreign investment has a lot to do with the tax-free areas and special tax incentive (ZEC)zones that have been created in the area. The Canaries is now situated in fifth position among the Spanish autonomies for attracting outside capital, currently bringing in 3.03 per cent of the overall total.
On the other hand, Canarian investment elsewhere only increased 22 per cent from nine meuros to eleven. Mariscal gave as his opinion that internal tax benefits such as those offered by the RIC scheme meant that investment inside the archipelago was more attractive to Canarian investors.
Las Palmas - The RIU hotel chain has also announced that their hotels in Gran Canaria are overflowing with tourists diverted from the tropical islands. In some areas the hotels are registering up to 90 per cent occupation. Körher agreed that the climatic conditions had affected tourists' choices but also underlined the improvement in the quality of services in the island as an important factor.
The predicted upturn in fortunes in the tourism industry appears to be materialising. Figures released yesterday by the Spanish government show that the Canaries received 3.5 visitors in the four months ending in April, a 2.2% increase on the same period last year.
The statistics indicate that although the number of Britons has remained roughly the same, a noticeable increase (3.3%) was recorded in the islands' second biggest visitor category, Germans. Coinciding with the figures, Tenerife's Cabildo reports that the number of guests staying in 5-star hotels here rose by 61% during April.