Nadia McDonald
The CEO of Jet2 Holidays, Steve Heapy has written to Lanzarote’s president, Maria Dolores Corujo, asking her to clarify whether or not she wants British tourists to visit the island.
He expressed “extreme concern regarding the articles that have been published in the United Kingdom this weekend” which referred to statements made by the president calling for higher-quality tourists from places other than the UK. He has called for Corujo to explain what she means by ‘higher quality tourism’
The British media has been infuriated by statements made by Corujo who, at a tourism summit in Madrid (FITUR), said that the island should aim to attract higher quality tourists from places such as Germany, France and the Netherlands rather than relying heavily on the British market.
More recently the president reinstated this desire at the Berlin Tourism Fair (ITB) last week, saying “It’s essential to work on the diversification of the sector and the growth of markets like the German market, which adapt to our intentions of aiming at higher-quality tourism and holidaymakers who spend more when they’re here and moves us away from mass tourism”.
Following Corujo’s statements at both tourism fairs, the British press has taken her words to be a slight on British tourists causing a great furore among the public.
READ MORE:
- Lanzarote joins the Balearics in seeking to shut out Brit tourists in favour of Germans
- Tourism operators expect 300,000 more Germans to travel to Mallorca this year
- Spain wakes up to threat the EU’s new ETIAS tourist tax poses to its British tourism
