Lanzarote is the ideal holiday island for the discerning holidaymaker! This unique island has everything: stunning volcanic landscapes, amazing nature attractions, uncountable picturesque sandy beaches, attractive holiday resorts offering all kinds of sports and leisure facilities, a varied and tasty gastronomy and a fantastic all-year-round climate averaging 23°C, 3,000 hours of sunshine and only 16 days of rainfall per annum!
Serious tourism on Lanzarote actually only picked up in the early 1980s, with the introduction of the ‘package holidays’ in 1978. Until then, and despite the tourism boom of the 1960s on other islands of the archipelago, tourism development on Lanzarote has been very slow. By that time, the local government (El Cabildo) only just started to put an emphasis on improving basic infrastructures, such as the extension of the runway of the existing airport, which, in 1970, allowed international flights to come in for the first time. Other measures for preparing tourism growth were the opening of the first desalination plant in 1964 to make up for the lack of fresh water sources on the island and the conversion of several natural sights into spectacular tourist attractions, such as the Jameos del Agua, the Cueva de los Verde, Mirador del Rio and the Timanfaya National Park, just to name a few.
With regard to the construction of accommodation and leisure infrastructures, the Cabildo Insular – in wise foresight and under the influence of César Manrique who had returned to his native island by then – set up a plan, known as ‘Plan Insular de Lanzarote’, in order to avoid uncontrolled tourist development and to preserve the natural and cultural patrimony of the island. By 1974, the island boasted 2,000 hotel beds, receiving around 9,500 guests. This figure continuously increased, until – only a few years later – it had already reached more than 90,000 tourists per year, mainly coming from countries like Scandinavia and the Benelux, which at that time also meant quality tourism with good spending powers.
Towards the end of the 1970s, when the new concept of ‘package holiday’ offers started to flood the market, tourism on Lanzarote rapidly took off into other dimensions. Fast-growing numbers of visitors to the island resulted in important development phases of the island’s three major resorts Puerto del Carmen, Costa Teguise and Playa Blanca. However, the island government has always ensured that this development took place with respect for local culture and tradition. As a result of the combined efforts of island authorities and César Manrique, nearly two thirds of the island’s surface are free of tourist establishments and the discerning visitor can still enjoy the Lanzarote's unique beauty to its full extent.
This exceptional ‘tourist development model’ was internationally recognized when Lanzarote was declared one of the six universal models of sustainable development by the World Tourism Organization in 1987.
Today, Lanzarote boasts more than 53,000 hotel beds, which are mainly provided by its three major tourist resorts, and – due to its low seasonal factor – reaches an average occupancy rate of 84 per cent. More than one million and a half tourists visit the island each year, the majority coming from Great Britain, Germany and continental Spain.
The enormous tourism growth taking place especially during the past 15 years resulted in an estimated 90 per cent of the working population being currently involved in tourism in one way or the other. Considering the size of the island, it is not surprising that on an average, the daily number of tourists on the island often even exceeds half of the number of inhabitants living here all year round!
