Fewer holidaymakers stay shorter as Canary Islands tourism shifts

Fewer holidaymakers in the Canary Islands are staying for shorter periods on the archipelago. This is the finding of the latest analysis of tourist figures for holiday homes and apartments carried out by the National Statistics Institute (INE). According to the figures, 2.5 million overnight stays were recorded. This was 5.6 per cent fewer than a year earlier.

According to INE data, holidaymakers also stayed for less than a week on average. Whilst the average length of stay last year was 7.03 days, this figure has now fallen to 6.9 days. Tourism experts attribute this to rising prices. In order to continue offering attractive packages, many tour operators are adjusting the length of their holidays.

In terms of the absolute number of tourists, too, the archipelago has recently fallen below a figure it had previously comfortably exceeded: whilst 2.16 million foreign holidaymakers visited the islands in July 2025, the latest figure stands at just 1.96 million. This represents a decline of around 200,000 foreign tourists to the Canary Islands.

Fewer foreign holidaymakers in the Canary Islands

There is a simple reason why these two figures are so close: the overnight stays refer to holiday lets and apartments, whilst the number of foreign holidaymakers in the Canary Islands also includes those who stayed in hotels. A look at Spanish visitors reveals a contrasting trend. Whilst just under 442,000 Spaniards travelled to the Canary Islands last year, the figure has now risen to more than 572,000.

This figure was not enough to offset the overall loss, and so another figure also fell below a threshold that had previously been almost unthinkable: the occupancy rate of registered non-hotel accommodation in the Canary Islands fell from 61.6 per cent to 58.7 per cent.

This may also be due to price trends: holiday flats and similar accommodation became 6.2 per cent more expensive within a year. This is also attributable to the shorter average length of stay: the number of people employed in the sector rose by 2.76 per cent, for example due to the increased need for cleaning as bed changes took place more frequently. Taken together with rising prices – from energy to furnishings – the price trends were in line with expectations.

This, in turn, has given rise to a type of holiday that is relatively new to the Canary Islands: the islands‘ campsites have recently seen a significant increase in demand.