Ireland’s original winter sun destination is still the favourite. More than 450,000 of us fly to the Canaries at this time of the year, that’s 70% of the market. 40,000 of these travel in December and 30,000 in January. We like the Canaries, we know them, and the four hours ten minutes flight is as much as we can handle.
Formed from the same rift that created Iceland and Madeira, the Canaries are five volcanic rocks off the coast of Africa. We have direct flights to four, including Aer Lingus scheduled flights to Tenerife for the first time, with Ryanair rumoured to be considering a service.
Lanzarote, Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura are very different products. Agents report that late availability is proving troublesome, but that you can still find places if you search. In Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Shannon airports, where the stampede begins, you can tell the destination by the day. Gran Canaria on Monday, Tenerife on Friday, and Lanzarote on Saturday (Thursday if you are from Cork).
At the other end the arrangements are similar; Ireland, England and Germany on allocated days, rigid as radio frequencies, set in the imagination of agents, travellers and local tourism interests. Old habits die harder in the travel business than most.
Keeping such a large share of the market sounds more difficult than it is. The chief competition, alternatives to the staple of Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Tenerife, is coming from the Canaries itself. Fuerteventura is undergoing a construction boom which is expected to transform the island into a fully-resourced resort. It is already being touted as the destination of next decade, a life beyond surfing, with increased numbers descending on Caleta de Fuste and Corralejo.
Gran Canaria offers its lively Playa del Ingles and the dramatic cliff-resort, Puerto Rico. But it is Lanzarote which is still the favourite year-round destination. And strangely, in the midst of the sun-rush, both it and Tenerife have much to offer the solace-seeker.
Holidaymakers gravitate towards the same sunspots on the same islands: the Playa de Las Americas/Los Cristianos axis on Tenerife, and Puerto del Carmen and Los Pocillos in Lanzarote.
Most are unaware of the greater island beyond. To the north in Tenerife you will find the landscape of Mount Teide, the highest in Spain, and lush tropical vegetation. The inland colonial towns have a Moorish feel, left undisturbed by the hubbub of the passing tourist boom. Occasionally in the open landscape, to the side of the road are reminders that, holiday island or not, people still have their lives to live. Crops grow on the rocky fields and animals watch the traffic go by.
In Lanzarote's Puerto De La Cruz you will find the Hotel Botanico, five star recluse of the Hola magazine set: an occasional stopping place for Michael Jackson and an escape for King Juan Carlos from his reign in Spain.
Tenerife's volcano, Teide, is in graceful retirement, dominating the seascape for miles around and providing breathtaking views for those who make the climb (by vehicle, this IS a holiday). But Lanzarote's volcano still earns its keep. In Timinfaya national park you can visit El Diablo, the crater restaurant, to have your burgers cooked by genuine hell-fire. Guides stoke up the black smoking rock to show you the sulphuric embers and do fire tricks for busloads of tourists up from the Playa. To each side of the road, wastelands of black rock extend as far as the eye can see, beautiful and stark and dead, a useful backdrop for any Redemptorist's mission sermon. They are relics of eruptions in 1730-36 and again in 1824.
Africa is only 60 miles from Lanzarote, a slice of Spain shining bright beside the dark continent.
