Tenerife continues to establish itself as a popular tourist destination for high spending European tourists. The hotel industry has just closed a great year on the Spanish island and the managers of the main top class hotels there have confirmed that luxury tourism grew by some 20 percent last year when compared to 2010, which itself also ended with a 15 percent increase over the results obtained in 2009.

This success has been put down mainly to the fact that many of the island’s five star hotels have been renovated recently and have added more value to their offering by providing luxury accompanied by exclusivity, resulting in personal attention, relaxation and privacy. Tenerife’s climate and natural beauty provide the rest.

José Fernando Cabrera, owner of Royal Garden Villas, said “luxury tourism has evolved very positively over the past two years.” In addition, new markets have emerged to join the large numbers of traditional visitors from the UK and Germany. Cabrera went on to say, “there has been an increase in Russian tourists, especially in the winter season, and also guests from the Scandinavian countries as well as France, Belgium and, more recently, even Saudi Arabia”.

Marine Vigouroux, Public Relations Manager in the exclusive Abama Golf and Spa hotel, said client numbers rose 10%…Click to read more about Tenerife Hotels

The Gran Hotel Bahia del Duque located on the Spanish island of Tenerife was recently voted the best hotel in Europe at the Excellence Awards held by the publisher of speciality travel magazine Condé Nast Johansens. This magazine is dedicated to covering the best luxury hotels, spas and venues world-wide.

The hotels 3,000 square meter spa, its outdoor thalassotherapy sessions, its 40 villas with private pool and butler service, its traditional Canarian decoration and architecture and its eight restaurants surely played no small part in winning the award for this Tenerife hotel. The combination of all these excellent facilities and services made the Gran Hotel Bahia del Duque Resort an easy choice for the best hotel in Europe at the Annual Awards for Excellence given by Condé Nast Johansens.

The leading, multi-media travel publisher has six travel guides, with many recommendations for hotels, spas, villas, apartments and leisure and business centres throughout the world. Over thirty years the Condé Nast guides have become a reference source for any demanding traveller. The award for Best European Hotel was the most coveted award given in the latest edition of the awards held recently at a ceremony in the legendary May Fair, one of the best hotels in London.

This hotel in Tenerife was chosen out of…Click to read more about Tenerife Hotels

The Grand Hotel Mencey has re-opened its doors in Santa Cruz de Tenerife after two years of continuous renovations. In addition to a complete remodelling of the facade, all the rooms and common areas, the main innovation of the new Iberostar Grand Hotel Mencey is its spa. The spa is more than 2,000 square meters surrounded by gardens where guests can enjoy a full thermal circuit as it is equipped with Turkish baths, cold pool, jacuzzi and a thermal pool. Guests will benefit from a 50 percent discount rate when using the spa facilities.

Rooms rates vary depending on the day of the week, but it will usually be cheaper at weekends to stay in this Tenerife hotel. For a standard room, Monday to Thursday, the average price is €130 per night. For Friday, Saturday and Sunday the rate goes down to around €105, if we book far enough in advance. There are a total of 52 junior and executive suites in the whole complex with prices ranging from €375 to €575 per night. The most exclusive room in the complex is the royal suite available for around €1,000 per night.

According to the hotel manager, David Cañibano, the hotel has already opened its doors to the first guests and is now fully operational although the…Click to read more about Tenerife Hotels

The Gran Hotel Bahia del Duque which is located in the ever popular area of Adeje on the southern part of Tenerife was recently awarded a Biosphere Certificate by the Institute for Responsible Tourism for its contributions to sustainable tourism and protection of the environment in Spain. The award shows that this Tenerife hotel has put the concept of operating a sustainable tourism model at the centre of both its business philosophy and its operations.

Biosphere is a voluntary certification scheme based on the principles of sustainable development through specific criteria related to the protection of the environment and can be awarded to tourism businesses anywhere in the world. The Institute for Responsible Tourism is a not-for-profit organization sponsored by UNESCO and affiliated to the WTO and is a member of the World Council for Sustainable Tourism (GSTC), which has the support of the United Nations Foundation and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

“The Gran Hotel Bahia del Duque has always been very conscious of the need for protecting and maintaining the natural environment here in Tenerife, both in terms of its physical facilities, the behaviour of all our employees and the services we provide to our customers. It has also been responsible for promoting these activities with the collaboration of…Click to read more about Tenerife Hotels

During the first six months of this year the hotels in Tenerife received a total of 2,471,622 guests which represents an increase of some 6.8 percent over the same period in 2010. These figures were produced by the Local Government of the island and agreed by the research arm of the Department of Tourism in Tenerife which went on to highlight that the results were positive both in hotels, which are up 8.7 percent, and other types of accommodation which are also up around 3.8 percent.

The positive headline numbers for the first six months of 2011, however, mask a more worrying trend among tourists coming from other parts of Spain. The total of 577,464 visitors who arrived from mainland Spain during the period actually represents a decline of 14.7 percent over last year and goes some way to reflect the depth of the economic crisis currently gripping Spain.

On the other hand, the number of foreign visitors arriving in Tenerife increased by 15.6 percent during the period reaching 1,894,158. Two main areas were the main benefactors of this growth in the number of foreign visitors coming to the island. The hotels in the north of the island received some 21 percent of foreign clients whilst the hotels in the ever popular…Click to read more about Tenerife Hotels

The H10 hotel group in Spain recently completed a comprehensive renovation of two of its hotels in Tenerife. The H10 Conquistador and H10 Oasis Moreque have been completely up-graded which has resulted in a substantial improvement in the facilities on offer.

The Conquistador was the first hotel that the H10 group opened in the Canary Islands back in 1984. Located on the seafront in Playa de las Americas, today it is one of the most emblematic hotels on the island of Tenerife. After the comprehensive refurbishment of its communal areas, the lobby, reception and the ‘Drago’ bar area, the H10 Conquistador is looking forward to the future with confidence. The hotel is seeking to strengthen its commitment to fine cuisine by opening both a new a la carte restaurant called La Vita è Bella, where guests can sample Italian specialities, and a new coffee & tea shop called Mike’s Coffee which will offer a wide selection of teas, coffees, pastries and other home-made goodies. The hotel renovated around 75 percent of the rooms giving them a more comfortable and functional style and it has started a Teenclub offering activities for younger guests. New facilities for the hotel’s ‘Privilege and Exclusive Rooms’ loyalty scheme have also been added including a new Privilege room on the…Click to read more about Tenerife Hotels

A five star hotel belonging to the Vinnci group in Spain, La Plantacion del Sur, on the Costa Adeje in the south of Tenerife, was recently recognised by customers of Tui holiday group as one of the 100 most preferred hotels in the world. Every year the German tour operator gives out its TUI Holly awards which are based on the feedback of thousands of the groups customers with regards to factors such as facilities and levels of customer service in the hotels promoted by the group.

The official award ceremony will take place in September in Düsseldorf in Germany during a gala evening. This year the event resumes in Germany after two years in which the economic crisis meant the event was held in each of the winning destinations as a way of keeping costs down. The Tui Holly Awards have been recognising the 100 best hotels in the world since 1994 and is a prestigious distinction to win and is seen as a guarantee of high levels of customer satisfaction in the nominated hotels.

The Plantacion del Sur hotel which belongs to Spanish hotel group Vincci Seleccion won the approval necessary to be classified in the prestigious Small Luxury Hotels of the World category. The hotel has a restaurant zone…Click to read more about Tenerife Hotels

Iberostar hotels, the Mallorcan-based Spanish hotel group, will enter the urban destination hotel sector later this year with the opening of two new hotels. According to the company’s marketing director for Europe, Oscar Gonzalez, the first hotel will open in Budapest in August and the second will open in Tenerife nearer the end of the current year.

The first Iberostar city hotel is to be the 50 room Grand Collection boutique hotel in the Hungarian capital and the second will be the Iberostar City Hotel Mencey. The hotel in Spain will be a five star luxury hotel and is expected to open in the last quarter of the year in the island capital of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The strategy of the hotel group is to open ever more establishments in the tourist capitals of Europe and to always locate them in “unique buildings”.

Mr Gonzalez went on to explain that the hotel chain does not have a defined goal to open a specific number of new hotels and instead stressed that the company is maintaining a “steady and sustained growth path” and that each potential investment is studied “in detail”. He pointed to the successful relaunch of the Coral Beach resort in Marbella, which had declined significantly before joining the Iberostar group…Click to read more about Tenerife Hotels

The prospects for the tourist sector in Tenerife for this summer are looking “good” according to the Hotel Association in Tenerife (Ashotel). The president of Ashotel, José Fernando Cabrera, said recently that he expects to see growth of around ten percent in the number of visitors to the island over the summer season.

According to the forecast produced by Ashotel occupancy rates could well rise between 5 and 8 percent in Tenerife with the overall average level of occupancy during the summer coming in at around 55 percent. Mr Cabrera said that, considering that Tenerife promotes itself as a winter sun destination, this is a very positive figure. Ashotel says it has worked hard to reinforce the campaign that was started last year to promote domestic tourism from within Spain.  Cabrera went on to point out that tourism is the only sector that is experiencing positive numbers and driving the economy of Tenerife.

“We’re getting more and more new clients every year but we cannot be too complacent. Tourists are increasingly demanding, better informed and seeking ever better services. Around 113 million tourists have come to Tenerife since 1977 and we have to keep improving our services and attracting more clients to thrive. Ashotel wants to drive the future of the tourist…Click to read more about Tenerife Hotels

According to a recent statement from the Tenerife Chamber of Commerce the marketing of “over 80 percent of the hotels in the Canary Islands is still in the hands of traditional distribution channels such as tour operators”.

However, the Tenerife Chamber also went on to point out that “nowadays eight out of ten tourists opt for new technologies when booking a holiday, especially German and British tourists who are at the top of the list when it comes to using the latest technologies not only for booking  flights and hotels but also for planning activities for their holidays”. The Chamber is convinced that new technologies offer the tourism industry in Tenerife endless possibilities both for attracting new customers and for developing communications channels to keep existing customers informed through social networks and blogs.

According to data from the Tourism Department of Tenerife, 7 out of 8 tourists travelling to the island use the Internet to plan their trips. Internet reservations rose from 47 percent in 2009 to 53 percent last year. More specifically, 49 percent booked their flights on-line and 39 percent booked their accommodation using the net. Regarding the impact of social networks in the tourism market, the Chamber of Commerce warned of the need for local businesses in Tenerife to…Click to read more about Tenerife Hotels