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Año IX - Nº 107 - Abril | April | Avril - 2015
WHO’S WHO IN THE ISLAND?
Moisés Jorge – Director of Fuerteventura’s Tourism Board
“We have gained a lot in aerial connectivity nationally” FMHOY - Fuerteventura As every year around those dates we managed to find a space in the busy schedule of the director of the Tourism Board, Moisés Jorge, so that he can give us an insight on how the year 2015 is looking on the tourism level. What is your vision after the latest congresses and fairs, of the tourism future for this year in Fuerteventura? We started the year, tourism-wise, by presenting ourselves at the Fitur Fair that is the fair that lets us know roughly what the tourism year is going to be like, not only regarding tour operators, but also airlines and other agents of the sector. We presented our Marketing Plan that was approved at the end of last year and our forecast for this season is a 13% increase for Mainland and island tourism. After meetings with various airlines that will create new regular flights for the season, such as from Santiago de Compostela and Malaga, we can be sure that we will improve on the forecasted percentage. Vueling offer two weekly flights from those locations. Only for the summer months? No, I said regular flights, because they will be maintained all year long and will start in May this year. There is also a regular flight from Paris Orly with a weekly flight to Fuerteventura and there will be two from May onwards. We are looking for a balance between operators and airlines. We have been promoting for two years the connectivity with regular airlines so that tourists who want to come back to Fuerteventura don’t have to go through tour operators and the monopoly of their flights. Have you already managed to get important connections? Yes, we have gained a lot in regular aerial connectivity, for example, nationally, we have managed to get Vueling to organise four weekly flights between Barcelona and Fuerteventura; Iberia Express to double their offer in summer and maintain their regular offer in winter. And we have achieved this increase despite how expensive the flights are on mainland Spain and we will have to go to the competition tribunal because we have noticed
that in some cases the price of a ticket for a resident is the same as a normal ticket, which should never be the case. Furthermore, those high prices (400 to 500€) that large companies seem to be charging for the Canaries are not doing anything for competition and are penalising us. Vueling have also improved with a connection to Bilbao. Have new regular international flights also been created? Internationally, British Airways who started with a regular flight in December last year, have announced that the greatest number of short-haul flights will take place with Fuerteventura which is positive for us because it makes it easier for connections from those airports towards any other part of the world. And with Norwegian we have increased with two additional weekly flights to London and two more weekly frequencies with Easyjet, which makes it a total of six weekly flights with this airline. Ryanair have one regular flight with Warsaw and Norwegian with Oslo and from October onwards Lufthansa will have a direct and regular flight between Munich and Fuerteventura. Tell us about this quality campaign we see in all the media… It is the campaign called “La calidad en origen” (Quality at the source), with the idea of making businesses aware (not only regarding accommodation) that they must keep on being committed to providing quality in order to maintain the good results we obtained in 2014. This is why we aim at putting in place the quality label called SICTED, which is an integral tourism quality system in the destination that is promoted by the Tourism Ministry and the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, so that they can comply with minimum established quality parameters and bring a guarantee to clients that the establishment, company or professionals dealing with them were audited and follow established quality procedures. 108 businesses from Fuerteventura were interested in it and for the first round of tests last December, 19 of them passed easily and received their certificate. The others are still training for the June or December exams.
This certificate will have to be renewed every year with quality controls, so that the title is not removed from them and so that they can keep it. Lately, we have noticed that Fuerteventura is present in many Fair in the Central Europe area, what were the results? This year, as a novelty we have been doing our promotion alone and businesses from the sector are helping us with the financing for various fairs. We have noticed that Fuerteventura now has enough identity to get promoted alone (not under the wing of the Canaries), on markets were we are already present. We therefore can update data and train agents who normally sell the island as a tourism destination and organise professional open days in various locations in Europe about our destinations, about novelties and the points of interest that they can recommend to their clients. Some businesses that are co-financing come along with us in those initiatives. They contribute up to 50% and there are 10 businesses that have chosen this new way of promoting and training that we will extend to various countries and also in Spain. Always in areas where there is regular connectivity in order to promote sales. To sum up, are we expecting 2015 to be good? We will endeavour to maintain the good results of last year and improve on the connectivity both with other island and with the Mainland. In tourism we have to plan ahead and therefore there is no room for the excuse of “we don’t know how to deal with employment because we don’t know what the season will be like”. Nowadays they all know what the season will be like and what is not acceptable is the bad level of service generated by employment that is below the necessities of each establishment. We will have a very good year and I hope this will show in the level of staff employment. Although employers are not responsible for employment, it is painful to see that benefits do not show in this important part of the island’s economy. Last year, many hotels had already achieved their yearly objectives by the end of August. The rest of the year was additional profit.