British tourists continue to dominate the Canary Islands’ tourism industry, with the latest official figures showing that 576,338 visitors from the British Isles travelled to the archipelago during July alone.
According to data from the Canary Islands Statistics Institute (ISTAC), they represented approximately 37% of all tourists visiting the islands during the month, reinforcing the British market’s position as the most important source of visitors to the Canary Islands.
Overall, the archipelago welcomed approximately 1.5 million tourists during July, an increase of 2.7% compared with the same month last year.
That equates to an additional 41,055 visitors in just one month, despite July falling outside the Canary Islands’ traditional peak winter tourism season.
But it is the continuing strength of the British market that particularly stands out.
More than one in three tourists are British
With 576,338 arrivals from the British Isles, more than one in every three tourists visiting the Canary Islands in July came from the British market.
The scale of that figure becomes clearer when compared with the islands’ other major tourism markets.
Visitors from the rest of Spain accounted for approximately 16% of the total, while Germany, traditionally another of the Canary Islands’ most important international markets, represented around 11%.
It means the British market remains substantially larger than either of them.
The relationship is particularly important for the main holiday islands of Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, where British visitors have been a cornerstone of the tourism industry for decades.
Frequent flights from airports across the UK, the popularity of package holidays and the established tourism infrastructure aimed at British visitors have all helped maintain that position.
Tenerife remains the most visited island
Tenerife attracted the largest number of tourists overall during July, welcoming 600,339 visitors.
That represents approximately four out of every ten tourists who travelled to the Canary Islands during the month.
Gran Canaria accounted for around 24% of visitors, while Lanzarote attracted approximately 20%, with Fuerteventura also remaining one of the archipelago’s principal holiday destinations.
The figures highlight the continuing popularity of the Canary Islands during the summer as well as their traditionally stronger winter season.
Package holidays are still going strong
The statistics also reveal that the traditional package holiday remains remarkably important to people travelling to the Canary Islands.
Almost half of all visitors in July, 48.5%, travelled on a package holiday combining at least their transport and accommodation within the same booking.
Hotels and apartments also remain the preferred accommodation choice, with 81.6% of tourists staying in traditional tourist accommodation.
Shorter holidays dominate the market, with around 63% of visitors spending between one and seven nights in the islands.
Overall visitor numbers continue to rise
The strength of the British market comes against a backdrop of continued growth in overall tourist numbers.
The total of approximately 1.5 million visitors was 2.7% higher than in July 2025.
International visitors continued to account for the overwhelming majority of tourists, although there was particularly strong growth in visitors travelling from mainland Spain, which increased by 10.8%.
Separate national statistics have shown a slight decline in the number of foreign tourists visiting the Canary Islands during July. However, those figures measure a different element of the market, while the broader ISTAC data show overall visitor numbers increasing once domestic Spanish tourism is included.
For the Canary Islands tourism industry, however, one conclusion from the latest figures is particularly clear: British holidaymakers remain its biggest market by a substantial margin.
With almost 576,500 British visitors in a single summer month, and more than a third of all tourists coming from the British market, the long-standing relationship between UK holidaymakers and the Canary Islands shows little sign of disappearing.
