British airlines confirm Andalucia as a priority destination

British airlines confirm Andalucia as a priority destination

Manuel Muñoz, Spain’s Secretary-General for Tourism, informed the Junta de Andalucia’s Tourism Ministry yesterday, Monday, November 1, that British airlines are beginning to recover their connections with Spain. He passed this information while attending the World Travel Market in London.
Jet2com has already forecast sending 400,000 seats to both Malaga and Almeria airports, and says it is hoping to get back to the same situation it had in 2019, pre-pandemic. Malaga will be connected to ten destinations in the UK, with 58 weekly flights scheduled.

Speaking of his meetings with Jet2com, Muñoz acknowledged that, “They are very attentive to everything that may happen”. He added that the company is hoping to open a new base in Bristol, from where they will fly to Malaga. They also propose to become the airline with the second-highest number of weekly connections with Spain.

It was agreed yesterday to carry out a joint marketing plan with Jet2com, informing Muñoz that 50 per cent of all bookings are going to be packages holidays. Muñoz also stressed that the company had congratulated the Board on their implementation of international insurance, and they had also told him that, “they want Andalucia to be one of the most important destinations for them”.

The Andalucian delegation also met in London with the representatives of Ryanair, with whom they will continue to talk next week in Sevilla, as well as with Easyjet. The latter reportedly informed Muñoz that next year it intends to go from the two planes that it now has at the Malaga base, to five.

Muñoz concluded that Andalucia is leaving this fair with “important expectations”, because the British market “is going to stir again”. Although he renewed that there is still concern about the pandemic, he was convinced that “we have to create the need that when people think of a vacation they think of Andalucia”.

On the first day of the WTM on Monday 1, Muñoz also met with Mark Tanzer, the president of the Association of British Travel Agencies (ABTA). Tanzer told him that, if the current trend is maintained and no new restrictions are implemented to mobility, “we will be in a situation very similar to the moments before the pandemic”.

According to data provided by ABTA, 62 per cent of Brits with the ability to travel, intend to do so next year, and, of these, about 29 per cent show interest in visiting Spain. Given that Andalucia traditionally receives a quarter of travelers from the United Kingdom who arrive in the country, “we would be talking about a volume close to 2019”, Muñoz concluded, as reported by laopiniondemalaga.es.

___________________________________________________________

Thank you for reading, and don’t forget to check The Euro Weekly News for all your up-to-date local and international news stories, and remember, you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram.