Tourism officials have dubbed Lanzarote “the different island.”
The most easterly of the eight main Canary Islands has cool lunar landscapes, volcanoes, lava tubes, white-washed homes, salt flats, cactus gardens, wineries where grapes grow in cone-shaped pits, and a vision for sustainable tourism that was created by the late local artist César Manrique.
There are 70,000 hotel and apartment beds and three main tourist zones. But hotels and resorts don’t overpower the landscape because they’re mostly two or three storeys (only one high-rise was erected before height restrictions came in).
Home to 167,000 people, Lanzarote welcomed almost 2.9 million visitors (including cruise ship passengers) last year. Just over half hailed from the U.K. with strong showings from Italy, mainland Spain, Germany and France. Small numbers came from Ireland, Netherlands, Nordic countries, Belgium, Poland and Switzerland.
Canada doesn’t even register — yet.
But tourism officials are excited to get to know us as the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco gain a higher profile as a winter sun spot.
You can always get here via Madrid, but now there are new seasonal Air Canada flights to Tenerife and Air Transat flights to Gran Canaria (both via YYZ and YUL). From those nearby and more developed islands, it’s a quick Binter Canarias flight to Lanzarote.
This year-round island will appeal to independent travellers and those who crave nature and art, plus those who visit while on Mediterranean cruises.
“So you know a hotel normally is a place where you eat and sleep and you rest and you have breakfast, but it's not connected to the territory. We love Lanzarote, so if we get you to love Lanzarote, you will be back,” says entrepreneur Óscar Cubillo, who runs Casa de Los Flores with his costume designer/artist partner Gigi de Vidal.
“Our guests are going to love the hotel. Beds are extraordinary. The showers, the breakfast, the welcoming. But what about outside? We want to be this base camp, this trustful place where you connect with art and design and architecture and food — and honesty.”
The five-room boutique hotel, inside a restored 18th-century Canarian home, just received a MICHELIN Key, meaning it’s “a very special stay.” It’s in the historic town of Teguise, which hosts a popular open-air market every Sunday.
Cubillo spent eight years with Starwood Hotels & Resorts (and cooked at two Toronto restaurants while studying in Toronto) and “wanted to accomplish something that we couldn’t in big hotels.”
For example, “reception is not a reception — it's a welcome. So we sit on the couch. We have a glass of wine with our guests.” Breakfast is a “gastronomic menu” instead of a buffet.
As with everyone here, Cubillo speaks often of Manrique, the Lanzarote-born artist, architect and environmental activist who fought against high-rise mass tourism, created unique architectural tourism sites and paved the way for a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve designation before his 1992 death.
“He loved his land so much that he taught everybody how to look at it in a different way,” says Cubillo. “How to love emptiness, how to love black lava when people say there's nothing there.”
Open Jaw is just back from an eight-night media trip with the Tourist Office of Spain in Toronto to Lanzarote, Gran Canaria and Tenerife.
While we only toured Casa de Los Flores, we spent four nights at swim-up suites in Secrets Lanzarote Resort & Spa, a 5-star, adults-only, all-inclusive Hyatt brand. It’s a quiet spot in the marina resort enclave of Puerto Calero.
The 335-room resort draws couples, friends’ groups and honeymooners. Sixty per cent of the rooms are Preferred Club rooms and most have sea views. The resort sits on a volcanic coastline and has four outdoor heated pools instead of a beach.
Commercial Executive Anabel Elvira Méndez also gave a nod to Manrique, saying, “we follow a line that he drew and it is to not destroy the island and to keep valuing the local nature and the local beauty of the island. To me this is really important as a local person and as a touristic worker.”
Like everyone that we met, she’s keen to “change the idea of massive tourism for quality tourism.”
She showed us around Grand Hyatt Lanzerote Playa Dorada, an all-inclusive property in Playa Blanca with 431 rooms (200 are for families and 231 are a Grand Club tier), a waterpark and nine pools. It’s next to a sandy public beach and near Brisa Marina, where we had a wonderful dinner.
On our final night in Lanzarote, we met with Héctor Fernández, CEO of SPEL-Turismo Lanzarote, who said tourism is half the economy.
We talked about overtourism in the Canary Islands and how Lanzarote doesn’t want more tourists — something that would strain the buses, taxis, guides, national/natural parks and volcanic sites — but to continue boosting the quality of its hotels and restaurants and attract higher-spending travellers.
“We would like to have customers with a strong mentality about sustainability, about culture, about gastronomy, about music,” Fernández says.
“We have a good culture offer. We don't want to have customers that would only want to go to the beach.”
