Fuerteventura tourism chief calls for more competition on Madrid flights
Asofuer president Antonio Hormiga has urged Fuerteventura’s tourism board to attract more airlines and says the association will challenge La Oliva’s proposed tourist tax.
Fuerteventura’s tourism employers’ association has called for more competition on flights between the island and mainland Spain, particularly Madrid, arguing that residents and visitors face higher fares when aircraft fill up.
Antonio Hormiga, president of Asofuer, described Iberia Express as a monopoly on the island’s domestic connections and urged Fuerteventura’s tourism board to negotiate with other airlines. He claimed fares begin to rise once 60% of seats have been sold and questioned the use of public money to promote airlines that, in his view, increase prices.
Hormiga also criticised the tourism board’s engagement with businesses, claiming that some meetings are called with only one or two days’ notice, or even on the day itself. He said this made it difficult for the sector to take part effectively in decisions.
Challenge to La Oliva tourist tax
Asofuer has prepared objections to La Oliva council’s initially approved tourist tax of €0.56 per person per night and does not rule out going to court if the measure goes ahead. Hormiga argued that the council had chosen the wrong legal approach and questioned why tourism businesses should collect the charge and pass it on to the council.
He pointed to the Canary Islands High Court’s annulment of a similar ordinance in Mogán, although that judgment is not final. Hormiga said the association was not opposed to every form of tourist taxation, provided it was legally structured and the revenue was used to improve the destination.
Housing and tourism prospects
Discussing the general strike called for 11 November, Hormiga said the initial information available to the employers’ association pointed to a limited impact in Fuerteventura. He described the strike as political but acknowledged the difficulty of finding housing, which he said affected both workers and tourism businesses trying to recruit staff.
He said some hotel workers were paying €500 or €600 for a room in a shared home and blamed public authorities for failing to anticipate population growth and provide enough social housing. He also expressed confidence that employers and unions would eventually reach an agreement in negotiations over the Las Palmas province hospitality collective agreement.
On tourism prospects, Hormiga played down a reported 3.5% reduction in airline seats from the UK, attributing it to airline efforts to improve occupancy and offset higher fuel costs. He suggested visitor numbers could fall by 3% or 4%, with a larger decline possible in 2028, but said the sector was not especially concerned at present. Despite more last-minute bookings making hotel occupancy harder to predict, he remained optimistic about the winter season, particularly Christmas.