The number of people visiting Lanzarote’s Centres of Art, Culture and Tourism continues to rise according to the latest data just released by the Cabildo, the local island government. With admissions for Lanzarote’s main attractions up by just under 50,000 visitors during the first five months of this year, an increase of nearly 5% on the same period in 2014.
The Cabildo’s numbers reveal that 1,053,074 people visited the Centres of Art, Culture and Tourism in the period to May end this year. With the Timanfaya National Park retaining the top spot as the most visited attraction on the island, accounting for 353,920 admissions for the year to date. Followed by the Jameos del Agua (266,459), Mirador del Rio (150,006), Cueva de los Verdes (133,131), Jardin de Cactus (125,319) and the Museum of International and Contemporary Art (22,132).
The results for May were also augmented by the addition of admissions to the Casa Amarilla in Arrecife, which once served as the island’s main tourist information office but which is now reopened to the public as an exhibition space. Indeed the Casa Amarilla is already proving popular, attracting 2,000 plus people to an inaugural event during the last two weeks in May entitled Lanzarote Through the Looking Glass – featuring some great old photos of the island’s first Victorian visitors.
This ongoing upswing in admissions also pays testament to the enduring appeal of Lanzarote’s more established unique attractions, some of which, such as the breathtaking Jameos del Agua, were created by the island’s favourite son Cesar Manrique as far back as the late 1960’s.
So why does the popularity of the Centres of Art, Culture and Tourism just keep on growing?
It would be tempting to simply assign this upswing to a correlation with rising visitor numbers over the same time period. But that doesn’t reveal the whole picture, as passenger numbers to May end this year are only up by 1.56%, compared to a 5% growth in admissions.
Independent tourism has certainly grown exponentially over the last decade, largely at the expense of package holidays. So it’s reasonable to surmise that Lanzarote now appears to be attracting what the local tourist board would no doubt dub the ‘right sort of visitor’, i.e. holidaymakers who are more interested in exploring the island’s cultural offering.
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