Andalucia Tourism Board, Antonio Martín-Machuca at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit - Airlines in Transition 2024

Transcript

Antonio Martín-Machuca:First, thank you for coming and attending and having CAPA Leaders Summit here in Granada. So we are grateful for that. And our strategy, of course, did change because we had to move quick and fast because of the pandemic. 2020, 2021, those years we did suffer a bit because we are very big in the domestic market. We receive 60% of the local people, national people to Andalucía. And then our main markets are the European, traditional European markets like the UK, like France, like Germany. So our strategy, we try to recover them by telling them and promoting Andalucía as a very safe destination. So we created like some kind of insurance for them if they have problems here and getting COVID. But nowadays everything has changed again. Connectivity, as you know, came back, and now we had a record year, 2023, more visitors than before the pandemic, 2019. So we received about 22 million visitors to the region, but 60% of them, as I said, were Spaniards, were locals. We are a big region, we are a big destination. Our size is bigger than Portugal, for example. We have 6 airports. One is going to be open, Córdoba, next summer. And we have one of the largest ones in Spain, which is the 3rd or 4th, Málaga Airport, behind Madrid, Barcelona, and Palma. And through different hubs in Europe, Madrid, mostly Madrid, Barcelona, London, Frankfurt, Paris, we do receive many visitors. And what we're trying to do is to have them all year round. I mean, because some of our destinations, they did suffer. They did suffer, yeah, during the wintertime. And the big season is, of course, the summertime. But winter, when they suffer, we try to support them. We talk to the different airlines to have flights in those time of the year. And, but yes, I mean, now our strategy is key, is the connectivity. And second is be sustainable. So that's one of our main strategy for the following years. And we try to do different efforts together with the different cities, city halls, and the different regions, and the governments, local government, and of course central government as well. We think we are doing very well, but we could do much better. Europe is fine. We are pushing and working very hard with emerging markets, those countries like Poland or Hungary, Romania, and of course long-haul. That's key. We have the United flight nonstop service, as you mentioned, from Newark to Málaga. It's going to be daily. Italy, seasonal this year, and also Middle East and also Asia. That's our main objective for the future. And I think we are going with a fine avenue to get those connections, to get those flights. And it's a client and a customer that have long stay, length of stay, and they waste a lot. I mean, what they spend in the destination. For example, the people from United States, Canada, or Latin America. So it's very important to have them here because we attend all the different aviation events, CAPA, Routes, and we talk to the airlines, we talk to the airports, we talk to all the destinations. But if you are on site in the destination, you can experience what we have, what we can offer to these people, to you guys, to these airlines, to the CEO, to decision makers, to planning routes. So it's very important that they experience the city, the culture, the gastronomy, and what we have to offer. It is true that we have, as I said, we have 6 airports. Granada is a regional one, and we can have about 2 million passengers every year in this airport. AENA is doing very well with new infrastructure, and right now we receive 1 million in Granada, but we think we have the capacity to grow. And this is key. I mean, they are here, they are experienced, as I said before, and it's going to be fantastic. They are going to remember. Thank you.

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