The number of British tourists taking holidays in Lanzarote jumped by nearly 7% in November 2009, according to the latest figures just released by the Spanish airport operators AENA, as the popular holiday island and investment hot spot starts to feel the benefit from the introduction of a whole raft of new flight services to the island from budget airline Ryanair.

Earlier this year the British market – Lanzarote´s largest and most important source of tourist numbers – had been in freefall.  With declines of 20% and more recorded as UK consumers struggled with the double whammy of a sharp depreciation in sterling versus the euro and the confidence sapping effects of the credit crunch.At one stage, during May, occupancy levels in Lanzarote villas, hotels and apartments fell to an all time record low of just 49% whilst the Lanzarote property market was totally becalmed as British and Irish buyers – the main engines of investment here – all but evaporated.

Come the autumn though and that picture has changed radically with British arrivals during November 2009 rising by 6.97% to a total of 63,753 visitors,  whilst the number of visitors from Eire also increased slightly versus 2008 figures too – up by 1.47%.

This upturn in visitor numbers can largely be attributed to the entrance of budget airline Ryanair into the Lanzarote flights market as the airline decided to switch their focus to Lanzarote and the other Canary Islands last year in order to optimise revenues by taking full advantage of the suspension of airport taxes by AENA and the Spanish government as they sought to breathe life back into Spain’s failing tourist economy.

In late October Ryanair introduced 17 new services to Lanzarote from airports across the UK with headline returns starting from as little as £9.99.  By the end of their first full month of operations Ryanair had already assumed the top slot as the largest volume carrier to the island, accounting for just over 44,000 arrivals in November.

There were some fears that the airline might pull out of the island to take advantage of other opportunities elsewhere, a damaging scenario that had happened in the past on the neighbouring island of Fuerteventura.  But these fears have now been allayed as the new services have proved such a hit that Ryanair has confirmed their intention to continue flights to the island well in to 2012, providing an enormous boost for both the tourism and property markets on Lanzarote.