CAPE VERDE: The African Islands That Many Worldwide Want To Discover

Cape Verde has seen the biggest surge in Google searches worldwide over 12 years

As a holiday destination, Cape Verde has plenty to recommend it.

It’s a year-round sun spot with alluring beaches, volcanic hiking routes, and a lively music scene, not to mention direct flights from the UK at under six hours, and no time difference, so no jet lag to contend with.

These draws would appear to be common knowledge. Indeed, it seems that just about everyone is searching for it online.

According to the Global Travel Search Index, which ranks the holiday destinations that have shown the greatest increase in Google search interest over the past 12 years, Cape Verde takes the top spot, with a spike of more than 3,000 per cent since 2004.

Earlier this year the islands were named the second most searched-for spot on Earth for Britons, sandwiched between the perennial city break favourites of Barcelona and Amsterdam.

Not that all those searches are translating into visits. The latest stats on tourism reveal that the Atlantic archipelago covering around 1,500 square miles, only welcomed 644,000 tourists in 2016.

By comparison Tenerife, covering 785 square miles, had 5.7 million tourists that year.

True Luxury Travel, which assembled the Global Travel Search Index, found that Cape Verde had the biggest increase in Google searches since 2004 worldwide, looking at 2017 alone, it came in second, after Barcelona.

To accurately assess rises and falls in annual searches, Google Trends issues various geographical locations with a score based on the overall volume in searches, taking into account how many people have been using Google over time.

In 2004, Cape Verde’s score was 23, but by 2016, it was 713 – a 3,000 per cent rise. It was followed by the United Arab Emirates - a 681 per cent spike over 12 years, the Philippines - a 276 per cent rise, Pakistan - a 162 per cent rise and Nigeria - a 145 per cent rise.

Which destinations saw the biggest drop in Google searches?

Libya saw the most dramatic dip in search interest for holidays there - an 88.8 per cent drop over 12 years, for obvious reasons, having descended into civil war six years ago.

The Foreign Office continues to advise against all travel there, and Tripoli’s International Airport has been closed since 2014.

After Libya it was Tunisia - a 88.1 per cent drop, Paraguay - down 86 per cent, Somalia - a 85.9 per cent drop and Iraq - a 88.5 per cent fall.

Have visitor numbers in Cape Verde actually been climbing?

Yes, just not quite so dramatically. Cape Verde welcomed 644,000 tourists in 2016, a 13.6 per cent rise from the previous year.

Henry Morley, Founder of True Luxury Travel, says: A key reason for the increase in search volume for Cape Verde is due to much greater accessibility to the islands.

Recent years have seen greater availability of direct flights from the UK which will have brought the country to the forefront of people’s minds as a potential holiday destination.

Airports have been opening on all Cape Verde’s inhabited islands, the newest international hub being Cesária Évora Airport in late 2009.

Morley added: We found similar patterns with other destinations, with greater flight accessibility to south-east Asia and India from the UK making these once far-flung locations easier to visit.

Oman and Cambodia are two destinations which have experienced a huge influx in recent years and we have seen that reflected in a surge in recent bookings.

A visitor to Sal in Cape Verde this year, predicts its popularity will continue to increase. Its main selling points are that it’s a six-hour direct flight from the UK, with little or no time difference, and better guaranteed year round sunshine than the Canaries.

But it’s much cheaper and closer than the Caribbean.

Sal does have its disadvantages. It can be very windy for extended parts of the year, though this makes it a big kite-surfing destination, it’s very arid and doesn’t have a great deal in the way of culture or cuisine.

It also traditionally attracts an older demographic but I think this will change, with resorts and clubs opening that make it a cheaper alternative for those that flock to in the likes of Mykonos, Marbella and Ibiza.

Some regions are dry and arid, others lush and mountainous.

A visitor to cape Verde five years ago says flights were all full because one of only two planes serving the islands had broken down.

There was very little to do on the main tourist islands, Sal and Boa Vista, apart from park yourself on the beach and maybe try some watersports.

He was taken on a minibus tour of the highlights of Sal, including a fly ridden rock arch and cave, a down-at-heel fish market and a desert mirage.

Still, the islands do what they on the tin, he concludes, singling out Sao Vicente for music, Santao Antao for food, and Santiago for hiking.

If you want clear blue skies, a burst of intense winter heat, perfect white sand and tepid ocean, they’re all great in Cape Verde.

How can you get to cape verde?

Thomson Airways flies to the island of Sal from Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Gatwick and Manchester and to its neighbour Boa Vista from Birmingham, Gatwick and Manchester.

Thomson Cook Airlines follows suit, touching down on Sal from Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham, and on Boa Vista from Birmingham. Each of these services takes six hours or thereabouts.

Portugal’s national carrier TAP is a further option, serving Sal and Boa Vista, plus sibling islands Santiago and Sao Vicente from Lisbon. It offers UK connections to London City, Gatwick, Heathrow and Manchester.

The fastest growing tourist destinations in terms of visitor numbers:

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Sierra Leone tops the list.

The little West African nation welcomed 310 per cent more overseas arrivals in 2016, compared with the previous year, a steep rise that was no doubt helped by the country being declared Ebola-free in November 2015.

Just 24,000 people visited Sierra Leone in 2015; but UNWTO last reported estimated numbers of 74,400 for 2016. This is a recent spike.

In terms of the Global Travel Index’s 12 year data, however, Seirra Leone doesn’t even feature in the top 25 countries with the most dramatic rise in online interest.

Next on UNWTO’s list of fastest growing destinations was Nepal, which saw a 39.7 per cent uptick of visitors than the previous year, almost neck-and-neck with Iceland, which saw a 39 per cent spike.

Iceland was voted the 17th best country in the world by readers in the Telegraph Travel Awards 2017, up four spots from its position in the 2016 rankings.


Tourism Observer

SPAIN: Volotea Starts 10 New Routes

Volotea launched 10 new routes across its network over the last week.

Zaragoza welcomed the launch of Volotea services from Munich and Venice Marco Polo on 4 June. Both routes will be flown twice weekly by the airline’s 717s and neither faces any direct competition.

Munich has celebrated two new route launches with Volotea recently with a Montpellier service launching last week and being swiftly followed by the introduction of flights to Zaragoza on 4 June.

All of the new links are low frequency services, with six of them operating once per week and the other four being twice-weekly rotations.

Route lengths vary from the 554-kilometre Catania (CTA) to Pescara (PSR) service to the 1,822-kilometre Marseille (MRS) to Mykonos (JMK) connection.

The average sector length of the new airport pairs is 1,143 kilometres.

None of the new routes face any direct competition.

Volotea is a Spanish low-cost airline registered in Asturias, Spain with bases in Spain, Italy, France and Greece.

The focus of Volotea's route network is on destinations around the European side of the Mediterranean coast as well as Western and Southern Europe.

Volotea serves metropolitan and leisure destinations mainly in Spain, France, Italy and Greece which fewer destinations in Portugal, Croatia, Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg and Ireland.

Volotea fleet consists of the following aircraft:

Airbus A319-100 - 13

Boeing 717-200 - 17

Total - 30

Volotea is the only current European operator of the Boeing 717.

Volotea was established by Alaeo S.L. from Barcelona, a company created by former Vueling founders, Carlos Munoz and Lazaro Ros.

The name Volotea originates from the Spanish verb revolotear, meaning to fly around. It commenced operations on 5 April 2012, from Venice Marco Polo Airport.

The company is backed by three private-equity funds, two of them from Europe - Axis Participaciones Empresariales and Corpfin Capital and a third from the United States CCMP Capital, whose chairman, Greg Brenneman, was one-time President and COO of America's Continental Airlines, and also chairs Volotea's board.

The company raised over €50m before operations began. US CCMP Capital Partners holds 49% of voting rights; Axis and Corpfin Capital 25%; and Munoz and Ros 26% along with relatives.

This ownership has existed since foundation, but it could change before an initial public offering before 2021-2022.

After studying the Bombardier CRJ1000 and the Embraer E-195 in 2011, Volotea selected the 717 after Southwest acquired AirTran and replaced its 717 fleet by 737s.

Boeing announced on 15 February 2012 that it had signed a long-term lease deal with Volotea for an undisclosed number of Boeing 717 aircraft.

In March 2015, it was announced that Volotea will receive a further four 717s from Blue1.

However, in November 2015, Volotea announced plans to phase out their 717 fleet over the next few years and replace it with Airbus A320 family aircraft.]

Volotea opened 90 routes in its first year, of which 40 were closed within 2 years and operates almost 300 routes in summer 2018 including 220 openings, and this could double to at least 500-600 across Europe.

Volotea has been profitable since 2014, a turnover of €360 million ($431 million) is expected in 2018 after $347M in 2017, carrying 5.7 to 6 million passengers: 50% are travelling for leisure, 35% to visit friends and relatives, and 15% for business.


Tourism Observer

GERMANY: Intersky And Minoan Air Stop Flying

Two European regional airlines have stopped flying this week as the summer peak demand turns into winter over supply of flights.

Intersky the German carrier, which flew domestic scheduled services from Friedrichshafen Airport to Cologne/Bonn, Dusseldorf, Berlin Tegel and Hamburg Fuhlsbühl and international flights from Zurich to Graz and Salzburg has decided to call it a day and grounded its fleet of two ATR72-600s and three Dash 8-300s

In a similar story, Minoan Air based in Heraklion in Greece, has suspended operations but hopefully this is only temporary with its fleet of four four Fokker 50s aircraft which had operated scheduled services between Athens, Heraklion, Alexandroupolis, Rhodes, Thessaloniki, Kos, Mytilene, Mykonos, and Santorini grounded for the timebeing pending a corporate reorganisation.

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SOUTH KOREA: Seoul Is Preferable Destination For Wealthy Travellers

THE BUSTLING metropolis of Seoul, South Korea has topped a new survey ranking the luxury travel destinations that attract – and retain – wealthy tourists the longest.

For the 2015 Luxury Travel Index, prepared by technology and booking company Switchfly, analysts looked at the average length of stay that affluent travelers spend at top destinations around the world.

And while the list of 15 destinations is dominated by European cities and islands, the top spot goes to the South Korean capital, where wealthy travelers spend an average of 13 days shopping, eating and sightseeing – and dropping their money.

After Seoul, Dubai and Milan round out the top three spots.

The list, which is meant to serve as a snapshot into the traveling habits of tourists who fly first class and sleep in five-star hotels, also shows that interest in the Americas for deep-pocketed travelers is weak: The only two destinations to crack the list are Sao Paulo and Miami.

Here are the luxury destinations where wealthy travelers choose to spend the most time – and money – according to Switchfly, which powers booking and loyalty redemption programs for leading international hotel brands:-

1. Seoul, South Korea (13.0 days)
2. Dubai, UAE (12.7 days)
3. Milan, Italy (12.3 days)
4. Athens, Greece (11.5 days)
5. Singapore (11.1 days)
6. Frankfurt, Germany (11 days)
7. Sao Paulo, Brazil (tied 10.6 days)
7. Hong Kong, China (tied 10.6 days)
8. Bali, Indonesia (10 days)
9. Lisbon, Portugal (9.7 days)
10. Tokyo, Japan (9.6 days)
11. Crete, Greece (9.2 days)
12. Mykonos, Greece (8.7 days)
13. Rome, Italy (8.5 days)
14. Miami, Florida, USA (8.3 days)

ITALY: Naples Airport Seeing International Growth

Naples Airport doesn’t seem to go in for route launch celebrations, but that hasn’t stopped a number of airlines launching new routes to the Italian airport this summer including Air Arabia Maroc (from Casablanca) and Finnair (from Helsinki). This has helped passenger numbers grow by over 5% in the first 8 months of 2015.

Naples Airport, located in the town of Capodichino, around six kilometres north of downtown Naples, is Italy’s eighth busiest airport. In the first eight months of this year passenger numbers are up 5.3% indicating that the airport is likely to pass the six million passenger milestone for the first time in 2015. Traffic growth is being driven by international services where passenger numbers are up 10.5%, while domestic traffic has declined by 2%. Between 1996 and 2007 passenger numbers more than doubled at the airport, but since then the annual passenger throughput has hovered between five and six million passengers.

The airport’s seasonality profile has been stable in recent years, and scores a “good” 8.97 on anna.aero’s Seasonal Variation in Demand (SVID) calculator. Last year’s almost 10% boost in traffic can be attributed in large part to the decision by easyJet to make the airport a designated base at the start of the summer season. This saw the UK-based LCC add five new destinations (Brussels, Catania, Corfu, Malta and Mykonos) to its existing network, which has been followed up this summer by a further three new routes, with flights from London Luton having been launched at the start of the W14/15 season.

Milan and London are leading destinations

According to ENAC data, of the airport’s almost six million passengers in 2014, almost 1.1 million flew to and from Milan, with Linate flights carrying around 43% more passengers than Malpensa flights. London was the leading international destination, with London Gatwick the leading international route. Among the top 12 routes six are domestic and six are international (shown in bright green). In 2014, international destinations accounted for 57% of the airport’s traffic, with this segment of the market showing an impressive 18.4% growth. Domestic traffic by contrast fell by 0.5%.

The vast majority of services are to destinations in Europe with Casablanca (started earlier this year by Air Arabia Maroc) and New York being notable exceptions. Other new services launched during 2015 were to Athens (with easyJet), Helsinki (Finnair), Heraklion (Volotea), Leeds Bradford (Monarch), Moscow Domodedovo (S7 Airlines), Olbia (easyJet), Sofia (Wizz Air), Split (easyJet), Tel Aviv (El Al) and Zurich (SWISS).

New services announced so far for the rest of this year and 2016 include easyJet starting flights to Lyon in mid-December, while Jet2.com will operate flights to the airport for the first time next summer with the introduction of seasonal flights to Edinburgh and Manchester.
34 airlines in Naples but where’s Ryanair?

easyJet is now well established as the biggest airline at the airport, accounting for around 27% of flights and seats during the peak summer period. According to OAG Schedules Analyser a total of 34 airlines operated scheduled services at the airport this summer. Apart from the top 12 in the following graph, other notable airlines offering flights at the airport include Aer Lingus, Austrian Airlines, Blue Air, Brussels Airlines, SAS, Transavia and Turkish Airlines. A significant absentee given its major presence elsewhere in Italy is Ryanair.