Features and Facts About Tenerife

The Island of Tenerife, the largest in the group of the Canary Islands, has made its own fortune based on it main assets of climate, culture, history and geography. The island, which is part of Spain but is located much closer to the west coast of north Africa, is a mix of volcanic mountain terrain and spectacular coastlines blessed with year-round mild weather and sunshine.

The trade winds of the Atlantic, minimal rainfall and warm waters make Tenerife almost the perfect year-round destination for tourists from all over Europe and perhaps beyond.

Residents of the island are very reliant on tourism but there are other industries that contribute to the island's economy including agriculture which extends to various crops and also wine making. The tourism that generates more than half of the islands economy is fairly diverse, although the beaches along Tenerife's coast and long days of warm sunshine make relaxing by the sea the primary type of vacation offered. However activity holidays are also very popular, especially during the winter months when other locations make outdoor pursuits unpleasant due to cold wet weather. These pursuits include walking, hiking, climbing, cycling, windsurfing and sailing.

The island also has a wealth of history drawing on African origins through to Spanish rule which started in the fifteenth century. The strength of the Spanish combined with the island's remote location and the relative weakness of any invading force from Africa has kept the island under Spanish control ever since. Tenerife, along with the other islands in the group, was formed from volcanic activity around 40 million years ago and has similar origins to other islands around the world on the similar latitudes like the Azores. The fertile volcanic soil allows farmers on the island to grow a wide variety of crops including bananas, tomatoes, coffee, oranges and dates. Potatoes and cereal crops also do well at higher altitudes where there is more cloud and conditions damper.

While tourism is the major contributor to the islands economy all is not rosy under the surface. Unemployment across the Canary Islands is high at more than fifteen per cent and the receipt of additional funding every year from the EU makes its financial future quite unstable. The current financial stresses across the world are bound to have a significant impact on Tenerife if visitor numbers continue to struggle as they have in the first part of 2009. Favourable taxation in the form of lower levels of IVA (a VAT equivalent) keeps prices lower but that may not be enough to keep tourists level from the UK at usual levels while Sterling is now very weak against the Euro.

Putting financial concerns aside, Tenerife has features that make it a fantastic tourist destination. Areas in the south of the island regularly experience over 2500 hours of sunshine annually, which equates to almost 7 hours every day. Very few locations in the world can match that level of sunshine and certainly in Europe, Tenerife stands almost alone as a year-round holiday resort.

The capital of the Island is Santa Cruz de Tenerife buts it shares overall governance of the Canary Islands with Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria. Being located in the north of the island, away from the primary holiday resorts in the south, Santa Cruz escapes the poorer aspects of purpose-built holiday areas and retains its own interesting architecture with plenty of attractive squares or Plazas to investigate.

Beaches on Tenerife take all forms and there is a tendency for many now to have their sand shipped in artificially. The almost black volcanic sand is not well liked by tourists and many prefer the typical golden soft sand found in other countries and shipped across to the island from the Sahara Desert.

Mount Teide, in the centre of the island, is a dormant volcano rising to a height of over 3700 metres and is the highest mountain in the whole of Spain. Other peaks nearby have reported volcanic activity with the most recent being exactly 100 years ago on Mount Chinero. Visitors to Mount Teide can either walk up the mountain, which can take a full day or use the Cable Car to travel all but the final 200 metres.

Getting to Tenerife can only really be done by flying, with different airlines offering flights direct or via Madrid for long haul start points. The main airport on the island is Reina Sofia Airport located in the south. The island can be reached by boat, although the only ferry from Europe sails from Cadiz in Spain just once a week and does get fully booked in the summer. There are inter-island ferries four times a day to take passengers to Gran Canaria.