If you run a restaurant in southern Tenerife, a hotel in Puerto de la Cruz, a surf school in Las Américas or a dental clinic in Santa Cruz — there's a reality you can't ignore: your customers search Google before they visit you.
Tourists visiting the Canary Islands look online before they spend. They search for "restaurant Tenerife", "best hotel Puerto de la Cruz" or "dental clinic near me". If your business doesn't appear — or appears with an outdated website — that customer goes to your competition.
The official data points the same way. According to the 2025 tourist profile published by the Canary Islands Tourism Observatory (ISTAC data: FRONTUR and the Tourist Expenditure Survey), Tenerife received 7.41 million tourists that year, and the information source they mention most for planning the trip is the internet or social media, ahead of their own previous visits to the Canaries.
The problem: websites that repel more than they attract
Many businesses in Tenerife still run on old websites: slow, not working properly on mobile, without SSL certificates, with outdated information. And that's exactly where tourists look: according to the 2025 tourist profile, 52.6% of the tourists surveyed in Tenerife used the internet or social media to plan their trip. If what they find is an outdated website, that's the first impression they get of your business.
Then there's the language problem. Tenerife receives millions of tourists from the UK, Germany, Scandinavia and beyond. If your website is only in Spanish, you're closing the door on most of your tourist customers.
The figures from the same report: 37.1% of Tenerife's tourists live in the UK and 11.5% in Germany, so those two countries alone make up almost half. Visitors from mainland Spain are 12.3%. If your customers are tourists, the language of your website isn't a detail.
What your website needs today
A professional website for a Tenerife business needs at minimum:
- Mobile-first design — a large share of tourist searches happen on phones
- Fast loading — especially on a phone using mobile data. Google uses Core Web Vitals in its ranking systems, although it always puts the most relevant content first (below I explain how to measure it)
- Optimised local SEO — appear in Google Maps and "near me" searches
- Multilingual — at minimum Spanish and English. German if you serve Central European tourism
- WhatsApp integration — so customers can message you with one tap
- Google Business Profile — connected and updated with real photos and opening hours
How to check your current website from your phone
Before you spend a cent, run this test on your own phone:
- Open it on mobile data, not your home Wi-Fi. The first screen should make it clear what you are, where you are and how to contact you.
- Run it through PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev) and look at the mobile results. In its guide to Core Web Vitals, Google treats it as a good experience when the main content appears (LCP) within the first 2.5 seconds, the page responds to a tap (INP) in under 200 milliseconds and the layout doesn't jump around while loading (CLS below 0.1).
- Look at the address bar. It should start with https, and the browser shouldn't warn that the site isn't secure.
- Tap the phone number and the WhatsApp button. They should open the call or the chat directly, without anyone having to copy a number.
- Compare opening hours, prices and address with your Google profile and with reality. If they don't match, customers don't know which to believe.
- Switch language. Is there an English version written for people, at its own address, or an automatic translation laid over the Spanish one?
- Google your business name. Does your website come up first, or a directory, a booking platform or an old site you no longer control?
If several of these fail, you don't need a luxury redesign: you need a website that gets the basics right.
Local SEO: the key for Tenerife businesses
Local SEO is what makes your restaurant appear when someone searches "where to eat in Los Cristianos" or your hotel show up for "cheap accommodation south Tenerife". It's not magic — it's a combination of:
- Optimised Google Business profile with correct photos, categories and hours
- Website with the right keywords: "restaurant in [area]", "hotel in [Tenerife area]"
- Real customer reviews on Google
- Structured data (schema markup) that helps Google understand what you offer
- Fast loading speed and flawless mobile experience
At Teide Digital, this is exactly what I specialise in. Every website I deliver comes with local SEO configured, Google Business connected and the technical foundations for Google to understand and show your website properly.
Two of those points have more small print than they seem:
- Languages. In its guide to multilingual sites, Google recommends using a different URL for each language rather than switching the language with cookies or browser settings, not redirecting visitors automatically based on the language you think they speak, and linking between versions so people can pick their own. Google also works out the language from the visible content of the page, so it's best to use one language per page and avoid side-by-side translations.
- Structured data. Google documents LocalBusiness markup for telling it your opening hours, address and other business details. They have to match your Google profile: if your website says you close at 22:00 and your profile says 23:00 (to take an example), one of them is wrong and your customer pays for it.
A real case: the Santos Barbertop website, built for my first client, is in Spanish, English and German. According to the verified data in the case study, 9 out of 10 clicks from Google came from mobile, and the site already shows up in tourist searches like "barber near me" or "barbershop in der nähe". It's all there, with dates and sources, in the Santos Barbertop case study, and there's more on languages in multilingual websites for tourism in the Canaries.
The cost of not having a website (or having a bad one)
A restaurant in south Tenerife that doesn't appear in the top 5 Google results for its area is handing those bookings to the ones that do. A hotel without an optimised website loses direct bookings and pays Booking or Expedia a commission on every booking that comes through them.
How much? That depends on your contract. Booking explains in its partner help that the exact percentage depends on your country, your property type and the agreement you signed; that it's charged on the total booking amount, including extras such as cleaning fees; and that programmes like Preferred Partner or Visibility Booster can push it up. Find your percentage in your contract or your statements and do the sum: bookings per year through the platform × average booking value × your commission. The commission calculator (in Spanish) does it for you.
And not everyone books through middlemen: in the same 2025 tourist profile, 42.3% of Tenerife's tourists bought their accommodation directly from the property. That customer exists; the question is whether your website makes it easy for them.
A professional website is an investment, not an expense: unlike advertising, a well-positioned website works for you 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Custom website, Wix or WordPress?
Not every business needs the same thing, and I'd rather tell you before you overspend:
- If you're going to build and maintain it yourself and a single page with your hours, menu and contact details is enough, a site builder like Wix may do the job. I compare them properly in Wix or a custom website (in Spanish).
- If you want several languages done properly, good speed on mobile and real local SEO work, and you don't have time to wrestle with it, it's worth having it built for you.
- If you need hotel bookings, an online shop or payments on the site, that's a custom project with its own budget.
Whatever you choose, ask the same questions before you sign: whose name the domain is in, what happens to the site if you stop paying, who makes small changes and how quickly, and whether there's a minimum term. If any answer is vague, ask for it in writing.
Frequently asked questions
Isn't Instagram plus a Google profile enough? They're useful channels, but they're not yours: another company sets the rules and can change them. Your Google profile also has a button that leads to your website, and your website is where you can calmly answer what customers want to know (prices, how to get there, what's included) in their language. Ideally you have all three, connected; I walk through the profile step by step in the Google Business Profile guide for Tenerife.
How many languages should my website be in? It depends on who buys from you. If you work with tourists, the breakdown from the 2025 tourist profile above (the UK and Germany out in front) is a good starting point: Spanish and English at minimum, and German if part of your customer base comes from Central Europe. Each language at its own address, written for the people who read it.
How long does it take? With me, 10 business days from when I have all the material: logo, photos and text. So the thing you can speed up most is having that material ready.
What do I do with the website I already have? Run it through the check above. If it fails on the basics, rebuilding is sometimes worth it; if not, improving it is enough. Either way, keep your domain and, if page addresses change, redirect the old ones to the new ones, so Google and your visitors know where each page now lives. If you'd like a second opinion, I'll make you a free video audit.
Conclusion
If your business is in Tenerife and you don't have a professional, modern website optimised for local SEO — you're leaving money on the table every single day. The good news is that today, creating a quality website no longer requires months or thousands of euros.
If you want to see what my main plan includes, it's all there, small print included, on the Plan Teide Esencial page.
At Teide Digital, I deliver professional websites in 10 business days, with custom design, local SEO and bilingual support. Because if your business is great, your website should prove it.
