Tourism in the Canary Islands beaches of Europe (Playa del Ingles, Las Canteras, etc.). Gran Canaria has near 50% of its territory declared an UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. This island is usually called "a continent in miniature" because of the diversity of its landscapes. Lanzarote, the most northeasterly of the Canary Islands, has been designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. It has an arid volcanic landscape and there are about 300 volcanic cones on the island. The island has a low-key approach to tourism and the traditional architecture of island's interior are taken into consideration. This approach was influenced by the artist César Manrique, who was from
Canary Islands in summer one hour ahead of GMT). So Canarian time is one hour behind that of mainland Spain and the same as that of the UK, Ireland and Portugal all year round. In 2017, 15,976,000 tourists visited the Canary Islands. The statistics per destination island were: The Canary Islands have eight airports altogether, two of the main ports of Spain, and an extensive network of autopistas (highways) and other roads. For a road map see multimap. There are large ferry boats that link islands as well as fast ferries linking most of the islands. Both types can transport large numbers