Around the world holiday destinations often need something new to give it the appearance of keeping up with the times and having the travel press write about it, and Tenerife is no different from any other destination in that respect.

A new hotel will make waves as does a refurbished one, and a hotel that’s under new ownership.

All are cause for travel journalists to start booking their flights to Tenerife ready for a few days special treatment in exchange for a review in their respective media.

And so it is with Tenerife as new owners take over the 5 star San Blas Reserva Ambiental in the south of the island.

A spokesman for the new owners commented:

“The purchase of San Blas Reserva Ambiental Hotel is a wonderful addition to the Sandos Hotels & Resorts product line and offers and innovative holiday resort with a variety of spaces, facilities and activities designed to live up to all the expectations for vacation fun and relaxation as well as a unique experience for group and incentive travel.”

Commenting on the benefits of booking a stay at what could be one of the best Tenerife hotels they add:

”The San Blas Reserva Ambiental Hotel is situated in front of the magnificent Atlantic Ocean, just ten minutes from the Tenerife South Airport, and located on a natural Environmental Reserve.  Unique on-site facilities include a multi-media center with an interactive museum to discover mysterious species and a historical experience tunnel that recreates the history of San Blas from prehistoric times to the modern day, a sailing lake and a 27-hole Biosphere Golf Course, and a boutique Spa facility with an extensive list of body treatments.”

So with a location close to the airport from where guests take their flights to Tenerife, what are the opinions of those who have stayed there recently and added their views to popular review sites? A typical response has been:

‘We had a perfect vacation at this wonderful planned hotel. Every detail has been thought through. Our room were large with a very nice seperate shower room (yes, it was that big!) and jacuzzi. The staff is very friendly and their personality always shines through. The breakfast buffet was soooo good. One evening we tried the buffet too. Usually I’m not to fond of hotel buffets, but the San Blas really surprised me here too. In the nearby fishing village there are a lot of lovely restaurants too. Overall I can only recommend San Blas, and will absolutely stay here when travelling to Tenerife again. This is a peaceful way to vacation away from usual the tourist traps.’

Other reviews from those staying there for their Tenerife holidays are also generous in their praise, with most commenting that the facilities, cleanliness and staff make it for them 4 or 5 star standard.

For more Tenerife information including a 5 day forecast with today’s Tenerife weather visit yourtenerife.net

They also have a map, villas and the latest news and articles to read.

Good news for the island comes from UK regional newspaper The Birmingham Mail who reported recently on Thomson Holidays new hotels for the island:

The stars will be shining bright in Tenerife this summer – and I’m not talking heavenly bodies here.

From next month stars from West End productions will be jetting out on a fortnightly basis to entertain UK holidaymakers enjoying a totally new holiday concept in the Canary Islands.

It’s all part of a multi-million pound gamble by holiday giant Thomson, called Sensatori.

But companies like Thomson are not really in the business of gambling unless the odds are stacked in their favour.

And as Sensatori proved to be a winning formula in Crete and in Mexico when it was launched there just two years ago, it’s odds on it will work in Tenerife.

In fact it’s already working judging by the number of advanced booking.

From early May, the stunningly beautiful 609 bedroom Gran Melia Palacio hotel, on Tenerife’s south west coast will take on the mantle of Thomson’s third Sensatori hotel – and more than 700 guests will arrive to experience it.

So what is it and what makes it so special? I visited the Gran Melia ahead of the crowds to find out.

Sensatori translates as ‘enlighten the senses’ and those senses are certainly in for some enlightenment in a very unspoiled, low rise part of a traditionally high rise island.

The Sensatori formula is made up of a number of essential parts. Part one is take a new five-star-plus hotel – in this case the two-year old Gran Melia with its vast Roman colannade-fringed central plaza, 14 spectacular fountains and myriad teracotta-roofed towers.

The cool – in every sense of the word – split level marble lobby area has a huge domed roof with a giant mobile of solid silver leaves hanging from it. This hotel is a real style sensation. It’s so eye-poppingly beautiful, waif-like models from the men’s magazine FHM were using it as a backdrop for a fashion shoot during my visit.

Part two is ensure it has a stunning location. The Gran Melia is a 26 acre, ocean-front property with the longest swimming pool – or rather lagoon – in Spain and one of the longest in Europe.

Part three, is sprinkle the Sensatori magic dust onto the property to transform it into something even more special.

That dust means that from Sunday, Thomson guests will get a whole new experience for all members of the family, in terms of dining, activities, attractions for children and entertainment.

I noticed it as soon as I walked into the entrance lobby and was hit by the distinctive Melia fragrance in the air – hitting the first of those senses.

The Sensatori programme means that there will be a sensational line-up of 49 activities to promote sport and wellbeing introduced, including tai chi and aqua tai chi, spinning, tennis, archery, rugby, soccer, walks, nutritional classes and much, much more. But all these will be away from the main public areas and Sensatori ‘flavour sheets’ will allow you to put your name down to opt in if you want to take part or you can just opt out and relax in the resort.

Thomson Holidays guests will get fullboard-plus, which means breakfast, lunch and dinner are all included in the price as is beer, wine and soft drinks with meals.

And in the Gran Melia the food in the main Pangea restaurant is exceptional, even by five star hotel standards. I have rarely seen such a magnificent dinner buffet, with something to suite everyone’s taste buds and chefs at your beck and call to cook to your individual desires.

The breakfast buffet too is just as splendid and extensive, more than satisfying yet another of those senses – taste.

But because the Sensatori formula dictates that a hotel has to have six different restaurants – in order to offer guests even more choice than a traditional hotel – there are an additional five speciality eateries. These include Galima, where Michelin star chef Dani Garcia conjures up some culinary masterpieces, and the Japanese restaurant Nami which you enter via a stone tunnel taking you into a different world. It offers an intriguing choice but I opted for tappanyaki – and ate it under the watchful eye of a mini army of life-sized Terracotta warriors, obviously deserters from Xian.

Sensatori is as much about experiences for children as their parents and a special wing of the hotel has been turned into the “Playhouse” for young children and a nursery for babies. And because Sensatori is about the senses, the programme in the Playhouse is all about enjoyable learning, with sessions in the “creative kitchen”, the “silly science lab” and the “story book corner”.

And as you can imagine one of the favourites in the Playhouse is the once a week sleep over, to give mum and dad the night off. Amazingly the creche is already solidly booked for the whole of May. The Gran Melia has a superb YSI spa, and under the Sensatori banner there will be one day per week where adults can take a child in too.

“The idea is to get people to re-connect,” Thomson’s Sensatori experience manager, Alison Ventura, told me.

“Rather than mum saying ‘I’m off to the hairdressers’ and leave the children with dad she can, for example, take her daughter along and they can have their hair done side by side.”

Next to the spa is a gym so well equipped it would have Arnold Swarzenegger salivating. It’s free to use so there is no excuse for not working off some of the pounds you are bound to put on given the culinary temptations of the Gran Melia.

If you are not so energetic you can stroll in the beautifully kept gardens or take the cliff walk to the totally uncommercialised little town of Alcala, about ten minutes away and then return to relax on one of the Bali beds around one of the many pools. To read the full article click here

For more details about hotels in Tenerife visit yourtenerife.net

Thomson holidays also do other Canary Island holidays, including Lanzarote holidays and holidays in Gran Canaria

A top-20 ranking, recently unveiled by travelrepublic.co.uk, shows that the Villa Cortes Hotel in Tenerife was ranked first with an average rating of 4.87 (out of 5), followed closely by the Corinthia and 2 other hotels at 4.81.

Clients can post a review once they have made a booking and returned home. The site includes over 70,000 hotels and over 165,000 reviews, although only hotels receiving a minimum of 25 reviews were ranked.

“Many congratulations to the 20 hotels… which have clearly delivered an excellent customer experience to Travel Republic customers during 2009. Given that we now have over 70,000 hotels on the website a spot in the top 20 is an amazing achievement,” the site’s managing director Paul Furner said.

More information for hotels in Tenerife are available via http://www.yourtenerife.net/hotels

A good article has appeared in the Daily Mail in the UK about the Tenerife of today - and past.

Guanches - tall, strapping shepherds from North Africa - were among the first-ever visitors to the Canary Islands, settling here more than 2,000 years ago, long before the Spanish took control in the early 15th Century.

Situated on arid land in the south of the island, San Blas - which opened last December - was earmarked to become a golf course.

But when a year-long clearance operation uncovered ancient caves and artefacts, it was turned into a nature reserve and hotel instead.

Volcanic eruptions have left the area rich in history rather than flora. The hotel’s multi-media exhibition explains how Guanches and the first Spanish settlers lived, and visitors can ‘meet’ these characters on a guided tour.

You also discover what life was like for the early Spanish settlers. In a documentary, you can watch a fishwife trek from the sea to the mountains, while, in a convincing enactment, tomato growers go about their business near the resort’s man-made lake which is populated by dancing dragonflies and waterfowl.

The hotel is part of Thomas Cook Holidays Sentido range. Sentido is Latin for ’sense’ and 19 hotels run by the tour operator in Europe and Africa are designed around the concept of appealing to all five senses. Each hotel has a signature scent - San Blas has a citrus bergamot smell in its 331 spacious bedrooms.

But the most enticing scent comes from the freshly cooked wreckfish, red mullet and tuna presented at the evening buffet in the airy, circular La Cueva de Atxona restaurant.

The taste element of Sentido Tenerife hotels is based on using local produce and the nightly spread of salads, vegetables and meats sits alongside traditional dishes.

If you feel like venturing a little further, the harbour of Los Abrigos is a five-minute walk from the hotel.

The quayside at Los Abrigos is dotted with seafood restaurants, and you can also watch fishing boats bobbing up and down in the sheltered bay and laughing children jumping off the harbour wall into the sea.

Sound is another sense catered for in Sentido hotels, with chill-out music playing in the bathrooms.

In the evening, the hotel’s Magma Hall hosts bands, while outdoors at the bar plaza there’s comedy, dance lessons, singing and the very popular mini-disco for children.

However, it is still possible to find lots of tranquil areas in the resort, where the only thing you will hear is the occasional owl swooping overhead.

Youngsters are welcomed in the resort - there’s a club where they can learn pottery, make kites or paint. And for adults, there are activities including yoga, tennis, volleyball, climbing and kayaking on the man-made lake.

For the touch element, San Blas has a mini-spa where visitors can enjoy a range of massages, use the sauna or rest weary muscles in a pool filled with water jets.

Eight outdoor infinity pools of various shapes and depths cascade through the resort down to the beachfront - in keeping with the eco-friendly theme, the pools use cleansed seawater. Two of the pools are heated, but year-round sunshine for the Tenerife weather means even the cool pools are a pleasant place to chill out.

It’s not possible to swim from the rocky beach in front of the hotel, though you can take a dip from the nearby beach at Los Abrigos with its black sand.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1222834/Tenerife-A-primitive-past-revealed-modern-resort.html#ixzz0gwwYd8KK

Booking holidays in Tenerife online is becoming more popular as time goes by, and one internet site says:

“High Street Travel Agents such as First Choice who have now joined forces with Thomson Holidays has cut down on the number of Hotels they are offering and instead concentrating more on a select number of hotels which would be easier to fill. Instead of bringing down the prices of holidays for 2010 they have instead increased the prices even though in my opinion they will struggle to sell holidays next at these high rise prices due to the credit crunch and also with the world cup being on.”

The cheapest offerings for Holidays at the present moment are Tenerife if booked separate. With airline prices being low to Tenerife and hotels in Tenerife offering great reductions more and more people are now understanding that they can save hundreds of pounds by booking cheap flights and booking hotels without the need to go to their travel agents.

To read the full article click here

For more information about Tenerife visit http://www.yourtenerife.net

Could there be any good news among the economic gloom for holidaymakers in 2009? Happily there is - hotel prices in Spain and her islands like Tenerife have come down in price and could fall further.

The British media seem to warn everyday that there’s no money in the economy, that no-one has any money, and if any does have money they certainly aren’t spending it. This is often reported from shopping malls with hundreds of people laden down with shopping bags walking past the journalist. And so it has been with the travel industry - people aren’t booking holidays, and if they are it’s not in the Eurozone areas including Spain, but to Turkey, Egypt and Morocco.

But other reports on the travel industry state that the most popular holiday destination in Europe will be Majorca - again - and inside the Eurozone. So what is the state of play for the holidays market in 2009, and if you book a holiday in Europe for this summer will you be the only one in the hotel and on the beach?

A nice prospect perhaps, but not likely.

For people are still booking holidays in their thousands, indeed in their hundreds of thousands and by the time summer is here in their millions. And there is an upside among the economic gloom for those who are going on holiday in 2009 - prices for hotels in Spain are dropping. Not as much as the pound has dropped against the euro for British tourists, but drop it has.

Hotel room prices across Spain as an average fell by some eight per cent in summer 2008 compared to the previous summer, with some areas doing far worse than others. Ibiza for example dropped a massive thirty six per cent, and on the Costa del Sol just over twenty. Overall hotel rooms averaged a hundred Euro a night, while in the UK for example it stood at 128 Euros, showing Spanish hotels to be pretty well priced.

So for people who still have some money in the bank and fancy a break or holiday in Spain, 2009 could be a good year to do it with prices coming down. And if you can’t wait until the summer, what about a winter holiday? Holidays in Tenerife are popular this time of year, and there are some good holiday deals out there at the moment.

For British holidaymakers Thomas Cook Holidays for example have 7 nights in Tenerife for around GBP 230 a person, including flights and accommodation - and the weather in Tenerife is often in the 70’s during the winter time. So, despite the gloomy economic outlook, there’s still some great holiday bargains to be had for 2009, and prices are as good as they’ve ever been.