Canary Islands beg UK holidaymakers to visit despite anti-tourism protests
The Canary Islands tourism minister has urged British holidaymakers to not cancel their holidays, as locals prepare to hold anti-tourism protests on Saturday across the entire archipelago.
Tensions have been soaring in recent weeks over water usage, a lack of housing and pollution that locals say is linked to overtourism. Graffiti has appeared in popular areas telling visitors to “go home”.
Jessica de León, who became regional tourism chief last July, told The Telegraph that the archipelago was still very much open for business.
“It is still safe to visit the Canary Islands, and we are delighted to welcome you,” said Ms de León.
She said she understood protesters’ frustrations, particularly concerning the issue of housing, but that it was “unfair to blame tourism”.
Fernando Clavijo, the Canary Islands president, has also weighed in, saying that some of the opinions being expressed by activists “smack of tourist-phobia”.
“People who come here to visit and spend their money must not be criticised or insulted. We are playing with our main source of income,” Mr Clavijo said.
Helen, a Scottish regular visitor to Tenerife, said she had always felt welcome on the island, but could understand how frustration was building among locals who typically work in the tourism sector for 1,200 euros a month.
“I think the government should address these concerns and not dismiss them as just a few cranks. Otherwise, the situation probably will escalate,” she told The Telegraph.
‘Tourism is living off us’
The Spanish archipelago off the coast of north-west Africa has been drawing British and European tourists in droves for decades, and the sector accounts for 40 per cent of the local economy.
While there have long been grumblings over the high number of visitors, this Saturday is the first time there will be a cross-island coordinated protest movement to call for fewer arrivals.
“We have the feeling that we are not living off tourism; it is tourism that is living off us,” said Gabriel González, a councillor for the hard-Left Podemos party in Tenerife’s southern resort town of Adeje.
In the past week there have been protests in La Laguna, Tenerife, and six members of the “Canarias se agota” group (“The Canaries are wearing out”) have gone on hunger strike.
Testy exchanges have also been reported by foreigners and hospitality staff as a result of the tensions.
“We pay your wages,” one foreign tourist reportedly wrote on a restaurant bill after receiving curt service.
Tourism industry leaders have expressed concern.
“Tourists are worried and they tell us so,” said Carlos Magdalena, a Tenerife restaurant owner. “We are being fools right now - they’ll be rejoicing elsewhere.”
But Mr Gonzalez said “savage development” had led to the environmental issues and depleted funds for public services and social housing.
“The Canaries are wearing out” group is demanding a complete moratorium on hotel building, the introduction of an ecotax on each overnight stay, restrictions on purchases of homes by foreigners, and a freeze on the number of tourism arrivals.
In 2023, the islands’ two million residents hosted 16.2 million tourists, including 14.3 million foreigners – with Britons the largest group, numbering 5.6 million.
“The number of tourists should be reduced. We should aim for higher-quality visitors, not people in all-included resorts who don’t leave the hotel or interact with locals and our culture in any way,” said Néstor Marrero, secretary of a Tenerife ecology group called ATAN.
Mr Marrero said tourists were using too much water, which is overwhelming local infrastructure and leading to “a million litres of untreated sewage ending up in the sea around the Canaries every day”.
ATAN also says that foreigners are often to blame for tens of thousands of offences in the islands’ nature reserves that go unpunished because of lax enforcement.
“Tourists are allowed to behave in ways here that they would not be allowed to at home. Do they fall drunk off balconies in London or Wales, or drive their cars where it is prohibited in a nature reserve?”
Mr Marrero said that to do nothing about the situation would be the best way to “create tourist-phobia” with locals reduced to “sleeping in their cars as they cannot afford rents”.
Ms de León admitted that housing was an issue: “The problem is that the last five years have seen an average of 3,000 homes built on the islands, when demand is for 20,000. Last year just 200 public housing units were built.”
She said Mr Clavijo’s government had passed a housing emergency law to free up land for housing while toughening rules on short holiday lets so more accommodation remained on the rental market.
