Tens of thousands of people demonstrated against mass tourism on the Canary Islands on Saturday under the slogan “The Canary Islands have a border”. A total of 55,000 demonstrators demanded an upper limit on the number of tourists or affordable housing for locals on the Spanish islands in the Atlantic. This was reported by the state TV station RTVE and the newspaper El Pais.
For example, banners read “Tourism increases my rent” and “Paradise is not made with concrete.” The protesters also sought effective monitoring of holiday rental regulations, a limit on the purchase of property by non-residents on the islands and the introduction of an environmental tax on tourists.
A good 2.2 million people live on the eight inhabited islands of the Canary Islands. Almost seven times as many foreign tourists visited the islands off the west coast of Africa last year. The visitors come primarily from Great Britain, Germany and the Netherlands. There were also around two million Spaniards from the mainland. Most foreign tourists went to the larger islands of Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Lanzarote.
Tourism is essential to the islands’ economy. The industry accounts for 35 percent of economic output and secures 40 percent of jobs. But only a few are benefiting from the boom. Of Spain’s 17 autonomous communities, which correspond to the German federal states, the Canary Islands are the second poorest.
Activists emphasize that they are not fundamentally against tourism, but rather against the gradual destruction of the islands. Biologist and well-known documentary filmmaker Felipe Ravina recently said: “For years we have been promoting ourselves as a unique natural destination in the world, but tourism is destroying the product we sell.”