Tourism is the main economic engine of the islands, but it has also priced locals out of the property market, and it is damaging the environment too.
Around 30,000 people took to the streets of the different cities and towns of the archipelago on Sunday under the banner “The Canary Islands have a limit.”
In 2023 over 16 million tourists visited and it’s likely that number will be higher when 2024 is over. Tourists spent more than 20 billion euros in 2023, but it comes at a price.
And whilst the protesters concede that tourism provides crucial jobs, they say most of them are low-skilled and badly paid.
As many properties are owned by second home-owners who don’t live there all the time, buying a property to live in has become prohibitively expensive – and renting an affordable apartment has long been a struggle.
Tourism grew by five percent last year and the protesters say it’s too much, as the islands have become overcrowded. Many suggest the answer lies in attracting fewer, wealthier tourists as other countries have successfully done.
It affects biodiversity
Among the associations behind the latest protest was Ecologists in Action. It regrets the damage that mass tourism has done to the sensitive biodiversity of the Canary Islands, which has protected areas, endemic species and unique ecosystems resulting from its volcanic formation.
After a big protest in April protesters were hoping for new legislation to be passed by the islands’ parliament, such as the introduction of a tourist tax, which is already being levied in Spain’s Balearic Islands which suffer similar problems.
But, according to the protesters there have been no substantial legislative changes – and no tourist tax.
In Maspalomas on Gran Canarias, one of the protesters, Eugenio Reyes, told local media that “everything remains the same.”
“There has been no official contact nor has an observatory or space been created for civil society to listen to citizens, who have specific proposals,” he said.