I wrote last week about the protests against overtourism in the Canaries. Protests which involved eleven people going on a twenty-day hunger strike.
The Canary Islands are exhausted. The eleven people on hunger strike lasted 20 days from April 11. The protests involved tens of thousands of people in the Canaries and as far afield as Barcelona and Madrid. Many residents feel that the “Canarias tiene un límite” – The Canaries have a limit. Víctor Martín, speaking for Canarias se Agota, is clear: “The problem isn’t the tourists,” he said. “It’s a model that was built around, and with the connivance of, a business class that doesn’t want to listen to what needs to be done, and with a political class that serves that business class instead of serving all the citizens.” A third of people living in the Canaries are at risk of poverty or social exclusion; there is a serious shortage of housing and potable water in many places, and low wages and high prices.
There was a great deal of coverage on the matter. In the UK, the Mirror newspaper reported in April that locals were resorting to living in shacks and camper vans as the cost of housing soared. The Express discovered a community residing in self-built shacks that have stood for decades.
In the UK, Leigh Buckingham bought a package holiday on April 26 and said: “I saw the protests but it hasn’t stopped me — it actually reminded me to book. We love it there. We go pretty much every year. Who can argue with lots of sun, sand and sangria?” “On The Beach has seen sales rise by a third compared with the two weeks before the protests. Bookings are already up 18 per cent on 2023 and nearly 14 million tourists visited last year — up 13 per cent on 2022.”
Overtorusm is not experienced in the same way, or to the same extent, by residents and tourists. The experience of the place is different. Generally, tourists and the majority of residents have different, often very different, standards of living – tourists have both leisure and money to travel with. Tourists are concerned about potable water only if their holiday accommodation is without it, and there are reports that tourists may have to pay more than locals for water. Tourists and locals compete in the same housing market. Short-term holiday renters and second homeowners raise property prices and force up the cost of housing for locals. In destinations, local governments can act through property taxes and regulations to redress the balance, but only if national legislation provides them with the power to do so.
As Victor Martin points out, the problem is not the tourists – it is the way tourism to the islands is managed.
