Over the weekend, thousands of residents marched through the streets of the Canary Islands to protest the negative consequences of mass tourism. The demonstrators, who gathered under the slogan “The Canary Islands have a border”, demanded a more inclusive and sustainable tourism model, says an executive in the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
85 million tourists
Spain received over 85 million visitors in 2023, surpassed only by France. The Canary Islands alone attracted 16.2 million tourists last year, seven times more than the archipelago’s population. Tourism accounts for 35 per cent of the region’s GDP and 40 per cent of jobs.
But the local population believes it is suffering from tourist pressure, which manifests itself in increased house prices and overloaded infrastructures.
In a news story about the protests, 19-year-old student Fátima Cabrera stated the following to El Pais:
– They expel us from our country, we have no prospects of living here with miserable wages and sky-high rent.
60,000 protesters
The demonstrations, which attracted almost 60,000 participants across the islands, have resulted in the authorities and the business community now considering the future of tourism. The aim is to develop a model that takes environmental impact and living costs into account, inspired by similar initiatives in cities such as Barcelona and Amsterdam. The aim of the protesters is to stop the development of mass tourism on the island.
The BBC reports in its case about the protests that 34 percent of the inhabitants of the Canary Islands are close to the poverty line.
Tags: Canary Islands Spain Canary Islands Thousands protested tourism
