MALLORCA IS WATCHING AS THE CANARIES PREPARE TO DEMONSTRATE
Demands being made include the introduction of a tourist tax, but Jessica de León, the Partido Popular minister for tourism, doubts its effectiveness.
In Lanzarote, the island council has recently approved the construction of what is described as a hotel ‘mega complex'. Five-star, this project in Playa Blanca will offer 684 beds, and its announcement comes at a time of increasing tension in Lanzarote and on other islands because of so-called anti-tourism sentiment.
The government in the Canaries is looking on with concern at the prospect of a promised massive demonstration on April 20. Under the slogan ‘the Canaries have a limit', there will be simultaneous protests in Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and La Palma. This is to be a demonstration against the islands' tourism model and is against the background of recent protests replete with slogans telling tourists to go home and negative reporting in the foreign media, especially in the UK.
Last year, there were just under 14 million foreign tourists in the Canaries, an increase of 13% over 2022 and of six per cent over pre-pandemic 2019. In February this year there were 1.4 million foreign tourists, a year-on-year increase of 14%. The number of foreign tourists in 2023 was lower than that for the Balearics (14.4 million and a nine per cent increase) but not that much lower.
Specifying foreign tourists hints at xenophobia, the Canarian government alarmed by a message of tourismphobia being emitted to the foreign tourist markets. This is a message which has of course been one that has affected Mallorca and the Balearics, none more so than on September 23, 2017, when there was a large demonstration in Palma against tourism ‘massification'. There was a smaller one last October.
The island regions share much in common in respect of the perceived causes of social discontent regarding tourism. And as people in the Canaries prepare to mobilise, one can be sure that a close eye in the Balearics is being kept on events.
The government, the island councils, the hoteliers, the environmentalists and the various entities that have protested in the past will all be watching.
We've been here before, but what's happening in the Atlantic feels different; incendiary almost. The regional government is thus fighting two fires in attempting to somehow mitigate the impact of negative reporting while keeping a lid on the discontent. In the midst of this comes the announcement of a new mega complex in Lanzarote. Talk about bad timing; no, make that dumb timing.
This said, and while the sheer number of tourists attracts the ire of protestors, hotels aren't top of the list in stoking the flames. The April 20 demonstrations will highlight choked roads, threats to natural areas and, perhaps above all, the housing crisis on the islands. And this places holiday lets one hundred per cent in the frame.
Demands being made include the introduction of a tourist tax, but Jessica de León, the Partido Popular minister for tourism, doubts its effectiveness. She's surely right. In the Balearics, the former tourism minister, Iago Negueruela, insisted that the Balearic tax was not intended as a deterrent. It
hasn't been, as can be seen from the growth of tourist numbers. So, a tourist tax being irrelevant, the government has leapt into action by presenting a proposed new law. This is for “the sustainable planning of tourist use of housing”.
About the law, De León says: “It will seek a balance between the right to housing, the right to freedom of business, the right of all Canary Islanders to preserve their identity, their environment, their cities, their towns, and that of the 54,284 owners of vacation homes to have an additional income.” Brave words, the law's basic principle being an attempt to guarantee residential accommodation and to introduce measures that will mean a change to current regulations. “These do not establish qualitative or quantitative limits, and so any home among the 1.78 million in the Canaries can be used for this purpose (tourist accommodation).”
What De León isn't stating is an admission that holiday rentals are a cause of the islands' housing problems and therefore a reason for the demonstrations. If they weren't a cause,
then why propose law under which 90% of residential developable land must be for permanent residential housing? But if the minister believes the law will help to reduce the discontent, she'll be very much mistaken.
One has to ask - where did the housing crisis in the Balearics and Canaries come from? There are different factors, one of which is undeniably a lack of foresight on the part of administrations because of population growth (a bigger issue in the Balearics than in the Canaries). But another is the explosion of both illegal and legal holiday letting. Did we ever hear about a housing crisis prior to the incursion of Airbnb and followers some ten to twelve years ago? Not really, no. On top of which is the huge increase in house prices, pushed up at least in part by foreign buyers; the protestors in the Canaries want curbs on foreign buying.
The ingredients are the same, be they in Tenerife,
Gran Canaria, Mallorca or
Ibiza. Many eyes will be trained on the Canaries. Of that there is no doubt.
The April 20 demonstrations will highlight choked roads, threats to natural areas and, perhaps above all, the housing crisis on the islands. And this places holiday lets one hundred per cent in the frame.