The environmental teams and residents who known as for the large demonstrations within the Canary Islands on April 20 will resume protests towards the large tourism mannequin on the islands this Sunday. On this event, the demonstrations will transfer to the primary vacationer facilities of the archipelago equivalent to Maspalomas (Gran Canaria), Playa de Las Américas (Tenerife), Corralejo (Fuerteventura) and Puerto del Carmen (Lanzarote). “We have not appreciated any real intention of change after 20A,” say the organizers. “The institutions have ignored us, creating a ‘table of experts’ in a paripé to try to appease us, but we are clear: those who have benefited from this unjust system will not be the ones to change it.”
The organizers preserve the motto ‘The Canary Islands have a restrict’ from the earlier name. Activists are calling for the implementation of a vacationer tax, the stoppage of macro-projects in Tenerife (equivalent to Cuna del Alma, within the municipality of Adeje) and the moratorium on new lodge licenses and trip leases. They additionally ask to restrict the acquisition of properties to non-residents, involved concerning the stress this places on the true property market.
“Tourist areas are the symbol of the abuse of our resources and the speculation that is destroying our territory,” the organizers assert. “Every hotel, every road, every golf course is a wound to our future and a threat to those of us who defend a sustainable and fair Canary Islands,” they are saying. “We want tourists to know what is happening,” they clarify concerning the cause for holding the demonstrations in vacationer facilities. “We not only want our leaders to listen, we also want those who visit us to understand that this tourism model is unsustainable and destructive for our land.”
In August, the newest knowledge accessible from the Canarian Institute of Statistics (Istac), 1.4 million guests arrived within the Canary Islands, 8.94% greater than a 12 months earlier than. Residents overseas (1.21 million in whole) grew by 10.38% year-on-year; residents in Spain elevated by 2.2%. The regional Executive expects that this 12 months the customer report set in 2023 will probably be damaged at 16.2 million whole guests. The budgets depart the islands with near 18 million folks.
Despite these knowledge, in response to the newest report from the European Network to Fight Poverty and Social Exclusion, a 3rd of the Canary Islands are vulnerable to poverty. Furthermore, two out of three have issues making ends meet and one out of 5 is late paying their lease or mortgage, figures on the high in Europe. The islands closed the second quarter of the 12 months with an unemployment price of 13.86%, in response to the Active Population Survey (EPA) of the National Institute of Statistics. This determine is the bottom since December 2007, when it stood at 10.89%. The price is 2 and a half factors above the Spanish common (11.27%) and is the fourth highest within the nation, after Andalusia (16.27%), Extremadura (15.40%) and Castilla-La Spot (13.92%).
This Wednesday, the president of the Government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, was understanding with the calls for of social and environmental teams, though he claimed “that whoever talks about change, has to say what needs to be changed”, since they’re “things to eat” at stake. Regarding the notable success of tourism, he acknowledged that regardless of “being fantastic,” it generates some distortions and “an excessively intensive use of certain natural spaces” the place councils should rethink insurance policies. And he harassed: it’s not nearly “changing for the sake of changing” however doing it “to something better.”
Companies have criticized this new name, though they admit that one thing has to alter. The president of Ashotel and of the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodations (CEHAT), recalled this week at a sector occasion held in Tenerife that there’s an “open social debate” through which the Spanish tourism mannequin is questioned and that it’s crucial “ take action on the matter” on condition that, in any other case, each the private and non-private sectors run “the risk of losing the social license to operate.”
https://elpais.com/economia/2024-10-18/las-organizaciones-ecologistas-vuelven-a-llamar-a-una-manifestacion-masiva-en-canarias-para-protestar-por-el-modelo-turistico.html