Tenerife locals start hunger strike over ‘unsustainable mass tourism’

Campaigners on the Spanish island of Tenerife went on hunger strike on Thursday in protest at over-tourism, which they claim is damaging the popular holiday destination.

Five members of Canarias Se Agota (Canaries Sold Out) started the indefinite strike and more demonstrations are planned on 20 April in Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and La Palma under the slogan: “The Canaries have a limit”.

Victor Martin, of Canaries Sold Out, insisted campaigners had been driven to this protest after all efforts to solution had been rejected.

“Five people will take part in the hunger strike today, pending medical checks to see if they can do so,” he told i.

“We are doing this for a more sustainable form of tourism. Our islands only have so much in terms of infrastructure and cannot support mass tourism.”

Mr Martin said protesters planned to form a human chain around those who were taking part in the hunger strike in a church in La Laguna in Tenerife. The group demands authorities to stop works at two hotel developments at Hotel La Tejita and Cuna del Alma in Tenerife’s Puertito de Adeje.

Both projects were stopped on the orders of the Canary Islands regional government for environmental infractions and irregularities, but construction work has recently resumed.

Janet Anscombe, a retired British lecturer who has lived on the island for 20 years, said tourists were now overlooking shanty towns (Photo: Janet Anscombe)

Janet Anscombe, a British retired university lecturer who ran an advice website, has lived in Tenerife for 20 years.

Read Next

‘Canaries have a limit’: Locals in UK holiday hotspot plan protests over tourism

World

‘Canaries have a limit’: Locals in UK holiday hotspot plan protests over tourism

Read More

“I have seen this process evolving over 20 years to a point where the tourism growth is completely unsustainable,” she told i.

“Nobody is having fun here. The tourists are overlooking shanty towns in places like el Oasis del Sur in Los Cristianos, one of our major destinations.

“These environmentalists are angry at being called tourismophobics by politicians and businesspeople but we have a real problem. We need tourism but we have too much tourism.”

Dr Anscombe said local people struggled to afford to pay for local accommodation, with some forced to live in cars or tents.

Spain attracted 17. 3 million British tourists last year, of which the largest number – or 31 per cent – went to the Canary Islands, followed by the Balearic Islands at 21 per cent, according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute.

Last year, tourism accounted for about more than a third of the GDP of the Canary Islands, according to regional government statistics and brought employment to 400,000 islanders. The total active population of the islands is one million.

José Miguel González, an economist who specialises in tourism at the University of La Laguna in Tenerife, said greater planning was needed to solve the problems of the Canary Islands’ tourism industry.

“We have a problem of traffic congestion and access to housing which needs to be addressed by public authorities, not by the tourist industry,” he told i.

Rosa Dávila, president of the Tenerife Island council, said the economic model of the Canaries was based on tourism, which contributes to improving the quality of life on the island and provides most jobs.