Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the Spanish Canary Islands against mass tourism, as the islanders believe that tourists are invading the Atlantic archipelago, and one of their most important demands is to limit tourists.
Last year, about 13.9 million tourists visited the main islands of the Canary Islands, about six times more than the islands' population of 2.2 million, according to official figures. The tourism industry also accounts for 40% of the archipelago's jobs.
In Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the capital of the largest island, Tenerife, demonstrators carried banners that read: Tourist, respect my land and the Canary Islands have borders. Other banners read: This is not drought, this is plunder, tourism raises my rent.
Lydia Morales, one of the protesters, said that the biggest problem is that the mass tourism model has remained stubborn on the island... for decades, and is simply destroying it and the lives of residents here as well.
The Spanish newspaper El Pais described these protests as historic in the eight islands that make up the region, and the demonstrators want to limit the number of tourists and stop what they describe as uncontrolled tourism development that harms the environment and the population.
The demonstrators particularly denounce mass tourism, which leads to increased short-term rentals and the construction of hotels that increase the cost of housing for residents, but they make clear that they are not against the tourism sector, which represents 35% of the Canary Islands' economy.
One of the demonstrators said during the march in the capital of Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, that it is not a message against tourists, but against a tourism model, which is the collective model, that does not benefit this land and must be changed.
In 2023, 34% of Canary Islanders were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, the second highest number in Spain after Andalusia, according to the European country's National Institute of Statistics.
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