A leading Tenerife politician has urged British tourists looking for cheap all-inclusive sunshine breaks to go to the Caribbean instead.
Carlos Tarife, deputy mayor for the island's capital Santa Cruz, said holidaymakers interested in staying in their hotels with their mandatory wristbands on, rather than heading out into the broader community, should book places like the Dominican Republic instead.
The politician was speaking just three days after thousands of Canary Islanders took to the streets of the Atlantic archipelago to protest against the problems caused by mass tourism and demand their politicians take action.
In an interview on a Tenerife radio station yesterday, Mr Tarife explained why he was against a temporary suspension of tourism - as some of the protesters had called for - and favoured those staying in a higher quality of lodgings. His comments were a clear criticism of affordable, all-inclusive breaks and those who book rooms in them.
“In the Canary Islands we have less hotel beds today than five or six years ago," the deputy mayor said.
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The deputy mayor expressed a preference for fancier hotels (Getty Images)Are the Canary Islands protests putting you off a holiday? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com
“That’s got to do, amongst other things, with the fact that in the Canaries, and I’m referring especially to Tenerife and southern Tenerife in particular, a model of four-star hotels is changing to one of five-star and five-star plus hotels.
“Where there were hotels with 250 beds, there’s now hotels with fewer beds but greater quality. I think that is the type of tourism we need here, not the type of tourism with all-inclusive wristbands where holidaymakers stay inside the hotel and do everything in the hotel. For that I think there are destinations like the Dominican Republic and other places."
Over the weekend protestors held up banners which said ‘You enjoy we suffer’ and ‘Tourism moratorium now’. Officials said that around 30,000 people had taken part in the marches, but organisers put the figure at 80,000.
"It's not a message against the tourist, but against a tourism model that doesn't benefit this land and needs to be changed," one demonstrator in Santa Cruzsaid over the weekend.
Another protester, Antonio Bullon, stated: "The authorities must immediately stop this corrupt and destructive model that depletes the resources and makes the economy more precarious. The Canary Islands have limits and people's patience has limits too."
Last week Spanish opera singer Ainhoa Arteta claimed Britain’s favourite holiday destination attracts too many “flip-flop”-wearing tourists. The famed soprano said the Spanish government should be doing more to attract holidaymakers seeking a cultural experience.
Relations with Spain - Britain's favourite holiday destination - seem to be souring as the impact of tourism is felt more and more. Last year 17.3 million travellers from the UK headed to Spain - just a touch below the 18 million recorded five years ago, but were still the biggest chunk of the 85million tourists who visited in 2023, bringing €108 billion into the country as they did.
We have put together a rundown of the parts of Spain where protests about tourism have bubbled up in recent months and years.
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