Anti-tourist demonstrations in the Canary Islands

on

Whenever I see the Canary Islands mentioned I'm reminded of one of my favourite quiz questions:

'What animal were the Canary Islands named after?'

Over last weekend there were large demonstrations in the Canaries over what is described as overtourism. 

The protests, which are taking place under the banner “Canarias tiene un límite” – The Canaries have a limit – are backed by environmental groups including Greenpeace, WWF, Ecologists in Action, Friends of the Earth and SEO/Birdlife. They took place across the eight main islands.

The islanders are protesting about a number of things, including water security.

Last year, 13.9 million people visited the islands, which have a population of 2.2 million. Tourism accounts for about 35% of the archipelago’s GDP – bringing in €16.9bn in 2022 alone – but local people say the industry is stressing natural resources and pricing them out of the rental market.

It was interesting to see immigrants from the UK joining the protests - complaining about a lack of housing for local people... 

What are your experiences of visiting somewhere that might be affected by overtourism...?


Image: OK, so this is Portugal not the Canary Islands, but it's one of my favourite photos -  Alan Parkinson - shared under CC license

Comments

Post a Comment