Last week, tens of thousands of locals in Tenerife and other parts of the Canary Islands took to the streets in protest: their standards have been raised in relation to the tourism industry. Sure, travelers bring in money, but the even industrial influx of vacationers has started to take its toll on residents.
The following was read on the placards: “The Canary Islands are not for sale”, “Respect my home”, “Your paradise, my misery” and “Temporary stop for tourism”.
The scales have tipped over. Local residents, backed by environmental organizations, no longer feel that they live off leisure travelers, but rather that the tourists live at their expense. Tourism has evolved from subsistence to industry, with distant, faceless owners.
It is not tourism itself – or holidaymakers – that is in the loophole, but rather the unsustainable, unfettered form of mass tourism. Where is the maximum limit? Locals welcome quality, rather than quantity.
Among other things, they want to limit the number of visitors, stop hotel construction on the last untouched beaches and introduce an ecological tourist tax to protect the environment.
The protest mentality has been brewing for a long time in several places in Spain, a country where tourism accounts for 13 percent of GDP. In the Canary Islands, the percentage is up to 36 percent, and the holiday industry accounts for around 40 percent of the jobs.
The Canary Islands have a population of 2.2 million, and are visited annually by approximately 14 million travelers.
The masses of tourists that were once seen in a positive light are now experienced as a direct burden, contributing to housing shortages and low-wage occupations.
Mass tourism is a late modern phenomenon. Many people remember the popular film The company trip from 1980, which depicts a deadly charter trip to a fictional place in Gran Canaria. In and of itself, the reel is more or less a plagiarism of the French hit film Les bronzés (1978).
Likewise, charter tourism has begun to imitate itself. Many instead want to live as local residents in “authentic” apartments that are rented out via digital platforms, in the spirit of the sharing economy.
Unfortunately, these platforms – as well as housing and land – have been bought up by professional actors and global corporations. Thus, the tourists agree on the same tax-financed infrastructure that local residents depend on, including living space, connections, water and garbage disposal.
Visitors want to live the happy life and party, which upsets the circles of the neighbors.
A shrinking share of the profits goes to the local community. The income is instead distributed to anonymous owners, and tourism develops out of step with the local community.
The gap between theory and practice is growing. Livability suffers and one person’s holiday paradise turns into another’s unbearable everyday life.
In some parts of Spain, protests against mass tourism have taken on threatening elements, including occupations of tourist areas, smoke bombs and attacks on tourist buses.
Expressions of dissatisfaction we have also seen in Venice and in Amsterdam. Visitors want to live the happy life and party, which upsets the circles of the neighbors.
The demonstrations are legitimate. Overtourism adds little to the local community, but subtracts all the more. Tourist, environmental and overnight taxes can spur mastery.
Let’s turn the tables: when the cruise ships dock in Helsinki or Stockholm, vacationers pour into town. Right then, it is not very attractive for a “barefoot stadium dweller” to visit Salutorget or Gamla stan.
The next time you travel to a near or far summer resort – think twice and choose a family-owned accommodation.
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