Madrid. “We are foreigners in our own land” or “My home is not a business” were some of the slogans shouted by thousands of people in several Spanish cities to express their rejection of the mass tourism model, which caused the degradation of cities and places. and the increase in basic supplies for the natives. The epicenter of the protest was the Canary Islands, where more than eight thousand people took to the streets in the cities of Tenerife, Maspalomas, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, La Palma and El Hierro, but there were also concentrations in Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid, Granada and Palma de Mallorca.
Spain is one of the countries with the highest rates of tourists per year, more than 94 million, which represents more than double the country’s population. This massive influx is concentrated above all in the most popular urban areas, such as Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga, Valencia, Seville or Granada, but also in the archipelagos, which base their economy on this booming sector, as is the case in the Canary Islands and in the Balearic Islands.
But the “success” of the tourism sector in turn causes a series of undesirable consequences for the native population, especially the most vulnerable due to their income level. For example, housing prices are skyrocketing, and the shortage of rental apartments for families is becoming more acute as most opt for vacation rentals, which are much more profitable in terms of economic gains. Furthermore, the cost of daily living increases, with corresponding prices for tourists, the majority coming from other countries in the European Union (EU) or the United States and Canada.
Hence, a part of the population is fed up and has decided to take to the streets to express their rejection of “an unfair and unsustainable development model,” which “gentrifies our cities and homes.” During the protests, slogans such as “We are foreigners in our land”, “The Canary Islands are not a theme park” or “My home is not a business” were heard. In addition to other environmental and territorial defense slogans, such as “Fewer Hotels and more trees.”
The joint manifesto also warns that “we will go out to the tourist areas because that is where the injustice that we are denouncing materializes and because that is where we want to stand up to the system that is destroying our islands. The Canary Islands have a limit and it is in that model where speculation, the unbridled construction of hotels and large infrastructures, and the exploitation of our natural resources for the benefit of a few are concentrated.
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#protest #Spain #mass #tourism #degradation
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