The “tourist suicide” of Lanzarote

 

 

 

 

Last January, the Lanzarote Island Council declared that they do not want “more beds or more growth,” intending to declare the island a “ tourist-saturated destination ” and begin the process of declining tourism. Furthermore, when the Council President stated that her intention was to attract other tourist markets “with higher spending,” such as French, Italian, and Dutch, it could be interpreted that this would be at the expense of the “British low-cost tourist,” precisely—by far—their largest market, which angered British tourists and tour operators.

 

What has to happen for a destination like Lanzarote to declare itself a "mass tourism zone," precisely the only activity on which it relies? Obviously, there's an electoral motive at play (despite it being an economically suicidal act), which implies that the planner either identified some sense of overcrowding and/or aversion to tourists among the electorate, or worse, detected some social discontent (e.g., due to high rents, traffic jams, etc.) and projected it onto tourism . In either case, the planner would have failed in their mission, either by not being able to create an appropriate narrative for tourism in a way that countered the outbreaks of this supposed anti-tourism sentiment, or by not being able to manage the factors causing the social discontent before or when it arose.

 

It should be noted that, in the case of Lanzarote, we are not seeing pure symptoms of "overtourism" as seen in some European urban destinations like Amsterdam or Dubrovnik between 2015 and 2019, such as overcrowded tourist attractions. Nor are we seeing a new tourism record with 2,8 million tourists in 2022 (the figure had already exceeded 3 million in 2017-2019). Nor is there an increase in accommodation capacity ; quite the opposite, in fact. Lanzarote's capacity fell from 71.136 beds in 2019 to 62.011 in 2022 (although a large portion of the lost non-hotel accommodation was incorporated into holiday rentals, which increased from 23.985 beds in 2019 to 30.986 in 2022; datoslanzarote.com). Therefore, there are neither more tourists nor more accommodation options than there were before the pandemic. The only thing that's increased is the population (from 152.289 in 2019 to 156.112 in 2022). Could it be that the real issue lies here, and not with the tourists?

 

 

 

 

Therefore, we are facing a problem that also exists on other Canary Islands and is evidenced by congested road infrastructure and skyrocketing rental prices. Both stem from a lack of economic and tourism management and a failure to consider the population. Unregulated holiday rentals, pending since 2018, the lack of investment in infrastructure, the shortage of social housing (and housing in general), and the lack of development of competitive vocational training (which necessitates bringing in foreign workers) are some of the main factors behind the existing social discontent that is now impacting the tourism sector.

 

So, “too many tourists” or “too little management”? Rather the latter, accompanied by an absolute lack of an adequate narrative about the importance of tourism. The keys to the strategy to follow have been given to us by the different urban destinations affected by “overtourism” in the pre-pandemic years, such as Amsterdam: avoid suicidal and electoral declarations and concentrate on solving the localized problems of saturation, which have, to a greater or To a lesser extent, all mature destinations. That is, start managing tourism. 

 

In this context, Xavier Canalis, Hosteltur journalist and author of several tourist publications, perfectly summarizes the situation discussed (January 2023) with this phrase: 

 

“ Frankly, what worries me most about 2023 is that tourism will be brutally exploited during the election campaign, coinciding with the municipal elections in May. In other words, that it will once again become the scapegoat for our shortcomings as a society .”

 

Indeed, this has been the case, tourism has entered, already grossly, into the Canary Islands' electoral campaign. And the degree of demagoguery could not be greater: declarations of a “massed tourist area”, a tourist tax (which would supersede the triple taxation on flights starting in 2024), a new tourism moratorium and a residence law that prevents foreigners Buying houses is already part of some electoral programs. 

 

Ultimately, it's not a matter of over-tourism, but rather under-management, and statements like the one from Lanzarote show us that, at this stage of our tourism development, there are still planners in charge of strategic management who haven't grasped even the most basic aspects of the tourism business. Therefore, in this phase of tourism transformation, the key will be sound strategic management , and consequently, destination managers will have a crucial role to play, which I will address in the next post (“ False Overtourism and the Role of Destination Managers ”).