So far this year, we've seen isolated instances of anti-tourism behavior in various national and international sun and beach destinations. These range from a protest by a few in Tenerife (“ we want an ecotax, go home ”), to an official self-declaration of Lanzarote as an “oversaturated destination ” alluding to British tourists , to fake signs intended to scare tourists away from the beaches in Mallorca ( “beach closed ,” with the subtitle for residents: “beach open”), or the “towel rebellion” on some Greek islands. This might give us the impression that overtourism , which occurred in urban destinations (e.g., Dubrovnik and Barcelona) between 2015 and 2019, is also spreading to sun and beach resorts.
But, are we facing phenomena of tourist overcrowding? (e.g., due to visitor congestion in tourist attractions) Or rather in the face of a projection on tourism of social discontent that is based on other issues (traffic, rents,...) that would be the result of not having managed the tourism growth and the population variable in any of its dimensions (infrastructures, public housing, etc.)?
In my opinion, more like the latter. In the sun and beach we are not facing overtourism, but rather the direct consequences of lack of management and lack of investment. It's not that there is too much tourism, there is too little management.
Therefore, instead of talking about tourist taxes, moratoriums, residence laws and other instruments to prevent tourists from coming, we would have to start managing the variables that are essential to clear up the current imbalances in tourism and its social fit, anticipating the facts and stopping always following events. This is when we could talk about self-determined tourism.
By “self-determined” I don't mean the utopian autonomy of distribution channels, but rather starting to manage the tourism industry based on a plan. Self-determined tourism (“ the tourism we want ”) could be understood as the development of scenarios that are socially, ecologically, and economically sustainable, and that enjoy broad consensus among all stakeholders, in order to find, together with national and international tour operators, the most appropriate strategies for that desired future for the Canary Islands. It's simply a matter of having a long-term strategic plan and implementing it.
In a self-determined tourism management system, there would probably be no room for legislative loopholes that allow for anarchic developments and that could distort the accommodation industry and social balance, as happens with holiday rentals, nor the absence of the demographic variable in the regional management dashboard, nor the macabre scene of a protester calling a tourist a "monkey" just for being a tourist, nor 26-year delays in cleaning the rubble of an abandoned plot on the tourist front line, nor the return of European funds allocated for tourism rehabilitation after several years for not having been able to execute the projects, nor shopping centers sealed off for more than a decade, inhabited by homeless people, in the very center of a tourist area.
The accumulated tourism imbalances are complex and very transversal, as shown by these three selected issues, all of which are closely related to each other:
Population evolution in the Canary Islands
The population variable is not yet integrated into the regional dashboard with concrete strategies. The post “Carrying Capacity: How Many Tourists Can the Canary Islands Hold?” (Nov 22) contains some proposed actions related to the demographic variable, such as improving local employability through a reform of public dual vocational training, in order to reduce the need for foreign labor. Another issue related to social imbalance in the real estate market involves regulating vacation rentals, not only qualitatively but also quantitatively.
The demographic debate is on the table because some carrying capacities are out of balance. We can find indicators exceeded in the areas of social carrying capacity (e.g., rents), ecological carrying capacity (e.g., untreated sewage discharged into the sea ), and infrastructural carrying capacity (e.g., traffic). The approach to the desired balance should be carried out from both sides: increasing the carrying capacity and reducing population pressure. Source: “Carrying capacity: how many tourists can fit?”
Anarchy in vacation rentals
If, in the case of hotels, their development is foreseeable (classification in a partial plan, license, time of execution of the work, etc.), vacation homes can appear anywhere, from one moment to the next and without prior notice, as as it is happening. In its final regulation, which was already urgent in 2018, complex issues such as its activity in complete residential buildings ("pseudo-hotels"), qualitative standards, quantitative limits, inspection and viability of this activity on land will have to be addressed. tourism (and, if applicable, under what conditions).
¿Residentialization o retourism low-cost?
The debate on the residentialization of tourist units could run into a great paradox: in the 2015 decree that regulates the Tourism Renewal Law, it speaks of a “specialization of uses”, that is, the possibility of evaluating the use residential area of a tourist complex based on habitability criteria (e.g. m2) when you want to leave the farm. However, in few cases the ultimate goal of these processes is exclusive residential use, but rather total or partial tourist rental, self-managed and, in many cases, clandestinely exploited. In these cases we are not facing a residentialization process, but rather a reintroduction of the accommodation unit to the tourism market at a lower cost, that is, a “low-cost retourismification”. This once again emphasizes the importance of regulating vacation rentals.
These are just three examples of latent imbalances in the Canary Islands that have persisted over time, worsening as the years go by, and that require a new approach to managing destinations within the aforementioned objective of self-determined tourism.
Table on Tourismophobia: At the XI Maspalomas Costa Canaria International Tourism Forum, which will take place on November 23 and 24, 2023, one of the several discussion tables will be dedicated to tourismphobia. This table will feature as speakers Ms. Jessica de León (Tourism Councilor of the Canary Islands), Mr. Jafar Jafari (Foundering Director of “Annals of Tourism Research”) and Ms. Pilar Crespo (Regional Director of Booking for Spain and Portugal). , under the moderation of Mr. Pere Granados (Mayor of Salou and President of the Alliance of Municipalities of Sol y Playa).
