"In Berlin we almost receive more reports from Madrid about the south of Gran Canaria than about the entry of Saudi capital into Telefónica, and there the hotel employers are silent and we do not perceive clear support, what is happening is very serious." The previous phrase was said on Tuesday by telephone by a German foreign service official in the heat of the financial problems that German operators are facing in order to renew their guarantees to invest in the island.
"The blockade of German investments in the Canary Islands may affect the business regulation of Banco Santander, ACS and Telefónica in Germany and Gamesa has had the first scare," said the official.
In less than a month the Canary Islands authorities will move to Berlin to present the advances in tourism at the ITB fair and in Germany they are waiting for news: that vacation rentals in Playa del Inglés, San Agustín and Maspalomas will not be an obstacle to investment and that the rules of the game must be complied with.
In Germany, the financial entities that support TUI Deutschland, Der Touristik, Alltours, Schauinsland-Reisen, FTI, Hotelplan Group or Phoenix Reisen are raising objections to the financing of operations in Playa del Inglés and Maspalomas due to the lack of definition of the Canary authorities with the vacation rental. "We already consider San Agustín lost," said the same source. "There are not enough legal guarantees to invest in hotel renovation, pay staff and clarify the future of shopping centers."
What's going on? The United States has introduced a woodworm into the tourism sector that is destroying the wood that underpins the business of the service sector. This worm has names like Airbnb, which it does not want to control because that is why it works like a virus to the traditional tourism industry. Where is Maspalomas heading? From being the economic capital of the Canary Islands to Acapulco of the Canary Islands. In other words: ruin.
The German problem, which actually extends to markets such as the Nordic or British, is that there are residents living in tourist areas. Everything from the GC 500 towards the sea has tourist use in the current planning of San Bartolomé de Tirajana. A very different thing is that there are people who have decided to live there, even though their deed and the notary informed them of the tourist use, and that the tourism inspection has not done its homework and applied the current legislation.
This anarchy has been especially suffered by Gran Canaria where the non-hotel sector predominates (60%) compared to only 34% on the island of Tenerife where, intelligently, the licenses and planning were for hotels and thus avoid the famous and always discussed communities of owners where everyone seems to do what they want and where it gives the impression that they only have rights but no obligations or responsibility for the land they walk on and that so many jobs are created with regulated tourism.
Someone with a little common sense can imagine saving all year and going on vacation abroad so that in the next room of 30 m2 they have residents who are not governed by the standards or regulations of the hotel and who put the same music having a backyard barbecue with the dog and the parrot and 10 invited family members heading south for the day? We are at the beginning of the end of southern Gran Canaria as a leading tourist destination. That is why Tenerife interferes in the internal affairs of Gran Canaria.
Airbnb has an average annual occupancy in Maspalomas and Playa del Inglés that is around 80%, with peaks in high season (summer and Christmas) that exceed 90%. The average price per night generally ranges between 50 euros and 200 euros per night. TUI has a great interest in the tourism development of the Canary Islands. The company has invested in a number of projects on the islands, including the construction of hotels and the creation of new tourism activities. Since 1969, both countries have had a great interest in the development of the south of Gran Canaria.
