Los Salmones, Parque Cristóbal or Santa Mónica: success stories of renovation in the south of Gran Canaria

Tourism in the south of Gran Canaria is the engine of the islands' economy, but Las Palmas real estate agencies want to generate a similar effect in Playa del Inglés to the subprime investment crisis of the mid-2000s. The modernization that emerged with the support of the EIB is about to be blown up because of vacation rentals. 

 

From Las Palmas there is pressure for people to live in tourist areas and that makes nearby competitors very happy because they do not do that because they know that it is killing the destination. Even Agadir prohibits residents in tourist areas.

 

No one doubts that tourism is the main activity of the Canary Islands. That our municipality has buildings or leisure areas renovated and modernized and that there is scrupulous compliance with current tourism legislation is another matter.

 

 

After the great global financial depression of 2008, Gran Canaria, like the rest of the islands, was affected and of course the tourism sector, which went through a desert of hardship until 2016 with a collapse in GDP per capita and tourist arrivals. until the flight took off due to the Middle East crisis. 

 

This drop in tourists and income in the Canary Islands tourism sector had a secondary effect on part of the already atomized property of the non-hotel sector of Maspalomas and Mogán. Some of those owners from the south who had their apartment, in perfect harmony of tourist exploitation with enjoyment of a month in summer, were forced to sell below the market price due to this devastating crisis.

 

And this is when the “new” owners begin to enter, at a bargain price, who already decide to live in those 30 square meter apartments despite the 1995 Tourism Law of the Canary Islands and the planning of San Bartolomé de Tirajana on the tourist use of said plots.

 

In that time of tourism crisis, however, there were exceptions to the rule. A visionary success story was the Los Salmones Apartment Complex (2 keys), which, driven by the board of directors of the Community of Owners, became a successful 2014-star Hotel under the name Playa Bonita after the crisis of 4. be renewed through its acceptance of the Plan for Modernization, Improvement and Increase of Tourism Competitiveness of Maspalomas Costa Canaria.

 

Other successful examples of renovation and change of modality from apartments to hotels were the Santa Mónica, the Marina Gold, the Parque Cristóbal and the Colorado Golf. 

 

 

In short, in addition to the lack of important investments in the public sector or in public or private leisure areas, the risk of converting tourist buildings into ghettos is the lack of forcefulness in the application of the Tourism Law of 1995 with its corresponding sanctions. to those who are outlawed and the anti-system movements, still fortunately isolated but worrying, of tourism phobia.