A complaint filed by the Local Police and the Department of Transport and Urban Mobility has led, for safety reasons, an important international tour operator to immediately terminate the contract for 90-minute tourist excursions that the electric tricycle company offered around the municipality's viewpoints and beaches without permits and in contravention of the Municipal Transport Ordinance.
A routine inspection carried out by the Local Police unit attached to the Department of Transport and Urban Mobility of the San Bartolomé de Tirajana City Council has culminated this week with the elimination of the activity of the tuk-tuks that had been operating until now in the tourist area of this municipality.
During the inspection, the local police found that the company that owns these electric tricycles with a capacity for 6 passengers plus the driver, with its business headquarters in the capital of Gran Canaria, was operating without a permit in the Maspalomas area, thus violating the Municipal Transport Ordinance.
The Department of Transport and Urban Mobility, headed by the sixth deputy mayor, José Carlos Álamo Ojeda, has verified that the company was carrying out the activity without the necessary municipal license and also lacking the transport card of the Island Council and even the complaint forms. In addition, the driver of the vehicle immobilized during the inspection was carrying out the activity without the mandatory knowledge of languages required of tourist guides.
The complaint filed against the tuk-tuk company, with the warning that the vehicles will be immobilised and seized if it resumes operations, has led to the immediate termination of the contract for the provision of excursion services within this municipality that a major international tour operator had signed with it on 18 January. The contract, which came into effect on 1 May, stipulated its termination on 30 April 2025.
The company, with 10 of these transport vehicles, typical of Asian cities, offered daily family excursions lasting 149 minutes for 90 euros, with pick-ups at hotels and stops at the Maspalomas Dunes and at the viewing points of San Agustín and Avenida de Francia.
The provision of the service of these excursions that were sold on the Internet as “not suitable for wheelchairs” and as “an adventure to enjoy epic snapshots in key places with Instagram Gold views”, included in the contract with the tour operator the delivery of a gift to each family of travelers, consisting of a small box of Moya sighs and a small bottle of mojo.
