The police operation in which officers shot dead an individual who attempted to attack a taxi driver and several passengers at Gran Canaria Airport has already made international media headlines and poses a threat to the destination.
"Man shot dead by police at airport in one of Britain's favorite tourist destinations" and "Terrifying scene: Tourists flee in search of hiding while threatened at knifepoint at Gran Canaria Airport" are some of the headlines used by the international press to report on the incident that occurred last Saturday at Gran Canaria Airport, in which a 19-year-old migrant was shot dead after threatening passengers and officers with a knife, allegedly due to a psychotic episode.
While in Las Palmas the video of the man being shot down was replayed ad nauseam and opened for days in search of clicks, in the south of Gran Canaria, those who drive tourism on the island are trying to quantify the reputational damage that an event of this nature could have on the destination at the main international gateway to Gran Canaria.
The incident, which has already been widely reported by major media outlets in southern Gran Canaria's source markets, such as The Sun, Mirror, and Daily Star, has raised concerns in the tourism sector in southern Gran Canaria, which fears a negative impact on the island's image as a safe destination.
Given this fact, the Unified Police Union (SUP) has requested that officers be provided with Taser guns, arguing that the use of these non-lethal weapons could prevent deaths in similar situations.
In the tourism sector in southern Gran Canaria, they are once again perplexed as they are once again saddled with the responsibility of trying to clean up Gran Canaria's image as a safe destination in the face of the immobility of the capital's institutions; a mission that has already been complicated this year with the various security issues that the island has faced.
The threat of these events is not to be taken lightly. With the recent anti-tourism protests, the insecurity faced by tourists in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and this latest incident right at the gateway to tourism, there are fears in southern Gran Canaria that a significant influx of tourists will seek peace and quiet in other destinations that are in direct competition with the island, such as Greece, Türkiye, or Morocco.
As if that weren't enough, in recent days various associations have sought to mobilize African residents of Gran Canaria to denounce the "murder" of Abdoulie Bah and to bring the police officers involved in the operation to justice.
With proclamations such as "this is our continent, we don't have to thank the Canaries for anything (...) we are not going to bow our heads" or "those people (referring to the agents) have to pay for it (...) there has to be a sign that says Abdoulie was murdered"; statements that The SUP claims to have placed the matter in the hands of its legal team for inciting violence against officers.
Following these statements shared on social media by several associations, just under a hundred people gathered this Thursday at the Government Subdelegation in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to bid farewell and pay tribute to the deceased young man; a gathering at which no incidents were reported.
