This Thursday, Gran Canaria, specifically Las Palmas, not the south of the island, celebrates the 50th anniversary of its main tourism promotion agency, a milestone that, more than a celebration, is a profound reflection on the island's economic identity. Tourism, our "oil," marks half a century under institutional oversight, forcing us to compare today's results with the founding dreams of 1975. On that 40th anniversary, the president of the Island Council, Antonio Morales, already articulated an anxiety that remains unchanged: the urgent need to transcend the "grand inn" of sun and sand.
The true historical significance lies not in the achievements—which have been vast and have lifted the island out of poverty—but in the dramatic tension between the vision of the pioneers and the reality of current profitability. Consider Lorenzo Olarte, who five decades ago appealed to the preservation of the landscape as "a duty of the community," not merely a demand of the tourist. Olarte and the original visionaries, such as Néstor Martín-Fernández de la Torre, understood that tourism was not just a real estate business, but a collective work of art that should reflect the "distinctive personality" of Gran Canaria. It is this cultural legacy, the tourism DNA based on art and knowledge, that the island is striving to reclaim.
The chronicle from ten years ago already warned of the danger of economic collapse following the occupancy crisis that left the sector "on the brink." Ten years later, we have experienced a new golden age thanks to the geopolitical instability of competing destinations ("borrowed tourists") and investment in accommodation modernization. But the underlying dilemma persists: the industry has not managed to satisfactorily increase spending at the destination. Gran Canaria remains a "large inn" offering bed, sun, and food, a "low-profit" offering that keeps us below the GDP contribution indicators of other destinations like the Balearic Islands, limiting our capacity to generate creative businesses and genuine R&D&I.
This 50th anniversary should be a moment to confront the past with courage. Nostalgia for the "health tourism" that attracted high-spending tourists, or Néstor's bourgeois dream of turning the island's capital into an Atlantic Saint-Tropez, should not be a refuge, but a guide. The key, as Néstor and his disciple César Manrique pointed out, is to create an experience so powerful that it transcends the equation of price and distance, motivating a tourist to travel 5.000 kilometers not just for the sun, but for the opportunity to experience "a work of art."
The anniversary thus becomes an emotional appeal to halt the disconnect between civil society and tourism. The Board of Trustees must recapture the founding spirit and creativity of the visionaries who conceived the Maspalomas Competition. Technology and the educational level of today's society offer resources that the pioneers of 1975 did not have. The challenge of the 50th anniversary is not to celebrate tourist numbers, but to demonstrate that the aesthetic ambition of Néstor and César can be adapted to the 21st-century economy to ensure that Gran Canaria's "oil" is, at last, truly profitable and sustainable for all generations.
