Canary Islands price hikes backfire as UK tourists ‘willing to pay extra £116’ | World | News
Spanish residents in the popular holiday archipelago of the Canary Islands have been warned that their protests and demonstrations over mass tourism and its effects on housing prices and overcrowding may have been fruitless.
Hotel stays on the islands such as Tenerife and Lanzarote saw a significant rise of 5.7 percent in August compared with the same month last year.
According to data from the National Statistics Institute (NSI), August 2024 marked the twelfth consecutive month of growth, totalling over 6.9 million overnight stays. The figure also represents the third-highest number of overnight stays in the archipelago’s recorded history.
The news will come as a disappointment to the thousands of locals who took to the streets over the past few months to protest mass tourism.
Among the protesters’ demands was the immediate end to the construction of new hotel accommodations which were contributing to the housing crisis, as well as increased property prices for both renters and buyers.
In April, up to 120,000 people took to the streets of Tenerife to demand limits on the impact of holidaymakers. Carrying banners reading slogans such as “Tourism is killing the Canary Islands” locals told the Express the influx of outsiders had made their home unsafe and was erasing their local culture.
According to the NSI’s figures, the number of tourists staying in Canary Island hotels also grew by 3.21 percent, with a total of over one million visitors in August. Of this number, 703,149 (almost 70 percent) were international tourists, including from the UK.
Accompanying this rise was also a rise in prices for hotel rooms. The average daily rate per hotel room in the archipelago has risen to 139.29 euros (£116.16), an 8.2 percent year-on-year increase. Overall, hotel prices in the region increased by over 5.9 percent compared to 2023.
In terms of occupancy rates, the Canary Islands ranked second in Spain at 81.19 percent, behind the Balearic Islands at 89.9 percent and ahead of Catalonia at 80.15 percent.
On the other hand, hotel occupancy reached 81.2 percent in August, with the sector employing 57,818 people, a 7.3 percent increase from the previous year, which can be seen as a benefit to residents.
The hotel crisis is also being felt in the archipelago of the Balearic Islands, particularly in Majorca. There, one type of hotel is to blame for the soaring tensions in Majorca over excessive tourist numbers, a local hospitality worker believes.
Jaume Fuster, 27, told The Guardian that despite the crowds of holidaymakers that descend on the island every summer, most ordinary Mallorcans are not seeing the economic benefits. He added that the increasing numbers of all-inclusive resorts meant visitors were less likely to spend money with local businesses.
As a hospitality worker, he is only employed for eight months of the year, and told the newspaper it is “impossible to live independently on our salaries”.
