Landmark Tourism Report Released for the Canary Islands
This Thursday, the Government of the Canary Islands unveiled the 2024 Report on Tourism Sustainability, a significant document whose publication was initially blocked by the Regional Ministry of Tourism last March. The ministry had requested certain corrections from its authors—a team of over 30 professors and researchers from the archipelago’s two public universities. The report confirms a record 17.7 million visitors to the Canaries, generating aggregate spending of 22.35 billion euros and contributing a substantial 36.8% to the region’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Record-Breaking Numbers and High Visitor Satisfaction
The ministry’s press release proudly announced that “The Canary Islands have solidified their position as the European leader in overnight stays, surpassing one hundred million in hotels and apartments.” The report underscores the sector’s robust health, with occupancy rates exceeding 82% and remarkably high visitor satisfaction levels recorded at 97%.
The Social and Environmental Cost of Success
However, the success story is not without its complications. The ministry also admitted that this tourism growth has been accompanied by significant social and environmental strains. A telling statistic reveals that 55% of local residents perceive tourism as driving up the cost of accessing housing. The report’s authors conclude that there is a pressing “need for the tourism sector to show greater sensitivity towards the host society, ensuring social benefits are distributed broadly across the entire citizenry.”
They argue that complaints from certain social sectors stem from discontent caused by housing shortages and soaring costs, inflation, and wages that are low relative to the averages in other Spanish and European regions. The tourism boom exists alongside the reality that the Canary Islands remain a region with a standard of living below the national average, despite some recent improvement in rates of exclusion and poverty.
Call for Improved Coordination and Citizen Participation
A key criticism highlighted by both the experts and the Tourism Ministry is a “lack of institutional coordination and citizen participation.” The researchers point out that the “absence of a robust indicator system and a common vision among island councils (cabildos) and town halls limits the effectiveness of sustainability policies.” They found inter-institutional cooperation and citizen participation in tourism management to be insufficient, with a lack of dialogue forums and poor integration of local communities in decision-making processes, which ultimately affects the social legitimacy of public tourism policies.
Government Initiatives for a Sustainable Future
In response to these challenges, the Tourism Ministry outlined several countermeasures. It has launched the Sustainable Regulation Law for the Tourist Use of Housing, currently undergoing parliamentary processing. New tourism infrastructure plans, updated regulations for campsites and other unique establishments, and active tourism measures are also in the pipeline. Furthermore, a tourism budget of 244 million euros is allocated for 2025, focused on modernization, training, and international promotion. The Tourism Councillor stated, “The future of tourism depends on a new social and territorial pact that guarantees prosperity, cohesion, and sustainability.”
Addressing Environmental and Housing Challenges
The report delves deeply into environmental imperatives, identifying the “inescapable challenge of the extreme dependence on long-distance transport for tourist arrivals.” This reliance complicates efforts to reduce the carbon footprint and necessitates designing specific mitigation strategies. On the critical issue of housing, the authors propose that solutions must involve increasing the housing supply, promoting public housing developments, and planning investments that directly address the needs of the population.
A Vision for Resilient and Sustainable Tourism
The experts from the Canary Islands’ universities insist that sustainable tourism must be understood as a set of balances between economic, social, and environmental aspects. They conclude that “The future sustainability of tourism in the Canary Islands will depend on the archipelago’s capacity to transform its model towards one that simultaneously guarantees the well-being of the local population, environmental conservation, and economic competitiveness. Only through an ecologically and socially just transition can a resilient tourist destination, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, be consolidated.”
