Laurence Dollimore
THE anti-tourism protest on the Canary Islands tomorrow is expected to go international, with cities across Spain and Europe expected to show support.
From around 12pm tomorrow, hundreds of protesters are set to take to the streets of the Canaries over the current tourism model, which they insist is ‘excessive’ and taking a toll on local services and housing.
Dubbed 20-A, the movement will also see supporters gather in Malaga, Granada, Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin and London.
In a press conference in Gran Canaria on Thursday, a representative for the activists blamed the government for failing to tackle the issues stemming from the current ‘unsustainable tourism model.’
They said: “A model of tourist monoculture that concentrates the benefits in very few hands, that breaks the record of tourist numbers but does not solve the problems of chronic poverty and unemployment of the Archipelago, all the while aggravating the problem of access to housing.”
The organisers hope the protests will be a ‘turning point’ for politicians and that the current tourism model will be ‘stopped’.
They are demanding a tourism moratorium in the Canary Islands that will stop the creation of new tourism apartments and limit the purchase of homes to non-residents.
They also want an ecotax to reinvest tourism profits into looking after the natural landscapre and wildlife.
The demonstrations ‘are the expression of the fatigue and indignation accumulated by a large part of the Canarian populace who are tired and angry of seeing how their land is destroyed,’ said Xiomara Cruz, from the Guanarteme Se Mueve collective, to local paper El Dia.
Cruz added that the spread of vacation rentals is ‘expelling the resident population from their neighbourhoods on each of the islands.’
