11-02-2025
Tenerife calls Spain's first mass tourism protest of 2025
The first protests, which took place back in the islands' main cities in April 2024, were the largest in the islands' history.
These were followed by another round of protests in tourist hotspots across the archipelago's seven islands in October 2024 after little changed in terms of legislation.
Now, the organisation behind the first two round of demonstrations, Canarias Tiene un Límite (The Canary Islands have a limit), is calling for a third protest, this time only in the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
The march will coincide with the FVW Travel Talk congress from February 15th to 19th, which Tenerife's capital is hosting.
The conference is considered one of the most important events in the German tourism industry and is being supported by the Tenerife Tourism Council.
On its social media channels, Canarias Tiene un Límite explained that the tourism event will bring together fifty experts from the tourism sector and German travel agents, and this is who they want to target with their new protest.
"On Sunday, February 16th, we call on everyone to attend the rally on the Ramblas of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in front of the Mencey Hotel, to boycott the employers" at that congress, they wrote.
The organisation argues that 'mass tourism is destroying the Canary Islands. The archipelago received 18 million tourists in 2024, a completely unsustainable figure. There is no type of limit, and tourism continues to grow uncontrollably, leading the islands towards environmental and social collapse. We continue swimming in sewage and enduring hours of traffic jams every day, while tourism does not stop growing and these problems get worse'.
Tourist numbers have been putting increasing pressure on the 2,000-square-kilometre island of Tenerife, which is already home to just under a million people. As half of Tenerife's territory is protected non-urban land, the population density – in terms of tourists and residents - now stands at almost 1,000 people per square kilometre.
This is compounded by the housing crisis, which is currently affecting much of Spain, as rents and house prices are unaffordable for locals, who have second lowest wages of all regions in the country.
There also aren't enough properties to go around, and the number of tourist rentals keeps growing.
This group emphasises that the current "tourism model does not generate wealth for the local population. Tourists find hundreds of holiday rental options, while people here find it practically impossible to rent a house to live in'.
'There is no effective protection for natural spaces, and tourists come to the Canary Islands to behave as if this were a theme park, where they can do whatever they want. Locals can no longer enjoy the special places on our islands without being surrounded by tourists. And the list goes on: it is very long', they add.
In the past, protesters in the Canary Islands have made clear that they are not blaming tourists for the oversaturation, but the mass tourism model that the government has promoted to grow without any limitations.
Residents fear that the island faces collapse in terms of services, housing, population and environment if nothing is done to correct the mistakes of the past.
Similar protests against mass tourism and the housing crisis took place last year in Barcelona, Málaga, Madrid, Granada, Alicante and the Balearic Islands and more may be organised in 2025 if the situation doesn't change.
