The Si Podemos Canarias Parliamentary Group has called on the presidents of the tourism employers' associations of the Canary Islands, Ahostel, FEHT, Asolan and Afuer, who appeared this Monday in Parliament, to "get involved in a progressive reconversion of the tourism industry that leads to a more socially just and more respectful model with the environment.”
“I have not yet heard a single self-criticism from the sector”, questioned the Tourism spokesperson for Podemos, Francisco Déniz, who reproached that “tourism lobbies have played very badly, putting private business before the general health of the population." "And that has harmed us all, even you,” he warned.
“Quantitative criteria must give way to qualitative ones, and analyze tourist income from a more comprehensive perspective. Seeking the constant record of visitors is indecent and unfair. If the objective is to return to where we were, social dissatisfaction and depression will increase and will not be cured,” he defended.
Thus, the parliamentarian insisted to the hotel employers that “all social agents and political leaders have to think about how we can continue to live from tourism in a fairer, more sustainable way.”
“It is neither possible nor desirable to try to attract 16 million tourists again. Let's not forget that the virus has traveled in tourist class and the health crisis now makes inevitable what was urgent: a change,” Déniz defended this Monday in Parliament.
From Sí Podemos Canarias it has been insisted that “tourism will never be what it was and, in our opinion, what it should never have been”, so “we already need a reconversion of the tourism industry in the Canary Islands, it is a structural imperative.
“Going back to what we had, no. Let's design together what we understand by a sustainable tourism model,” Déniz insisted.
For this reason, he urged the business sector to “intervene in a plan to reformulate tourism on the islands with shared leadership, since it cannot be that in an industry for everyone the leadership and final decisions are only from the employers.”
“We have to co-create a new model”, he urged the presidents of the employers' associations, among whom was that of Lanzarote.
Déniz insisted during the debate with the employers that “after the pandemic, we will have to see how a tourism system that has a great scope will be left.”
“I'm not talking about hotels. I am talking about services, transportation, activities of all kinds. Because we have a very developed tourism economy that will be decimated. It will not be able to resist. New services, plans and developments must be born that direct the effort towards the green economy,” said the deputy.
For Sí Podemos Canarias, the line to follow is “maintain tourism activity, reducing oversupply, increasing the quality of service and the generation of other employment together with other sectors that tourism greatly appreciates.”
“We are making a proposal so that the urgent does not burden the important”, concluded Déniz.
