The Lanzarote Business Circle sees an urgent need to end the "tourism-construction duopoly"

It asks that the current crisis serve as a reflection and emphasizes that this model was already "showing signs of "exhaustion", with a "general impoverishment of the population, with low wages and high endemic unemployment" since 2008

May 5 2021 (20:14 WEST)
Updated in May 5 2021 (20:35 WEST)
Tourists in Playa Blanca during the coronavirus crisis
Tourists in Playa Blanca during the coronavirus crisis

The Lanzarote Business Circle has defended the need for the current economic crisis generated by Covid-19 to serve to "diversify the island's economy, based on tourism, and evolve towards a digital and technological transition model based on public-private collaboration".

In this sense, the Association believes that Lanzarote "should take advantage of European funds, destined for the economic recovery of countries after the coronavirus pandemic, and invest in other sectors other than the tourism-construction duopoly, in such a way that, although it will continue to be the sector with the greatest weight in the island's GDP, the economy is not absolutely violated and dependent on this sector".

“The Covid-19 crisis has marked a before and after in the economic history of Lanzarote and has de facto liquidated the island's economy, which remains on assisted respiration thanks to the ERTES, the ICO funds and the mortgage deferrals. Society is suffering and the third sector cannot cope with the enormous demand for help to cover the basic needs of the population of Lanzarote," they point out, noting that this is why "we are at a key moment to reflect on what island we want in the future in the economic field.”

However, from the Business Circle they believe that "although tourism will continue to be the engine of the economy due to the great attributes that the destination possesses and, therefore, contributes to the development of other sectors such as construction which, also linked to demographics, represents an economic incentive for the society of Lanzarote; it is no less true that the tourism-construction duopoly was showing signs of exhaustion and a scarce resilience to past crises, such as the one in 2008, from which it took us a long time to recover, and that has produced a general impoverishment of the population, with low wages and high endemic unemployment.”

The Association emphasizes that the future of the island of volcanoes "has to be linked to a more diversified economy, in which the dependence on a single sector is increasingly less, but that at no time puts tourism at risk." “We propose to turn Lanzarote into a technological hub in the Canary Islands that has public-private collaboration, creating spaces where to develop activities related to technological innovation and logistics, thanks to our privileged geostrategic position between Europe, Africa and America. We must start creating value ecosystems to attract talent and for the talent of the island to stay and prosper in their land,” they conclude.

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