On the eve of the demonstration scheduled for this Sunday, October 20, to demand a change in the tourism model and keep alive the demands that led thousands of Canary Islanders to take to the streets on April 20, the rise of vacation rentals continues to increase in Lanzarote and La Graciosa. So much so that in a year and four months, from June 2023 to this October, the number of new tourist rentals on the island has increased by 77%. This is reflected in the data from the General Tourist Registry of the Canary Islands, made available by the Government of the Canary Islands and updated daily.
In June of last year 2023, and according to this same source, there were 5,198 vacation homes registered in Lanzarote. Currently, with figures from this October 15, there are already 9,205 tourist accommodations, 4,007 more than a year and four months ago.
There is a discrepancy between the figures offered by the General Tourist Registry and those of the Canary Islands Institute of Statistics (ISTAC) or the National Institute of Statistics. The difference arises because these organizations start from two approaches: the tourist registry only considers legal registrations and official figures, while the rest uses the scraping technique and analyzes vacation offers through online platforms. Therefore, the number of homes destined for the vacation rental market on the island is much higher than the data shows.
Faced with this situation, last September the Cabildo of Lanzarote and three others in the Canary Islands requested "a moratorium" to stop "the avalanche" of applications after the announcement of the new vacation home law, which is not yet in force. However, the Minister of Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands, Jessica de León (PP), ruled out implementing this measure and left its regulation in the hands of the future law. Until now, the PSOE of Lanzarote has accused the Canarian and island governments of promoting "a call effect" and of not tackling the situation.
By municipality, Yaiza is the municipality in Lanzarote with the most registered vacation homes (2,611), also the one with the highest ratio of homes for tourist use in the Canary Islands, followed closely by Tías (2,449). In third and fourth place are the municipalities of Teguise (1,861) and Arrecife (1,016). Meanwhile, to a lesser extent, they are distributed in Haría (507), San Bartolomé (466), Tinajo (295).